Days of Heaven: This is the only Terrence Malick where I see it and say, “I get it.” Badlands may have Sissy Spacek and a reasonably mean Martin Sheen, but it’s thin gruel shot plainly, as vapid and pretentious as Vanishing Point and Point Blank. I don’t understand what people are talking about when they rave on the lighting in Malick’s first two movies—maybe I’m colorblind. Days of Heaven works for me because the compositions are so strong, and its montage does create that sense of awe and wonder you read about on the posters for later-period Malick movies.
Malick shot for months and months, usually only during the magic half-hour in the evening, irritating his crew to no end and eventually forcing his cinematographer Nestor Almendros to leave for a prior commitment (François Truffaut’s The Man Who Loved Women); he was replaced by Haskell Wexler and camera operator John Bailey. In its 94 minutes, Days of Heaven uses approximately half of Wexler’s footage and half of Almendros’, and somehow communicates an enormous amount of information to the audience about the characters played by Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard. Ever elliptical, Malick strings together these thin ribbons of images and juxtapositions and half sentences seemingly finished in the following scene into a moving, if not entirely coherent, film.
Ennio Morricone does the score, but it’s Leo Kottke’s solo acoustic guitar pieces that really lift the piece, along with Linda Manz’ deadpan narration and holy fool performance.
My Night at Maud’s: The sexiest movie ever made. I’d do anything for Francoise Fabian. Just one kiss. I was surprised by the relatively thin crowd at the Charles; maybe it was the weather, but back in July, Eric Rohmer’s other Moral Tale, La Collectioneusse, played to a nearly sold out Theater 1. That movie must’ve been blogged and re-blogged on Tumblr and TikTok, half a century ahead of its time as a movie made of screenshots; I never really liked La Collectioneusse, but I love My Night at Maud’s. Not only is it the sexiest movie ever made, it poses an A1 question every adult must face at some point: this person, that person, the lady or the tiger. Whether it’s yourself or someone else, Rohmer insists we must take our chances. Don’t leave love waiting or it’ll nag you forever.
Heretic: Half-off Tuesdays at the Warehouse Cinemas Rotunda, full of people coming in and out of… Red One, Conclave, and Heretic. A24’s Mormon horror movie stars Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East in a movie that would’ve been AMAZING with Peter Sarsgaard in the lead. Still, it’s a fine movie to go out and see with an audience; horror is really the only thing you can count on seeing with an audience now. I was wary of Heretic’s runtime—just over two hours—but Grant playing psycho cat and mouse with the two Mormon girls was entertaining enough to keep me from looking at my watch. But my friend Katherine did, and it was over an hour before the movie ended—in other words, Heretic failed the watch test. It also doesn’t know how to end, deftly twisting and turning before finally escaping into something really unsatisfying and glib. But the Mormons are quite good, and if you like the idea of Hugh Grant as an atheist serial killer, you simply must see it.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter and Instagram: @nickyotissmith
