Days of Heaven

A comprehensive account of the making and legacy of Terrence Malick’s elegiac 1978 Western, Days of Heaven, starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard.

Director Terrence Malick’s 1978 Western, Days of Heaven, stands out for its dreamlike cinematography and sparse, haunting plot. Malick’s writing and direction animate the usual Western tropes with a uniquely personal style and sensibility. Set in 1916, the threadbare plot resembles a biblical parable more than a traditional Western,...