"Would I like 'Days of Heaven'?" "Well, that depends...do ya like wheat?" I now understand what people meant when they compared "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" to the output of Terrence Malick. I appear to have mistakenly based my comparison upon his gorgeous and engrossing meditative war drama "The Thin Red Line". I passed off the solid but unremarkable 8/10-graded "Badlands" because supposedly "Days of Heaven" was the big masterpiece. Well, now the comparisons all make sense. Both films are solid but painfully familiar and ordinary stories relying completely and wholly on good outdoor photography for its reputation.
The story here is hardly of note, a generic and overdone soap opera tale, the rich man-poor man love triangle. Richard Gere is the poor guy, who devises a plan to have his girl marry a rich dude (Sam Shepard) so they can get his money, and of course she falls in love with the rich dude, but is still in love with Gere. The cast is composed of complete ciphers, wholly unlikable, undeveloped ciphers that I failed for even one millisecond to give two craps about, and considering you can predict pretty much every scene in the entire film, that doesn't help any.
Apparently the argument here is that he's allowed to be completely lazy storywise because the visuals are so amazing. Well, I REALLY need to take a class and/or attempt to DP on a film so I can be SHUT UP and PUT IN MY PLACE because people talk about how much of an art form it is, but very little visually seems to actually impresses me, and living in Colorado, you can drive for thirty minutes in any direction and find places here that look like this every day. Every sunset looks like that, all wheat in all wind all gets blown the same, and although there's some shots that involve lighting and other modulation (the scene with the lamps and the fire was quite pretty, if not difficult to see how it was done; the scene when Gere is shot, the below-water shot and its editing is excellent), for the most part, it seems like, if I had the same equipment, I could pretty much just go to my aunt's house, look out her window and get the exact same shots. I *know* it can't be that easy, but everything I see just looks so...point-and-shoot replicated.
In the acting department, no one distinguishes themselves whatsoever. Richard Gere is jarringly miscast, looking awkward and uncomfortable in a character that doesn't suit him whatsoever (you know what suits Richard Gere? Suits.) Brooke Adams has a consistent pout and that's about it, and easily could have been replaced by other actresses mid-film with little difference. Sam Sheperd is given little to do besides remind me of Denis Leary, and the everpresent voice-over narration by the little girl is ridiculously grating and contributes absolutely nothing to the overall film.
Overall, there's some lovely tracking shots (the one directorial conceit that always impresses me, it seems like) and some nice scenery (different from nice cinematography), but the story is such a secondary commodity, and when the visuals fail to impress, you're left with nothing. I was happy that the film was a mere 95 minutes, and I kept help but with "Assassination" was, not 95 minutes, but 110, and I really could have given it a good score, because "James"'s story with "Heaven"'s length? Now you've got a good film. But "Heaven"'s story with "Heaven"'s length? Not so much. Anytime anyone wants to have a Malick triple-feature, I'll just watch "The Thin Red Line" three times in a row, thanks.
{Grade: 5/10 (C) / #17 (of 19) of 1978}
The story here is hardly of note, a generic and overdone soap opera tale, the rich man-poor man love triangle. Richard Gere is the poor guy, who devises a plan to have his girl marry a rich dude (Sam Shepard) so they can get his money, and of course she falls in love with the rich dude, but is still in love with Gere. The cast is composed of complete ciphers, wholly unlikable, undeveloped ciphers that I failed for even one millisecond to give two craps about, and considering you can predict pretty much every scene in the entire film, that doesn't help any.
Apparently the argument here is that he's allowed to be completely lazy storywise because the visuals are so amazing. Well, I REALLY need to take a class and/or attempt to DP on a film so I can be SHUT UP and PUT IN MY PLACE because people talk about how much of an art form it is, but very little visually seems to actually impresses me, and living in Colorado, you can drive for thirty minutes in any direction and find places here that look like this every day. Every sunset looks like that, all wheat in all wind all gets blown the same, and although there's some shots that involve lighting and other modulation (the scene with the lamps and the fire was quite pretty, if not difficult to see how it was done; the scene when Gere is shot, the below-water shot and its editing is excellent), for the most part, it seems like, if I had the same equipment, I could pretty much just go to my aunt's house, look out her window and get the exact same shots. I *know* it can't be that easy, but everything I see just looks so...point-and-shoot replicated.
In the acting department, no one distinguishes themselves whatsoever. Richard Gere is jarringly miscast, looking awkward and uncomfortable in a character that doesn't suit him whatsoever (you know what suits Richard Gere? Suits.) Brooke Adams has a consistent pout and that's about it, and easily could have been replaced by other actresses mid-film with little difference. Sam Sheperd is given little to do besides remind me of Denis Leary, and the everpresent voice-over narration by the little girl is ridiculously grating and contributes absolutely nothing to the overall film.
Overall, there's some lovely tracking shots (the one directorial conceit that always impresses me, it seems like) and some nice scenery (different from nice cinematography), but the story is such a secondary commodity, and when the visuals fail to impress, you're left with nothing. I was happy that the film was a mere 95 minutes, and I kept help but with "Assassination" was, not 95 minutes, but 110, and I really could have given it a good score, because "James"'s story with "Heaven"'s length? Now you've got a good film. But "Heaven"'s story with "Heaven"'s length? Not so much. Anytime anyone wants to have a Malick triple-feature, I'll just watch "The Thin Red Line" three times in a row, thanks.
{Grade: 5/10 (C) / #17 (of 19) of 1978}