page_title: Terrence Malick
section_title: Days of Heaven
hierarchical_section_title: Terrence Malick / Film career / 1970s / Days of Heaven
caption_attribution_description: English: Terrence Malick shooting the film Days of Heaven (1978).
context_page_description: Terrence Frederick Malick is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.
  Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood film-making wave with the films Badlands, about a murderous couple on the run in 1950s American Midwest, and Days of Heaven, which detailed the love-triangle between two labourers and a wealthy farmer during the First World War, before a lengthy hiatus. His return to directing after twenty years with The Thin Red Line was awarded the Golden Bear at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival, followed by The New World and The Tree of Life, which received the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.
  Malick's films have explored themes such as transcendence, nature, and conflicts between reason and instinct. They are typically marked by broad philosophical and spiritual overtones, as well as the use of meditative voice-overs from individual characters. The stylistic elements of the director's work have inspired divided opinions among film scholars and audiences; some praised his films for their cinematography and aesthetics, while others found them lacking in plot and character development.
context_section_description: Malick's second film was the Paramount-produced Days of Heaven, about a love triangle that develops in the farm country of the Texas Panhandle in the early 20th century. Production began in the fall of 1976 in Alberta, Canada. The film was mostly shot during the golden hour, with primarily natural light. Much like Malick's first feature, Days of Heaven had a lengthy and troubled production, with several members of the production crew quitting before shooting was finished, mainly due to disagreements over Malick's idiosyncratic directorial style. The film likewise had a troubled post-production phase, as Billy Weber and Malick spent two years editing, during which they experimented with unconventional editing and voice-over techniques once they realized the picture they had set out to make would not fully work.
  Days of Heaven was finally released in 1978 to mostly positive responses from critics. Its cinematography was widely praised, although some found its story lackluster. In The New York Times, Harold C. Schonberg wrote that it "is full of elegant and striking photography; and it is an intolerably artsy, artificial film." However, it later won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and the prize for Best Director at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Days of Heaven has since grown in stature, having been voted one of the 50 greatest American films ever made in a 2015 critics' poll published by BBC.
caption: Malick during production of Days of Heaven (1978)
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