The fact that this film appeared on very few critics' top ten lists shows just how much mainstream film writers get caught up in idiotic studio oscar buzz. It's strange how a similarly small scale film like Lost in Translation (which I liked) can end up so much more a "masterpiece" simply because it has name stars and a Hollywood marketing campaign.
When I rented this film on DVD after having seen it in the theatre, I was worried that it would lose some of its emotional core when stripped of its breathtaking visuals. Not true. If anything the film is even MORE moving when its aesthetics have been downsized. This is why David Gordon Green is a better filmmaker than Terence Malick, often cited as his primary influence. Where Days of Heaven pretty much falls flat on the small screen, Green's work is always so well executed and unusual that it transcends its own physical beauty.
Much like the film's leading lady, Zooey Deschanel, who is among a wave of young actresses (including Scarlett Johannsen and Maggie Gyllenhaal) who understand how to artistically use and subvert their own attractiveness rather than merely exploit it. Deschanel, who resembles Robin Tunney and Chloe Sevigny but is a much better actor than both, has the relaxed economy of expression of the greatest screen actors, an air of mystery that you can't turn your eyes from. Her reactions are brilliantly unitalicized; there is a moment when she's in a car with Paul Schneider when she seems to be both smiling at him lovingly and crying at the same time. It's one of the most unusual, inadvertantly brilliant things I've ever seen in a film, and Green is a genius to have included a moment like that which most filmmakers would have found confusing to the audience.
Interestingly, though, it is Paul Schneider's performance as the brokenhearted young man that moved me more than anything else in the film. He refuses to eschew his own eccentricities--his odd walk, slightly stuttered speech, and laid back demeanor--and creates a character so real, that you feel every iota of pain and joy he does. He's hardly an experienced actor, but he has a more artistically ambition and committed attitude toward acting than 99% of young actors today.
A great film that will grow greater through the years.
When I rented this film on DVD after having seen it in the theatre, I was worried that it would lose some of its emotional core when stripped of its breathtaking visuals. Not true. If anything the film is even MORE moving when its aesthetics have been downsized. This is why David Gordon Green is a better filmmaker than Terence Malick, often cited as his primary influence. Where Days of Heaven pretty much falls flat on the small screen, Green's work is always so well executed and unusual that it transcends its own physical beauty.
Much like the film's leading lady, Zooey Deschanel, who is among a wave of young actresses (including Scarlett Johannsen and Maggie Gyllenhaal) who understand how to artistically use and subvert their own attractiveness rather than merely exploit it. Deschanel, who resembles Robin Tunney and Chloe Sevigny but is a much better actor than both, has the relaxed economy of expression of the greatest screen actors, an air of mystery that you can't turn your eyes from. Her reactions are brilliantly unitalicized; there is a moment when she's in a car with Paul Schneider when she seems to be both smiling at him lovingly and crying at the same time. It's one of the most unusual, inadvertantly brilliant things I've ever seen in a film, and Green is a genius to have included a moment like that which most filmmakers would have found confusing to the audience.
Interestingly, though, it is Paul Schneider's performance as the brokenhearted young man that moved me more than anything else in the film. He refuses to eschew his own eccentricities--his odd walk, slightly stuttered speech, and laid back demeanor--and creates a character so real, that you feel every iota of pain and joy he does. He's hardly an experienced actor, but he has a more artistically ambition and committed attitude toward acting than 99% of young actors today.
A great film that will grow greater through the years.