Film Forum

U.S., 1978
Directed by Terrence Malick
Starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz
Cinematography by Néstor Almendros
Music by Ennio Morricone
Approx. 94 min. DCP.

In 1916, Chicagoan Richard Gere, his little sister Linda Manz, and his lover Brooke Adams (pretending to be his other sister), head for the Texas Panhandle (Alberta, Canada, standing in) to work the wheat fields of prosperous farmer Sam Shepard. An ensuing marriage is only the beginning of a bizarre love triangle, ending with violent death amid a spectacular locust plague, and a BADLANDS-style manhunt for a killer.

Shot almost entirely during the "magic hour" before sundown, with natural light, the arresting images just keep coming: Manz's wise-eyed gaze, a train passing over a lacework bridge, the frosty fields of the prairie, the pearly sweat of the harvesters, a crystal glass at the bottom of a river. Inspired by Vermeer (and reminiscent of Wyeth and Hopper), cinematographer Nestor Almendros cleaned up the cinematography awards at both Cannes and the Oscars, with late-inning relief from Haskell Wexler when Almendros was called to shoot a Truffaut movie.

Legendary auteur/dreamer Malick’s second film (after 1973’s BADLANDS), before a twenty-year break, won him the Best Director prize at Cannes and his first New York Film Critics Circle award.

 A PARAMOUNT RELEASE

Reviews

“The images are underlined by the famous score of Ennio Morricone. The music is wistful, filled with loss and regret…more remembered than experienced.”
– Roger Ebert

“Almost incontestably the most gorgeously photographed film ever made.”
– Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

“[Malick’s] peach-hued masterwork…Visually and thematically, it’s still one of the most beautiful films ever made.”
– David Jenkins, Time Out

“Building perfection from chaos, Terrence Malick’s 1978 masterpiece is more than the last cinematic word in aching pictorial romanticism—it’s practically an act of magic.”
– Bilge Ebiri, Time Out