Days of Heaven
Directed by Terrance Malick. Performances by Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz, Robert J. Wilke. Paramount PIctures, 1978. 94 minutes. Rated PG. Drama / Romance.
In the mid-1910s, a Chicago steelworker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor, and flees with his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and his little sister (Linda Manz) to the Texas panhandle, where they find work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating a timeless American idyll that is also a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.