“I just got so depressed”: the Terrence Malick movie Terry Gilliam couldn’t finish
Terry Gilliam is renowned in the industry for his bullishness, which has caused run-ins with studio execs, other directors and actors. His sheer dedication to his films helped him fish The Man Who Killed Don Quixote after three decades of trying and he persisted when Hunter S Thompson wreaked havoc on the set of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, as a cinema-goer, he’s known too for his willingness to walk out of a film if it doesn’t pique his interest.
One such incident saw him get up and leave in the middle of Nicolas Roeg and Gene Hackman’s Eureka because he was so unimpressed. However, it’s not often you’ll find someone who stops watching a film because it’s too good. But that’s exactly what happened when Gilliam sat down to watch Terrence Malick’s masterpiece, Days of Heaven.
Speaking to Chud, Gilliam recounts the experience, “I watched about 30 minutes of Days of Heaven, and I just got so depressed.” However, this depression wasn’t brought on by its emotional storyline, its heartbreaking depiction of love or its bleak outlook on life. No, Gilliam was so impressed by the sheer beauty of the film that he couldn’t keep watching, “I couldn’t do that. He shot it all at magic hour – but we don’t have the money to do that kind of thing, so I switched it off. Because it’s so stunningly beautiful.”
Set in 1916, Days of Heaven tells the tale of a love triangle between Bill, Abby and the wealthy grain farmer whose Texas Panhandle farm they work on harvesting crops. Only Malick’s second feature, he and cinematographer Néstor Almendros, took on the difficult task of shooting the film almost entirely in natural light, with much of the filming happening during Magic Hour.
Also known as Golden Hour, Magic Hour is actually only about 25 minutes of the day when the sun has set, but night has not yet set in. Its soft, magical light created such a beautiful, romantic look that it won the Academy Award for ‘Best Cinematography’. However, it did come at a cost, with the production running so long over time that Almendros had to move on before it finished, and producer Bert Schneider had to mortgage his house to deal with the costs.
These efforts were somewhat wasted on Gilliam, given his inability to finish the film due to the success of the finished product. The director knew he could never achieve the feats of Malick and Almendros, so he chose instead to forgo a second more of its stunning visuals. However, despite its lack of critical acclaim, Gilliam’s movie Tideland has been likened to Malick’s work several times, with some viewers noting that it’s like Terrence Malick gone insane.
So, despite being depressed by the first 30 minutes of Days of Heaven, Gilliam clearly synthesised the beauty of the cinematography for use in his own work. Who knows what impact the movie would have had on the filmmaker if he’d sat through the remaining hour and four minutes of Malick’s wonder?
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