Days of Heaven

Dive into Terrence Malick's stunning 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven with special guest Cayley! ‪@OnceOverwithCayley‬  We explore its breathtaking cinematography, poetic narration by Linda Manz, the improvised dialogue, Richard Gere's raw performance, the biblical undertones, and why every frame feels like a painting. From the wheat fields to the locust plague and tragic love triangle, this is a deep discussion on Malick's visionary style in his second film. Perfect for fans of poetic cinema, 70s films, and auteur directors.

Creators and Guests

Host

Ryan Rebalkin

Guest

Cayley Landsburg

What is The Director's Chair Network?

Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!

0:24
Good day and welcome to another episode of the Director's Chair Network. And this is the season we are covering
0:30
Terrence Melik and his filmography. The last episode we did was Badlands. Today
0:35
we are doing Days of Heaven. And I have with me a very special returning guest co-host Kaye. How are you today?
0:42
I am wonderful. I am so excited and honestly I can't wait to listen to your episode on Badlands.
0:48
Yeah, that was a fun uh fun recording and a fun film to discover. Of course I won't repeat everything. Just go listen
0:54
to it and what we thought about that film. But I would be curious, Kaylee, because uh you have come on with my
0:59
Michael Man and my Edwick. So, this is your third guest back on on with me anyways, but you've been on other shows
1:05
with other hosts on the network. So, we appreciate your look, we appreciate your support and uh your great insights on these films. Why Terrence Malik for you?
1:13
Do you have a fandom? Do you know who he is? What's your background? So, that's a really good question and I've been nervous to answer this
1:19
question for you because I think I'm going to lose a lot of street cred. I am not super familiar with Terrence Malik
1:26
films. So I it's a name that I have always heard. It's a name that everybody says this is this is a direct if you
1:32
like movies you should be familiar with his filmography. I never have spent any
1:37
time with Terrence Mallik. So I've only seen a handful of his films. I've seen um Badlands and Then Red Line
1:44
and I think that might be it. And now I've seen of course Was I supposed to Was I supposed to
1:51
watch this film? Yes. Did you watch Days of Heaven by Chaz? I did. I Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. This was
1:56
a first watch for me, though. So, this was I had not seen this before you and I decided that this was going to be the
2:02
movie that we were going to talk about. Oh, great. Well, yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing some of your thoughts on his uh the way he is the way the way
2:09
he is, which is I don't know if anyone can truly answer, but we'll talk about some of that. Thin Red Line seems to be
2:14
the um starting point for a lot of people. And that's fair because look, you're much younger than me, but even
2:21
old me when uh Thin Red Line came out, I was it came out in '98, so I was uh 23.
2:27
And so at that point, I remember I've always been big into films. So when that film came out, I'm big into war films.
2:33
Of course, like I'm reading Entertainment Week and all the people are like, "Oh, Terrence Mel coming back from a 20-year hiatus is doing a World
2:40
War." I'm like, "Who? Why? Why is everyone sucking this guy? Why are they so excited for this like reclusives return to film watching now Badlands and
2:47
now Days of Heaven? I get why people in the in the mid '90s were excited to hear about, hey, he's coming back and he's
2:54
doing something. He's doing a big project and why so many actors it makes more sense once you know these two films
3:01
why so many actors on the theater line like said I don't care how much how many you know how many lines I have. I want
3:06
to be in a Terrence Mall film if that makes sense. That's why there's so many George Clooney to Woody Harelson, you
3:12
know, it's all over the place in that film because everybody wanted a piece of Terrence Malik. I actually have a question for you. Do you know why he took that super long
3:19
hiatus? Because I know it's not the only hiatus in his career, right? He then waited a long time to come back again
3:24
after Thin Red Line, didn't he? A little bit, but not for Terrence. A 5year break or six year break is almost
3:31
normal cuz he takes so long to edit sometimes and to create films. He's he's a bit of he's odd. And often people that
3:38
are very good at what they do are kind of odd. The reason why I think he took highest I haven't he's notoriously he
3:44
doesn't give interviews. He really takes photos. It's actually hard to go find photos of him out there. You know, he just he's he's kind of a not like a
3:51
Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys type recluse, but he's just, you know, private and he just doesn't share a lot, which makes part of his
3:58
genius or his u mystique more appealing for people cuz he just who is he? after
4:03
this film and some of the trouble with it and his creative whatever he he went to Paris, France with his girlfriend to
4:09
write and create and he wrote I think five or six films he had I think he just had everything going out of his brain
4:14
but he just never did anything. Yeah, that makes sense. So other than him coming out and saying why it was 20 years I don't know I
4:20
haven't found us so let us know if anyone knows why but it he just kind of didn't do a film for 20 years until he
4:26
came out of retirement so retirement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No. So, uh, yeah, Days of Heaven.
4:32
I've seen it once before cuz of course I went back and watched Badlands and, uh, Days of Heaven after I watched Thin Red
4:38
Line to see what he, you know, what was the scuttlebutt at the time. And so, this it was it's been a while since I've seen this film. What was your overall
4:46
thoughts? Just how did this film speak to you? I think that the most obvious thing
4:52
about this movie is its appearance. Every single frame of this film is
4:59
worthy of being framed on your wall. It's it's truly truly incredible how
5:04
beautiful and stunning this one works. And the landscape itself almost becomes
5:09
a central character to the film because it's so beautiful. I there's there's moments where you're just watching wheat
5:16
blow in the wind and somehow you're feeling all the feelings even though nothing is happening and you're looking
5:21
at it for way too long and you're like, why am I looking at the wheat? But it's so beautiful, you don't even care.
5:27
You get Terrence. Okay, now there's some people who don't, and bless their hearts, they don't. That is a Terrence
5:33
Malc film. And there's people who need their Marvel films, and I get it. Or they're John Wick films there. That's fine. There's audiences for that, too.
5:40
And I like those films. But if you don't understand the way Terrence operates and the way he films, there is no reason.
5:47
Sometimes he just says, "How are you feeling as a viewer?" It's your choice on how you want to feel about certain
5:52
images and scenes. And if you watch this film not knowing Terrence at all, I would dare say some people, what am I
5:58
watching? It's it's almost a drift. The entire movie is almost a drift. It's just kind of looking into characters lives and
6:05
that can be a big challenge and it definitely usually I say that I love all movies and I do. I I'm not like a genre
6:12
person where I need to have a spec a movie in a specific genre. I generally like a little bit of everything. This is
6:18
a hard movie to go into unless you're in the mood to watch it. You really have to be feeling the things. It's it's I see a
6:26
lot of people comparing it to reading poetry. Um it's much more of a feeling than it is a movie almost.
6:32
No, that's true. And uh having just watched Badlands and reviewing and I said to my co-host at the time, uh
6:38
Katie, I said to her, that was her first viewing was Badlands and she really liked it. But I said to her, I said,
6:43
"This is your most coherent. There was a real story there and it A to B to Z."
6:49
this film already, his second film just a few years later. He's already kind of going into like
6:54
land is like, you know, a little less coherent. Terrence himself said he had a script and dialogue that he threw out.
7:01
So filming is starting and he's like, "Okay, I've got a story here." You ever watch Kirby Enthusiasm, for example?
7:07
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, this sort of ties in in Kirby Enthusiasm, they have a story. They're like, "Okay, so Larry and uh you know,
7:15
and another character, they're at a coffee shop, and okay, the idea is is you guys are going to at the end of the at the end of the scene, you're both
7:21
going to talk about what you think the coffee should taste like. Go." The end of the scene, you will have a feeling
7:26
what the coffee tastes like, whatever that is. That's sort of what Terrence did with this is he said, "You guys are
7:31
in the field right now." And he would tell his actors, "Uh, think of your
7:37
first birthday that you can remember. Just let the grass or the wheat speak to you. Let the animals talk to you. Just
7:42
talk to each other as you're walking through. You're 1912. Go.
7:47
You live around here? No. No, I don't.
7:54
Where do you live? In Chicago. Oh, yeah.
8:00
What's that in your hair? My hair? This? In my ear? Yeah.
8:05
It's what you call a makings. What's a makings? A cigarette. Oh, it's tobacco in a bag and you put it
8:12
roll it up. Oh, I'm not going to I'm going to save it. You like it out here?
8:18
Yeah, it's nice. I love I I love it out here. I like the wheat fields. You have any brothers or sisters?
8:25
No. I have a brother. What's his name? Bill who?
8:32
Where? He's somewhere I don't know over there. I don't know. And the actors embrace
8:39
that. They really did. They challenged them to come up with their own dialogue, their own story. The good and bad of this is is there is a naturalness to it.
8:47
And there was a couple scenes with with uh Linda and Brooke Adams where they're walking through the field earlier in the
8:53
film and they're just talking and you can tell that it's sort of two actors
8:58
talking in their costumes, but they're playing their It's a very fine line between you can tell they're ad
9:05
livinging, but they kept it in the film. What do you do? You get what I'm saying with those scenes? I do. I do. And I I think that that's
9:10
such a beautiful way to create filmography, you know? It almost it almost goes into like the idea of like
9:16
the Dog May 95 films and like the more like gorilla film styles, but here we
9:21
have it on a huge budget in a very poetic and stunning film. I love that
9:27
sort of film making because I think that giving your actors the ability to create
9:32
who their characters are going to be usually gets a really interesting character and we certainly get that here
9:38
especially with um Richard Greer's performance. I mean it's I I thought it was outstanding.
9:44
Well, since we're talking about the characters and the actress that played them, let's start with Brooke Adams who
9:50
plays Abby. I've never heard of her. Uh she lovely woman, great in this film.
9:56
From my filmography search on her, she seems like she kind of stayed in almost
10:01
be movie roles. Did you have any history on her? Oh my god. What's the name? She is in a be movie. She's in a bee horror movie
10:07
that I like. And that's my other Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shockwave. That was that was the one that she was
10:12
in before this one. Yeah. Yeah. And I love I love that movie. I don't know that I would have realized that it was her if I hadn't
10:20
recently watched Shockwaves. So you recently saw Shock. What are the
10:25
odds that you recently watch Shockwaves and watch her? I couldn't believe it. Very different. Vastly vastly different.
10:32
But again, she she does a great job in this. And her character is a peculiar
10:38
character, you know? I mean, she's playing a love interest who is
10:43
pretending to be a sibling of the person that she has a love interest with. And
10:50
they told everybody they were brother and sister. My brother didn't want nobody to know.
10:57
You know how people are. You tell them something, they start talking.
11:06
Your sister keep you warm at night, does she? What' you say?
11:12
You heard me.
11:21
What's going on? What's the matter? You know what I mean?
11:27
Why do you let him touch you like that? What are you talking about?
11:34
I don't know how brothers and sisters act where you come from. Did you ever have a sister?
11:41
Well, then who are you to judge? It's a really challenging role and she does such a great job.
11:47
She's great and it's weird that she didn't I don't know. I mean the next movie that she was in the same year of
11:52
release anyways. Now granted it should be noted Days of Heaven was released in 78 but I think it was filmed like in 76.
11:59
It took two years to edit. Terren I'm not surprised. Yeah. So when Richard Gear started or
12:05
started in this film and it came out, he had already filmed the film was edited and released after Principal Photography
12:13
this one. So when this one came out, people Oh yeah, Richard Gear from that other film that he was really good in. I forget the name of it off top of my
12:18
head. Yeah, but this one had already done. So when Richard Gear was hired to do, he was an unknown at the time. But it's just ironic that now he's known,
12:24
but now he comes out with Days of Heaven. Oh yeah, starring Richard Gear, the guy who was great in this other film. And I think the same thing happened with Brooke Adams cuz she was
12:31
in shock waves. I'm trying to think of what was the connection between like why did they grab her and then she was in
12:36
the invasion of the body snatchers right after that's right oh my god I totally forgot about that she is
12:43
but then I'm looking at just I admit yes I know we're not supposed to do this but I'm looking at Wikipedia and all the
12:49
films she's been in I'm like I don't even know the names of the films why is she a boo what why is she a be movie
12:56
actress I don't get it she's great what happened you know I mean it is possible A lot of
13:02
the time people talk about what they succeed at and they talk about what they like to do. It is entirely possible. She
13:08
just loves doing that stuff, right? I guess. I mean, it's got to be.
13:13
Let's be honest, she's a good-looking woman and she did a great job in this film. It's a very high-end arty high
13:19
acting type film. It's just it's just weird to see her just go on to I would expect after her performance in
13:26
Days of Heaven, I would expect people like Lars Voner to be scooping her up and not letting her go.
13:32
Yeah. No kidding. No kidding. So yeah, you're right. So she plays Abby and for context, she is the girlfriend to
13:39
Richard Gear's character. For some reason, I don't know if you caught why,
13:44
but when they work with these um you know, this is 1910 Chicago. uh you know
13:50
it's uh just before the world war and I don't know if there's quite the depression but you know work is hard to
13:55
find and they're poor and they're just getting all these other odd jobs as they go from place to place and that's how
14:01
they land on the farmer's wheat field to work in the wheat field but they decide to play brother and sister versus
14:08
boyfriend girlfriend is there a reason why they is it because of the time maybe or the reason that they give is because
14:14
they don't want there to be rumors around him I I have no idea It makes no
14:19
sense to me, I must say. Okay, so this we get introduced to this concept relatively early on in the film and I
14:26
think that we're getting the idea of it when they're riding on the top of a train and they're kind of draped around
14:32
each other like Yeah, they're cuddling like lovers and we're getting this back fill story
14:38
of that they're going to pretend to be siblings so that there are no rumors about them. And I was like, well, I
14:44
think that there might be weirder rumors about you if you're behaving like this. this seems highly inappropriate for a
14:50
brother and sister. So, I really did not understand the point of doing that. But
14:56
maybe it leads into the idea of Terrence Malik kind of scrapping his script because he did need to give a reason why
15:04
Abby would then go and pursue another guy and why that would be believable.
15:09
It works for that moment. You're right. It works when they get to the farm, but I believe the brother sister narrative
15:14
was formed before they got to the farm. I Yeah, I agree too. It's very weird. They should have maybe introduced it, I
15:20
guess, in today's linear type film making. It would have been better to have they said, "Now that we're on the farm, we should like quick dialogue.
15:26
Hey, Abby, we're brother. You know, for all intents and purposes, while I work on this farm, we're brother and sister."
15:31
And I understand why they couldn't just say something like, "We're friends because probably they would have gotten
15:37
separated if they weren't family." I would assume that the farm work that they're doing, it might have been more
15:44
um more expected to separate them and bring them to different farms if they weren't family. Perhaps there was a nice
15:50
idea of moving families together. So, I understand why they had to do that. I just don't understand. Have you ever
15:55
said to one of your significant others, "Let's pretend that we're brother and sister." I know that that storyline
16:01
happens in pornos sometimes, but I just don't think that that is a real thing in the real world.
16:06
I don't know what you're talking about, Kaye. Can you explain this to me? What's the story line you speak of? I'll let you look it up later.
16:12
Oh, okay. Good. I will. All right. I probably won't be able to insert any clips into the post head, though.
16:18
I do have a theory though. So, Terrence Malik, I believe, is Christian and the idea or at least he believes in Jesus,
16:24
believes in the Bible. It goes without saying he's at least a creationist in his later films. uh like so he
16:30
definitely draws as a lot of um authors or screenplay players do biblical
16:36
references, biblical stories and ideas. So I have a theory when Abraham was
16:43
traveling with his wife Sarah. I believe I'm getting this right. Excuse me Bible
16:49
scholars if I'm getting this wrong but I believe anyways I forget the name. And I think it was Sarah that they pretended
16:56
to be brother and sister to avoid Oh. Yeah. to avoid confrontation with
17:01
people. It seemed to be at that time it was better for them to pretend to be siblings than husband and wife because
17:06
if they're husband and wife, people were trying to take his pretty wife. But ironically, because it was the sister,
17:13
there was more honorbound to not take Buddy's sister from him. I you know that makes so much sense and
17:19
I wouldn't have even thought about the religious connection. There is quite a lot of not necessarily religious imagery
17:25
but certainly other illusions to um things within religion. Yeah. The apocalypse and the one of the most
17:32
stunning scenes in the entire film involves locusts. So very very very
17:38
interesting. So that's a great point. Well every now and then Kayie every now and then I come up with something. So I
17:44
think that could be what the connection is cuz if this is a biblical allegory cuz yeah you're right the locust gear
17:50
comes back and he brings the plagues with him to you know let my people go type thing and that's you know that's the whole idea there the plagues follow
17:57
him. So yeah it's a it's a fascinating this is what Malik does and that's what poetry does. So Mal could come back and
18:04
said to you, "Sure." Yeah. Sure. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. That's what that's
18:10
what you got from this because that's what poetry will do is like where did it take you? Where did it take your imagination? Where did it take your brain? So yeah, Brooke was great in this
18:17
playing Abby. What was the other thing about her character that you might want to talk about that drew you about her or something about her that you liked?
18:23
The character arc that she goes through, I think is perhaps one of my favorite arcs in the story. She really does. You
18:31
can see her questioning love. You can see her questioning life. You can see when she's getting excited when you can
18:38
see when she's being maybe a little bit of a impressed by things. She's she's easily impressed and she gets excited
18:44
about jewelry pieces. And I thought that was so incredibly well-developed and I loved getting to see how she had these
18:51
kind of transitions in this very drifting narrative. Very well said. Did you ever see the
18:56
movie? I'm sure you did, but do you recall? And do did you see the movie Legends of the Fall directed by Ed Zwick?
19:02
Yes. Do you recall the like the overarching storyline of that? No. I have the worst memory ever. If you
19:08
say it, I'll be like, "Oh, yeah. I know that." Well, I'm a huge Zwick fan. That's why I started this whole network based on his
19:14
films and all because of Legends of the Fall. So, you can almost blame Legends of the Fall, my love of that film, and then following Zwick's career, yada yada
19:20
yada. And within that film, there's the story line that matches this one. And I don't know is Zwick Izzwick is a film
19:27
aur himself and I'm of course he's seen mal films of course within the legends of the fall it's a story of three
19:33
brothers in love with one woman the first brother is killed in world war Ironically another world war I scenario
19:40
here so it's the same timeline and then Tristan played by Brad Pitt he's sort of the bad boy he's got a crazy past and
19:47
all this stuff and crazy just a little bit of a wild boy and all the girls right Kayie all the girls love the bad
19:53
voice always. Yeah. So, Julia Roman's character is kind of like infatuated and kind of
19:59
lust. I guess you can say the lust is after Brad Pitt's character, but the stable person, the the man who will give
20:04
her a good life is played by Aiden Quinn and that's the farmer in this film. So, what happens in this film is what we see
20:10
is Abby though that they uh Oh, yeah. For context, people I mean, if you haven't seen the film, see the film. And
20:15
of course, there's spoilers, but we don't go in order of our spoilers. So the uh context is that they con the
20:22
farmer and as brother and sister playing as brother and sisters cuz he has a health ailment coming out that's going
20:27
to kill him apparently within a year. So she so Richard Gear's character is like hey marry the farmer he dies you get the
20:34
will and we'll live happily ever after. I'll marry you after. Never thought he'd have the guts.
20:39
Who would know but you and me? Nobody. That's all that matters, isn't it?
20:45
You talk like it was all right. never have a chance to enjoy his money anyway.
20:52
What makes you think we're talking about just a couple of months? Look, the man's got one foot on a banana peel,
20:58
the other on a roller skate. We'll all be gone in a couple of years.
21:03
Who's going to care that we acted perfect? I held out a long time. I had rich men
21:09
pay me compliments. Think it's actually a pretty good plan. There's no murder. They just wait out his death and they get the farm. to get
21:15
the richest cuz he has a lot of money. Even his accountant's like, "Dude, you got a lot of money. Just why don't you just go to Florida and have fun with
21:21
some [ __ ] or whatever." And he's like, "Nah, I kind I kind of like my farm." That's at a profit of $4.75 cents an
21:28
acre. Multiply that by 20,000. You're talking over six figures. Big year. Your
21:35
biggest ever should make you the richest man in the panel. You ought to get out while you're this far ahead. You have
21:41
nothing to gain by standing.
21:48
I like my farm. I like my farm. So, I say all this because in Legends of the Falls, the same story line. And in fact, when
21:55
Gear's character realizes that Abby has actually fallen in love with the farmer for real, like
22:01
cuz he's a good man. Did you say anything to him? I've never seen him act like this before. He must
22:08
think we're awful. What do you care what he thinks? You're in love with him, aren't you?
22:15
You leaving? Yeah. What for? Got some business to take care of.
22:22
They're giving me a lift. Just like that, huh? Guess so. He's seen how it all was.
22:30
She loves the farmer. And that's the same thing that happened to Julie Orman's character. She actually
22:35
falls in love with Aiden Quinn cuz he's a good man. He leaves. Brad Pitt's character left, had his crazy trials out
22:42
there. He leaves and he became success a successful businessman. Gear's character
22:47
leaves too and he becomes a successful businessman because he comes back with a nice new motorcycle and they actually
22:52
said we've read about your success in the papers in Chicago.
22:58
Hey, I miss you so much. Do you miss me? Yeah. How much?
23:04
Hey, you look just the same. How you doing? I've been reading about you. What do you mean? How about Chicago?
23:12
come all that way by a motorcycle. I I couldn't believe the the
23:18
similarities. Am I going crazy here? I think I think you're totally on to something and I would not be at all
23:23
surprised if Zick was inspired heavily by this movie. But I will also say that I do think that this is maybe not the
23:31
pretending to be brother and sister portion of this, but I do think that this is a relatively common kind of love
23:37
triangle that a lot of people experience. And I think that that's one of the reasons that this film feels
23:44
so melancholy, I guess. Um there's a little bit of melancholy about it because I think that I I know I have
23:50
been in situations where I've been like, well, I could start dating this guy and that would be really great and really
23:56
exciting and romantic or I could start dating this guy and he's really stable and he would give me a very reasonable
24:02
life. And and that's kind of the position that I saw Abby as in throughout this film is she's making
24:08
these decisions. she's discovering, you know, do I really want to be with the guy who wants me to be his sister or do
24:16
I want to be with the guy who, you know, maybe has some excitement or do I want to be with the guy who it turns out he's
24:21
really nice and he can give me this stable life. I think it's a probably a more common storyline than we think. But
24:28
that is very interesting. Kaylee, I'm the boring guy that would just give you a good life. I'm sorry.
24:34
I'm just not a bad boy. I'm so boring. I have always chosen anytime I have been in that situation, I
24:40
have always chosen stability. Okay. Well, if if it doesn't work out between my wife and I, I'll I'll I'll
24:45
send you I'll send you an invite. I think things are going okay right now, so you'll have to wait. Okay. No. Um
24:52
Oh, I appreciate that. You're Thank you. Okay. So, that was Abby played by the lovely Brooke Adams. I just I'm going to
24:58
have to go watch some of these other which I love doing some of these uh bee movies. In fact, I don't want to invite
25:03
me invite me on your show once over with Kaylee. a great show, by the way. But if if you see any of these bee type movies
25:09
that she's in, you want to review, I would love to do it. Yeah, we should do that. I would love that. That'll that'll pair perfectly with this.
25:14
Did you do Shockways on your show already? I have not. We could do that. I love it. I think we're going to do it. I'm going
25:19
to write myself a note because otherwise I forget everything. I would love to see Shockways. I just see the I mean, look, I'm looking at the
25:26
the movie poster and here's the tagline or the the film is about a group of tourists who encounter aquatic Nazi
25:32
zombies when they become shipwrecked. Say no more. You're going to like it. It's It's pretty wacky.
25:38
Shock. I get a shock waves. They're in the water. Wave. Collaborative. Yeah. Yeah.
25:43
Okay. Uh Sam Shepard's in this film. And that's an actor that, you know, you hear of over the years. I've said this about
25:49
many of the actors that have covered on this series. It's like, oh, I don't see a movie because Sam is in it. But when
25:55
he's in it, you're like, oh, he's a good actor. What are your thoughts on Sam Shepard and his role? Is he Is he the farmer?
26:00
He's the farmer. He He has no You notice he has no name. He's just called the farmer. He has no name in the whole film.
26:06
I thought that was a really interesting choice. He was outstanding. I thought I thought that he was a little I don't
26:12
want to say plain, but I think that his character was intended to be playing and because of that, he certainly came came
26:17
across that way. Though I will say I'm not very familiar with his filmography either. Maybe I'm sure that if you
26:22
started saying stuff that he was in, I would recognize it. I recognized his face. This was the first time there were
26:28
certain scenes where they would do like close-ups of his face and he looked so
26:34
much like he's in Trees Lounge. He was on Steve Bush. Yeah, Steve Bushi. He looked so much
26:41
like Steve Bushi at certain points. Why was Tre's lounge the first thing that came to my mind for Steve Bushi? There's
26:47
like a thousand other Steve Bushi things that I could have thought of before that. But regardless, there were there
26:53
were definitely some times that I saw Sam Shepard looking like the young Steve Bushi and it kept kind of throwing me
26:59
off like I it almost took me out of the movie. Not to any fault of Sam Shepherds. No. And this was his first film role.
27:06
Yeah. Major role. And apparently he was like before this he was like a playwright. He was an author and a screenplay of his
27:13
own. So, he wrote plays and he actually while he was on the set cuz there was a little bit of downtime. Uh, he would he
27:19
wrote I forget which play it was, but he actually wrote a a play that got into production while he was on the set. This guy's just like a workhorse. Yeah, it's
27:26
really cool. Yeah, he was great. Very solid for an early role. I I think he was supposed to be not plain, but what I
27:32
liked about him playing as the the farmer was that we see him crack as good
27:37
as a person that he is and as plain. I wouldn't say a cuck is not the right word, but you know, just borderline are
27:44
you? He finally he gets mad. He tosses Abby around like you've been lying to me. You know, he grabs the gun to go
27:51
kill her quotequote brother. What did you want from me?
28:04
Wait,
28:10
you're a liar. I look I get it, dude. Like, you've been hoodwinkedked. I thought his turn at the
28:17
end was tragic and sad. You feel bad for him cuz he gets play like that's the thing about what I love about Terrence
28:23
Mal films. Yeah. and you'll see this is who's who are you rooting for? Same with like
28:29
Badlands. Like are we rooting for murderers? I don't get it. You're just looking at a slice of life. It's just a slice of life. I love that
28:36
sequence. I want to talk specifically about the sequence where the farmer is first acknowledging that perhaps
28:43
something more than a brother sister relationship is going on between Bill and Abby. He's looking in a window and
28:50
the editing of that sequence is so beautiful. I mean, that is something I
28:56
feel like the things I will remember from this movie are watching wheat blow in the wind and that sequence of him
29:02
looking in through the window and seeing the two of them be perhaps a little bit too close to each other. The way that
29:09
the shadows are, it almost looks it almost looks like their shadows are kissing, but you can
29:14
tell that they aren't. And so you don't know how much of it is the imagination of the farmer and how much of it is real
29:21
because of what we the audience know. It would that was so masterful. I cannot get enough of that scene.
29:28
I think the devil was on the farm.
29:34
Well said. Yeah. And I actually thought during this film I wonder it was never said and again that I think Mal leaves
29:41
it to you the viewer when he's approached by his foreman and saying look these guys are con artists. They're hoodwicking you. And he's like, "Dude,
29:47
I, you know, I I love her. I don't care." You don't like them, do you?
29:52
Never have. I don't think they're honest people. As a matter of fact, I think they're a
29:58
Paris con artist. You know, maybe you'd be better off taking over the North End till spring. I
30:05
mean, we've been together a long time, and I've always felt close to you. Just it might work out better is all
30:12
less friction. You're talking about my wife.
30:18
Maybe I better pack. I think he knew. I think he always knew.
30:23
And I think having the foreman tell is, you know, like truth hurts. You know, when you hear something that's been
30:29
critiqued about you and you realize it's true, you get on the, you know, the offensive. I don't know if you're aware of any people like that in the podcast
30:35
world. When you call them out for their garbage behavior and they get defensive because it's true. I I think when Sam's
30:42
a character, the farmer, I think he kind of knew, but I think he's like, "Well, I'm dying anyways and she's gorgeous and
30:50
he's not doing anything to me and what else am I going to do?" I but I think he was sort of in denial, but I think he
30:56
was aware, too, because we see scenes of him noticing or picking up hints, but he doesn't say or ask. So, it's not enough
31:03
for him to say, "Hey, until the very end, of course, but I think he kind of knew, but then became too much." And
31:09
speaking of which, a story about the farmer. So he was supposed to die within a year. That's the whole reason why this whole roost took place. So when the when
31:14
the harvest was over, the workers all got released. But the idea was is now Abby has said, you know, he's approached
31:21
Abby and said, look, I I think you're I think you're hot. I want to be with you. I think I love you. You know, he says it
31:26
right away. I think I love you. I'm in love with you. And she's like, that's very sweet. And she goes, well, if you want me to be your wife, my brother and
31:34
uh his sister have to stay with me. And she said, "Oh, great. family.
31:41
I think I love you.
31:47
Was a nice thing to say.
31:52
Yeah, I could stay. Sure. I got to keep my brother and sister with me now.
31:58
So, that's how that roose started was the marriage over the off season of the harvest. But what was interesting is,
32:05
and I knew this was going to happen. I'm I'm glad I thought of it before the movie did, he got better. Whatever he
32:11
had, whatever malaise he had, which is never described in the film, the narration played by Linda was like, "Oh,
32:17
the farmer got better." Instead of getting sicker, he just stayed the same.
32:24
He didn't get sicker, he didn't get better. They were kindhearted. They
32:29
thought he was going out on his own steam. Yeah, cuz he has something to live for. Now, that's a very sweet way to say it and
32:35
very poetic. And yes, you're exactly correct. That is it was an unsurprising twist, but it was still an effective
32:42
twist. Yeah. And then you realize, oh crap, he ain't dying. What's So now we know
32:47
what's the resolve going to be. They're going to have a like a Thre's Company situation. No, there probably not.
32:52
No, it's going to come to a head. Okay. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Mr. Gear now. So
32:57
this was his first film really his biggest film at the time that he filmed and he released a film a or sorry that
33:04
was filmed after this and then released it was called blood brothers and oh looking for Mr. Goodbar. That's right.
33:10
So Mr. Goodbar. Yeah that's right. So Looking for Mr. Goodbar was he wrapped days of heaven.
33:18
Looking for Mr. Goodbar was filmed, edited and released and Days of Heaven comes out the year after. Isn't that
33:24
crazy? That's so funny. Yeah. So now Richard Gear obviously a bigger name here now this is probably
33:30
the earliest role you've seen him in maybe. Oh yes yes yes. Do you have any thoughts on him as an
33:36
actor? You were kind of desire describing Sam Shepard as somebody who you never really you don't you're not going to the movie
33:42
because he's in it but you're happy to see him. That's how I've always kind of felt about Gear. He's never been my favorite actor. This is actually
33:49
probably in Days of Heaven is probably the most attracted to him I have been, which is peculiar because I do tend to
33:55
like older guys and he has aged very nicely as a human, but I don't generally
34:01
find myself he's not like one of my it's 1999 and Brad Pitt is in this so I got
34:06
to go see it. But I loved his acting style in this. I thought that you could really feel like the raw sentimental
34:14
feelings that he's having throughout the film and he did a great job. So, Mr. Malik said this about Terrence.
34:22
He says, "I saw Richard in a play in New York. He had this raw energy like someone who'd actually work the mills
34:28
and fields. He wasn't polished yet. That's what we needed for Bill. Someone who could vanish into the dust and wheat without
34:34
trying to art." Yes. And check this out. This is so this also shows you a little bit of Richard's character, which is kind of cool. Um,
34:41
Richard, this is Malik again about Richard. He said, "Richard brought a humility to the set that grounded everyone. He'd show up before dawn, help
34:48
unload gear, even fix fences between takes. It wasn't acting for him. It was living the character's life, and that
34:54
bled into every frame. That's so beautiful." And you could truly see that. Yeah. And speaking of the sets, I mean,
35:01
we should mention right now that house that the famous house in the middle of the field there, that was a house built
35:06
for just for the movie. So, they built this real house as part of that $3 million budget at the time. They built a
35:12
a legit home in the middle of nowhere just so they could burn it down at the end. A beautiful looking home, too. I was
35:18
like, I want to live there. It was Don't you want to live there? Yeah. You know, I've always said, I would love to live back in those times, Kaylee, if
35:25
they had modern day plumbing. I would like to live back in those times if they had the internet.
35:31
No, no internet. Yes, internet. Yay, internet. So, yes, can you imagine 1912
35:37
podcasting? That was some nice things said about gear from Mel. Um, this is what Gear said about Malik. So, he talks
35:44
about the uh improv improvis this word when they had to improvise while they shot. This is what gear said about uh
35:52
Terrence Malik's patience. He said, quote, "It would be like, do it again, and hopefully you would come up with something he liked, but it could be
35:58
deeply frustrating, but that's just how Terry works." And it worked for him. So, he's just like, "Think of something
36:04
again. Do something again. Do something again." And which is crazy because they filmed, I don't know if you caught this,
36:09
but the lighting in the film, okay, so they didn't use any artificial lights in the film outside. All the outside
36:14
lighting was real. There's no artificial lighting. no like big, you know, the big lights with the the curtains or
36:20
whatever, the flashlights onto the c uh onto the people. So, every lighting you see outside, the only artificial
36:25
lighting they used was some of the interior shots, of course, with the light coming inside, but all the exterior lighting was they used the that
36:32
1 hour of dusk or dawn for that lighting. So, they would literally be sitting around waiting and they would
36:37
yell the word h what was it? um the the light or the lighting or they would and they'd all scramble from whatever
36:43
they're playing cards, writing playwrights, and they get to their positions and do whatever takes they could in that 20-minute period.
36:50
I cannot imagine filming like that. That is the most crazy thing. I mean, it's
36:55
extremely effective. And I think that this did one win an Oscar for best cinematography, which surely that is
37:00
attributed to. It's incredibly incredibly effective and I'm really glad that they did it. But oh
37:05
my god, can you imagine filming an entire movie in 20 minutes a day?
37:10
Yeah. And especially with the gorilla style of the improvisation that we were just
37:17
talking about because now it's Okay, say it. Say it again. Say it again. You got to think on your feet so so quickly.
37:24
Truly amazing. Truly amazing. Sam Shepard talked about this as well. He said here about the filming for
37:31
Melus. He said it's like painting. It's You mentioned this. It's like a painting that moves. You mentioned the artwork
37:37
that every frame. Look at you. Every frame. Every frame. It reminded me actually quite a bit of I
37:42
I've probably mentioned this even on your channel before, but it reminded me quite a bit of The cook, the thief, his
37:48
wife, and her lover. I Which to me that is a just an art piece of a movie. And this felt very
37:54
very similar to that where you can kind of take any moment and just say, "God
38:00
damn it, it's a painting." Yeah. Yeah. And you caught that. And uh Sam agrees with you. He goes on to say
38:06
that Terry's got this way of making the land tell the story more than words. You caught that as well. The wheat fields,
38:12
the light at dusk, it's all alive like Eden before the fall. That that's the words of a play right there. Look at
38:17
look at him giving this interview. He's talking like a poet himself. You know, you I love the I love these the way these older actors actresses speak. We I
38:24
miss those ways of speaking compared to some of our younger and know I love this also because there
38:31
is so much the dialogue is quite sparse throughout the film. Um it is narrated
38:36
which I do want to talk about but we are we're going to get to we're going to get to it. Yeah, the dialogue is quite sparse but
38:41
that makes those images carry all of the emotional weight. So again, it does become like walking through an art
38:48
gallery more than it becomes like listening to a song, which of course we
38:53
also have to talk about the music at some point. We will uh I
38:58
promise I'm excited. That's good. I'm glad you are. This is it's it's great. It's fun to talk about crappy films because it's fun to talk
39:04
about is the only thing worse than talking about a crappy film is talking about a mediocre film. Sometimes it's hard to talk about a film. It's fine. So
39:12
the point is this is a great movie. So, so the the other spectrum is when you have a lot there's so much you could do a whole I mean you could do we're we're
39:19
like we're ham anders compared to some podcasters at least I am because there's so much in this film but there's so much
39:25
you can just like a a poetry expert could talk about this film there's just so many different things I'm just a good oldfashioned movie go I watch a film how
39:32
does it make me feel and what I like about Terrence Mal films is I just feel something I feel like I want to be there I want to be in the fields I want to be
39:38
on the horses and and you feel all the chaos of the of the wheat burning and all that like you actually And I get
39:43
stressed out about stuff like that when I see the the wheat burning. I'm part of me is watching as you know the story,
39:49
but the other part of me is watching how do they control that fire. Did you wonder how they controlled the fire at the end there? Honestly,
39:54
it felt like chaos. See, it was stressful. Yeah.
40:00
During those scenes is quite palpable. Yeah. And I loved it. And I suspect it
40:05
was a controlled fire, but my goodness, this seemed pretty big. And they're filming this in Alberta in my uh in my
40:12
country here in Alberta. And it's basically like the Texas of uh of Canada. And those we fields are real. I
40:18
don't know what Boy, you got to be careful. We have wildfires up here, Kaye. It's a real thing.
40:24
Fire is scary. I don't know how they control that. My cat is a pyromaniac. He's constantly
40:29
trying to light things on fire. I can't keep him away from fire. And I'm terrified that one day he's going to
40:34
burn my house down. If my house ever burns down, it 100% was my cat. I just want to say that right now.
40:40
Noted. Okay, we have it on record. Yes. Thank you. Now, let's before we talk about the
40:46
music and uh what was the other thing you wanted to mention? The voiceover narrations. Well, that's where we're going. Okay,
40:51
good. Thank you, Linda Mans. Yes. Oh my god, I got absorbed in her.
40:56
Yeah, she is just um I mean, she was 15 at the time. I think 16, almost 17 when
41:02
it was released, but I think she was about 15 when she was cast and filmed. So, let's just say 16 at the time of
41:07
filming. She had a very like a younger face, so she almost got a passport for 12 or 13year-old. But did you know how
41:13
she was found? I don't. Tell me. This is from her quote. They found me in the laundry mat at a 10th Avenue in 51st
41:21
Street in New York. This lady goes, do you want to be in the movie? I said, how much you paying? She said, 300 bucks a
41:26
week. I said, yeah, I'll do it. And that was it. That's amazing. She was literally a kid in New York had that street. You can
41:32
hear in her voice the way she's talking that kind of like this, you know, she never had any acting experience in her life. The classic pulled the casting
41:39
director or whoever pulls her out of a laundromat and says, "Hey, you look like the kid we need for this film. You got
41:44
that look, you got that swag." She actually never became anything per se. Like we're talking about Broo Adams, a
41:50
great actress. Lyn Man's another great actress from this. She did some films. She's sort of semi-retired, but she became kind of a cult-like figure
41:57
amongst film buffs. She has this like allure that people have been drawn to over the years that they've created sort
42:03
of this, if you know who Linda Mans is, you're part of that group. And then she died young in her 50s of she kind of has
42:09
a sort of not a tragic story, but I think her son died too or something like that. She died in her 50s or something. I can't remember. So I think it was a
42:15
disease or it wasn't like anything ter like um self-inflicted or or bad living. I think she just had cancer or something
42:20
like that. It's a fascinating start to her career. Talking now about the narrations, what happened was this is
42:26
what she said. She goes, "Terrence Mali," cuz she called him Terry. So I'll say, "So Terry never told me nothing."
42:31
And this is how she talked. He just said, "Go out there and talk about what you feel like." So I sit on the porch
42:37
with a microphone and talk about fire and the devil and growing up poor. That's how the voice over happened.
42:45
I met this guy named Ding-Dong. He told me the whole earth is going up
42:50
in flames. Flames will come out of here and then they'll just rise up. The
42:57
mountains are going to go up in big flames. The water's going to rise in flames.
43:05
There's going to be creatures running every which way. Some of them burnt half their wings burning.
43:11
People are going to be screaming and hollering for help. See, the people that have been good,
43:19
they're going to go to heaven and escape all that fire. But if you've been bad, God don't even hear you. He don't even
43:25
hear you talking. The editing this movie must have been such a dang nightmare.
43:30
It's such a nightmare. I cannot imagine editing this movie. The voice over narration for me was a necessary evil.
43:38
You You wouldn't have understood the movie if there wasn't the voiceover narration. I don't know if it was always the plan to have that.
43:44
You You're catching it. You're good. You see, you're good at your job. Okay, you're cashing. What happened was, like we said, Terrence throughout the script.
43:50
Yeah. People got frustrated about that. You know, say walk around. You, you know, touch the touch the grass, so to speak.
43:55
It was during the editing he called her in right here. So, here we go. On improvising the famous narration. She
44:01
continues, "They'd roll the film of the day's footage, and Terry would go, Linda, say something." I'd watch Richard
44:07
and Brooke running around the wheat and I would just make [ __ ] up. Sometimes I didn't even know what the movie was about. Well, if it wasn't for her, I
44:13
don't think anybody would know what the movie is about. So, she obviously did a great job. And that is incredible
44:20
improvisation and and probably one of the reasons that she would have been picked off the street in a laundromat
44:25
because she again, she has that grit and I can completely understand why people would have um gravitated to her in this
44:33
way because she really does give the entire movie this like it's an emotional
44:39
weight. There's an unscent sentimental realism to everything that she does where you're just it does just kind of
44:46
feel like somebody's stream of consciousness which I think is kind of the point of the entire movie in the first place.
44:51
I found that there was so not in a bad way but there is so much you know visual and slowness but the last 10 minutes
44:57
felt like a whole new movie. All of a sudden we're like Richard Gear's character gets killed. Uh Abby drops off Linda at at a boarding
45:05
school. Abby jumps on a train of World War I soldiers. I don't know what she was going to do with those soldiers on the train, but she hopped on a train
45:10
full of men going off to war for World War I. I don't know what that was about. And then Linda, I had to research it
45:17
like did she know this girl? Apparently, this girl worked on the farm as well, so she was in the city. So, they hooked up. So, they knew each other from before she
45:22
escapes the boarding school and runs off with this girl down the train track. Oh, I don't know where we're going off to
45:27
the next adventure. What are your thoughts on just Let's get back to Abby, I guess. Like her hopping that train,
45:32
the World War I. What was that about? A lot happens at the end of this movie and
45:37
I almost wish that it was a little bit more ambiguous. I almost wish that we had gotten the
45:43
character Bill played by Gear um just he dies and then I almost wish we don't
45:49
know what happened to the two girls and I suppose in the one sense we don't really know what happens to them. I
45:54
would have liked to see almost nothing. this is a slice of life and so it has to
46:00
end at some point and I don't necessarily want my characters to have I want to interpret what they're doing
46:05
next. I don't want them going off to World War I presumably to help with the war efforts and I don't want to know
46:12
that they're escaping from boarding school and I just want nothing. I want nothing.
46:18
It was so quick and furious. Not in a bad way. It was like back to uh back to Linda Mans who played Linda in the movie
46:23
which I think is great. I think they I think they literally just called the character Linda cuz she it's probably just easier. You're Linda playing Linda. It's your first movie. You're Linda.
46:29
Yeah. She goes on to say that Terry was really quiet. He looked like a monk or something. You'd see him walking across
46:35
the wefield talking to the grasshoppers like they were his friends. That's adorable.
46:41
And then she lastly said, "Uh, I got paid to run around in the field all summer. Best job I ever had." A I love that.
46:48
Yeah. Broo Adams, who played Abby, and Linda Mans, who played Linda, when they both saw the film in the theater for the
46:53
first time, now they're seeing the finished product, they both balled the whole movie through. They were so moved and they couldn't
46:59
believe what was actually cuz they didn't know. I mean, how could you know what it was going to turn out to be if you're just
47:05
talking about random crap every day? You don't even know what cut is going to go into the movie at the end of it. You
47:11
don't know the score of the film. You get this like incredible vastness of
47:16
nature. And then one of the I think probably best film scores of all time. I
47:22
think that I could argue that I think that it is perfect. I think that it is ethreal at times. I think that it's
47:28
mythical. I think it's exciting and interesting. It has what is the name of that song? It's the lick from Aquarium.
47:36
Oh, right. Well, you should say to our dear listeners who aren't uh who is the famous composer? Do you know how to
47:42
pronounce his name? I had I had a Google Maronei. Yeah, it's Maronei. It's just like I always thought it was something
47:48
different, but I did like four different searches to make sure for like people interview and talk to. So it's Endio
47:53
Mariconei who famously did the of course the Clint Eastwood films, the uh spaghetti westerns and uh
47:58
good, the bad and the ugly. Yeah, this was his first Oscar nomination I believe if you can believe it. This was his first nomination was
48:04
this film at that point. He did such a great job. He did such it's it's grandeur. There is so much
48:11
grandeur in that and yet the wheat blowing in the wind is still powerful.
48:17
So to not have those two things conflict with each other is a really big challenge and I it was so successful
48:23
here. Is it called Aquarium? There's like four different pieces that he uses for this that he kind of uses again and
48:29
again. But Aquarium is from another classical piece. I think it's a glass harmonica. It's like
48:36
I I can't sing. I don't know why I tried. Okay. So right here, you're right. So Mary Coney's score includes four
48:42
recurring pieces. Harvest, Happiness, The Honeymoon, and The Return. Harvest is the film's main theme and opens with
48:47
a melody that references Aquarium, the seventh movement of the Camille Ston's Carnival of the Animals.
48:55
That piece is like super famous. Like I have heard that in TV shows. I know it
49:00
best from the Simpsons. There's a part in the Simpsons when there's like a nostalgic little bit and they play that
49:06
piece. But I mean, it's in it's in tons of stuff. I want to say it was in Always Sunny. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
49:11
at one point. I I've just heard that piece so many times. And I had never really seen it be powerful. It's always
49:19
used as kind of like a goofy nostalgia music. Oh, interesting. Like we're going back time. Woohoo.
49:27
Um but here it felt so good. And so I was really excited to see I'm sure that
49:33
that's not where it originated from. Uh, you know, again, I think he just used that portion to add into that um score.
49:41
It's really effective and I loved it. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. Yeah, I didn't know that. Okay, that
49:46
I I actually went and listened to it because I couldn't figure out if Moraicone's
49:51
score was what was actually getting used. Again, the first thing I thought of was The Simpsons. Um, I couldn't
49:57
figure out if it was the actual score from this movie or if it was a clip from the classical song that that portion of
50:03
the score comes from. Uh so I was very curious about that earlier. Uh I still don't know that I know the answer but
50:08
they sound almost exactly the same when I mentioned that you know both the actresses were crying. They were so
50:13
moved by what they saw and they you know maybe even a bit of I would say relief but maybe some of the combination of just like they were just so moved by
50:20
what they saw on screen. They both cried throughout the film. Believe Brook Adams said the first after the first time she
50:25
was crying for the whole film just in tears of the film. But you said yourself as like why you know of course he did
50:31
because he didn't know what to expect maybe. So that's the beauty of Terrence Malik. I think that's the genius is that
50:37
you could have there's a reason why he's editing for 2 years and isn't it good that he didn't rush it. I mean I know
50:44
the actors are 2 years old or whatever but art is endless if you think about there should be no time limit on art. So this is a film where we're watching 50
50:50
years later almost and I don't care how long it took to edit now. It's 50 years later. Who cares? Like we have a
50:55
beautiful film and maybe Terrence knows that. Look, I'm not going to put something out there and rush this product just because it's been 2 years
51:02
ago since principal photography. And that's maybe the genius of Terrence is that he might be talking to grasshoppers
51:09
and uh and telling his actress this, you know, pretend it's your birthday, whatever it is, and just start talking
51:14
to each other. Cuz when it came down to that's part of his process is like he's feeling something in the editing room.
51:20
He creates a whole other story or whatever it is that he does. We have this film. It's almost like poetry
51:26
disguised as a period drama. That's kind of what we get here is that it it it's
51:31
it's is not a standard period drama. We haven't even mentioned the fact that this is technically a period drama. I
51:36
mean, I know that you've described the time frame, but that's basically what we're getting here. That's like the genre of this film, I guess, is the
51:42
closest genre that I could attribute it to. Yes. But it it's not anything like that.
51:47
And speaking of Legends of the Fall, uh the World War I connection, it's the same timeline, too, which is weird. They're both the World War I sequences.
51:54
I think you're on to something there. I think I might be on to something there. Lastly, a little fun trivia. When I remember when I saw this in the film,
52:00
cuz I think this is the '7s. And speaking of the 70s, I love '7s films. The aesthetic of the 70s film, cuz you just know there's no Now we can say AI.
52:07
There's no AI. There's no CGI. It's all practical photography. I mean, we He's
52:12
literally using natural light. I just love that every scene is just that's people on the screen with real sets,
52:18
real costumes. I I don't know. I just love that style of film making in the 70s. I love the look of it. So, it's got
52:24
the perfect combination of Terrence Malik with Badlands and Days of Heaven where you just have that '7s look that
52:29
can never be it just it will never be it can't be replicated. Unfortunately, it cannot be replicated. This I
52:34
frequently say that the 70s are probably my favorite era of films and movies like
52:40
this are the reason why. I agree. I agree. Now, lastly, talking about the Locustes, when they took off
52:46
in the air, I was like, how do they do that? Like how do they freaking No CGI Kaye, do you know how they did it?
52:51
I I read it, but you can see I know this is fascinating because I was so curious because again it's okay. This locust
52:58
scene. Yes. I mean I I think that that's one of the main things that people talk about when
53:04
they talk about this movie. It captures all of the beauty. It captures all of the destru destruction that we're
53:10
experiencing all in this one gesture of the locustes taking off and flying everywhere. And it's beautiful and again
53:17
chaotic. But so my understanding and you can correct me if I'm wrong here. My understanding is what they did was they
53:22
had the actors walk backwards and they were dropping peanut shells and then in
53:28
editing they've re reversed film. Love it. Which is you cannot tell that at all.
53:34
No, it looks like locusts are flying everywhere. This is the best practical effect. I we talk about good practical
53:42
effects in horror movies so frequently because we're excited to see somebody's head explode. Yeah, sure.
53:47
This Locust scene is one of the best practical effects that I've ever seen in my life. It is so good.
53:52
Amazing. The first thought I had when I saw them all quote in the film take off when cuz the actors are standing in the
53:57
field and they have that 20 minutes of lighting for that shot. They're all in shadows and I'm like, how the hell did
54:04
they know to film the locust? You can't you can't train locust to take off on
54:11
amazing and they did bring in real locust at the Canadian agricultural
54:16
department which they probably wouldn't do now but they did in the 70s they brought in a bunch of locustes for the filming as well. So a lot of the locust
54:21
we see in the field of course we're we're unnaturally brought in for the filming which is to me it's chaos. You
54:28
got real locustes flying around on top of the fact oh speaking of boy sorry I'm all over the place here.
54:33
No go ahead. Uh that's what's so cool about this film. You see Aby's character or sorry Abby the character in her
54:40
bathroom, you know, basin washing her face and there's a locust just one single locust is in her wash bowl. I
54:47
love that idea of just just one in a bowl and she flicks it away. We're thinking as if you're well why is there
54:52
a locust in her wall? Who cares? And the idea that how it goes from one simple locust in the wash
54:58
invasion, one little invasion in her little personal space of a wash bowl to the
55:04
field now has been burnt down to the ground. It's just crazy. It's truly amazing. I I'm actually glad
55:10
that you described that also the them bringing in the locusts because I was wondering if they did I was wondering if
55:15
they had to go and find there's lots and lots of close-up shots of the locusts of the Loki. I don't know how you say
55:20
honey. Locustists. Um they they do lots of close-up shots
55:26
of them and I was wondering if they had brought them in and I would think that they would not allow you to bring in
55:34
Lucas. Yeah, the 70s was a wild place, man. What a weird wacky time it was.
55:39
It was like officially the uh the Canadian like the Canadian government uh brought it in like, "Hey, you want some?
55:45
Here you go." So, okay. So, it was peanut shells that they used for the effect, right? Who do
55:50
you think ate all those damn peanuts? That's a great question. I bet you it was the cast and crew. They had so much in between time. They probably like d
55:56
they probably brought in a bunch of Look guys, we're going to need this for just keeping gambling with the peanuts in between in
56:02
between shots. Do you have Five Guys and Five Guys? Oh, yeah. I don't think they do it anymore cuz of
56:08
peanut allergies. I don't think they do. Yeah, the peanuts. Yeah. Do you have uh Texas Roadhouse? They
56:15
also have peanuts everywhere. You're supposed to throw the peanut shells on the floor. That's right.
56:20
Which is disgusting. I don't think they do that anymore either. But one day, my friend want it was my friend's birthday
56:26
and I asked her where she wanted to go for dinner for her birthday. And she goes, "Oh, I want to go to a Texas Roadhouse." I was like, "Who wants to go
56:31
to a chain restaurant for their birthday?" Like, what a dumb choice. I'm like insulting her a little bit about it. She goes, "I like that I can eat
56:37
peanuts and just throw the shells anywhere." I was like, "Okay, that's great. I'm glad you enjoy that.
56:45
That's hilarious. So, she would have really liked working on the crew of this movie, I guess, because she would have been throwing peanuts.
56:50
Throwing peanuts everywhere. Everywhere. Well, is there any other thing that you have in your notes you want to touch on before we wrap up? I just want to make
56:55
sure I get that from you. Um, I I don't think so. I think that we really did a good job of hitting all of
57:01
the incredible, stunning beauty of this film. It's hard to talk about, and I don't mean that in a like it like it's bad
57:08
hard. It's just like I did Black Hag and I I did it solo and I talked for 40 odd minutes on my by myself solo because it
57:14
was oddly in a weird way easy to talk about something that's so like why is this film made type dialogue?
57:19
Yeah, this film we'll never ask why. I'm glad it was like you would never why was this film?
57:26
No, no, no, no. You know, praise be the movie gods this film was made. That's the point is like this film is is so
57:33
unique and different and special. If you like films at all and just want to see a film that's a this is a film.
57:39
It's not a movie. This is a uh a visual. You said it best and you took it out. I love that you said it without reading
57:45
Sam's quote there that every frame is a painting. I mean just look at the little the little picture I have here that was from the Criterion uh DVD cover there. I
57:53
just love the the farmer. I don't know who's necessarily in that frame, but just a man in the wheat field looking at
57:58
the house and days of he just it just everything speaks and it's just so and
58:04
there is an undercurrent of tension and you know things are going to come to a head. Uh you you just know I didn't
58:11
think spoiler alert spoiler I didn't think both men would die you know and both girls got I was surprised by that.
58:17
I was very surprised by that. But and that's what I love about Terren is uh he doesn't write necessarily a
58:23
feel-good story. It's not about that. It's about life and life is just life. It's just Yeah. Yeah. So, uh Kaylee,
58:31
this has been an absolute joy to have you on. You're you're so you're so easy to podcast with and you're so good at
58:36
talking about films because you yourself do your own film review podcast. Tell people where they can watch that.
58:42
I do. You can find me on YouTube on onceover with Kaylee. C A Y L E Y. Uh, I
58:48
talk about all sorts of different movies over there. And of course, now Ryan, I'm going to have to drag you over so we can talk about Shockwaves. Um, so that'll be
58:55
coming up very soon. You can also check out on that same channel. I do lots of other things. I give the once over to
59:01
all different things, including the dabble verse, which I won't explain right now, but if you know, you know.
59:07
If you know, you know. Um, I will say though, people have from the Dow vers. I want to say thank you. there
59:13
there have been subscribers to the YouTube channel and uh from you and Andy bringing people over from the double over. So, thank you so much to those
59:19
listeners. I appreciate you guys support. Yes, we got we got a weird group of people. They're my We do have weird. Yeah,
59:24
they're they're amazing. Um and in addition to that, I'm actually starting a new little series where I'm going to
59:29
be giving the once over to the early internet days. So, I'll be talking about things like Usenet and how people got on
59:36
the internet in the first place, the first trolling, the first spamming, all of those sorts of things. Uh, so I'm
59:42
pretty pumped about that. But of course, there will always be videos. You got the first picture uploaded.
59:48
I I have um No, Google it. I know the first picture. I know the
59:54
first picture that like broke the internet was the JLo dress. Is that it? That's not it.
59:59
The first picture. There's there you will be bamboozled about the first
1:00:05
picture uploaded to the web. It's hilarious. You would never guess it. And no, it's not nudity.
1:00:12
lame. I'm not even gonna Google it now. Yeah, I know. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to check that out and do an episode on it. How
1:00:18
exciting. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Kaylee. And the next episode will be with Husie where we're going to cover
1:00:25
the thin red line. Looking forward to that. I know. All right. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
1:00:36
Heat. Heat.
1:01:04
Heat. Heat.