409 Days of Heaven

[TedW]

I think Gere is excellent in the movie, though at first blush he seems way too contemporary an actor for the period. This has been a problem elsewhere in his career when he does period movies. But in Days of Heaven his youthful cockiness/arrogance works to good effect. Not to mention that a more conventional approach might've been to put the more attractive, more sexually appealing/threatening man in the homeowner part and let the quiet, introspective Sam Shepard-type play the essentially cuckolded guy. Here that is reversed and it works well.

[TedW]

and no one can stick a gerbil up his ass like Gere

You must be a festival programmer in real life.

[arsonfilms]

This is an open, anonymous Internet forum like any other. It is not immune to people prattling on with their own speculation as if it was fact, I've read plenty of it over my time here. I don't know what anybody here does for a living and nobody knows what I do for a living. So there's no reason to trust what any member says just because they have a screenname -- or, in your words, tell the festival programmer from the disgruntled video shop stock boy -- which is why definitive, "insider" declarations should customarily be sourced. Pretty basic idea.

Well, I think Bikey is actually Robert Rehme, First Vice President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Peerpee is Michael Mann's laundry guy; and MichaelB is, well, obviously Michael Bay (sorry, Mike, secret's out!). I hear that you, tryavna, are actually Bela Tarr. But I won't tell anyone.

and no one can stick a gerbil up his ass like Gere

You must be a festival programmer in real life.

Remember how I mentioned the occasional troll? You're it.

Before this gets moved to the infighting section, simply reading the forum is an easy way to get a sense of who can/should be trusted. There is an increadible wealth of knowledge among the people who frequent the forum, and it doesn't matter all that much what they do for a living, whether it be on a film set or in a food packaging plant.

That said, obliviously making fun of the member that runs Masters of Cinema or the one from the Austin Film Society, etc., is a good way to get on peoples nerves.

[TedW]

My man, I have no idea what anybody does here or who these people are and I read this forum all the time. I made that joke with those names because those were the names that tryavna used in his post, which should be patently obvious (and actually, his post was the best response to all this and you should read it again). My intent was not to "make fun of" the guy who runs Masters of Cinema or demean his station.

There is an increadible wealth of knowledge among the people who frequent the forum, and it doesn't matter all that much what they do for a living, whether it be on a film set or in a food packaging plant.

No, it doesn't matter what they do for a living, as long as they actually know what they're talking about. Which, as I've indicated, is impossible to determine unless they say something like, "This is how I know this." Some guy named "XXXXYWDR" on the Internet says something and I'm just supposed to go "Yeah, man, you sure got that right"? Maybe a bunch of you know each other and hang out but this is an open, public forum and my guess would be not everybody knows the background of all the posters present. Seems pretty basic to me. Nevertheless, this was a conversation between me and GringoTex that was settled last night before you jumped into it. So I'm inclined to think you're the troll, since you're certainly getting on my nerves.

Unless, of course, "arsonfilms," you're really Gus Van Sant, in which case I'd like to tell you how much I loved Elephant.

[Forrest Taft]

Found one site on the net verifying my information.

Dustin Hoffman turned down the role as well, and Malick did not get along with his cast. It is Travolta who once said that Malick was not happy with the cut, and could not cast who he wanted. Apparently the film was completed in 1976.

The special features should be interesting (particularly the Richard Gere interview), and I hope they touch on some of these production problems.

[godardslave]

It would of been good if they could of got another meatier extra, like "visions of light". i guess that not possible due to rights issues.
the original criterion video interviews are pretty good, to give credit, but i kind of prefer documentaries and such as the ultimate extra.

[broadwayrock]

It would of been good if they could of got another meatier extra, like "visions of light". i guess that not possible due to rights issues.
the original criterion video interviews are pretty good, to give credit, but i kind of prefer documentaries and such as the ultimate extra.

I found a dvd interview that would have been ideal as an extra for this edition of Days of Heaven. It's a 61 minute Spanish tv interview with Nestor Almendros that took place shortly before receiving an Oscar for Days of Heaven. The interview unfortunately is in Spanish and is not subtitled.

[MichaelB]

You mean, you don't know who, say, Peerpee, Bikey, and MichaelB are in real life?

I don't know who Bikey is in real life. Obviously, I know which company he works for, and I know who he used to be, but I haven't met his replacement and don't even know his full name. (I know the head of Second Run very well indeed, but we generally talk about films and future plans rather than his company's staffing structure).

(UPDATE: Now that was a really freaky coincidence - no sooner had I pressed "send" than I got a phone call from the new Bikey saying that he was passing by and wondered if I had time to come out for a coffee! So I now do know who the new Bikey is, but I didn't an hour or so ago).


But there are loads of others - at least one other member of the Masters of Cinema team, at least one person from MovieMail (whose identity I discovered only recently), several professional critics (David Ehrenstein posts under his full name) and doubtless plenty of people from other DVD labels (the level of technical knowledge displayed by some posters goes well beyond enthusiastic amateur level), though as I don't know for certain I'm not going to speculate.

But ultimately it doesn't really matter - there are plenty of people here who have no industry connections at all, but are still veritable founts of film knowledge. It's the quality of the posts that's important, not what people do for a living. In any case, most of what I do in my day job has no bearing whatever on what I post here, unless anyone's really passionately interested in National Coal Board documentaries from the 1940s and 50s.

And, just to get back on topic:

It would of been good if they could of got another meatier extra, like "visions of light". i guess that not possible due to rights issues.
the original criterion video interviews are pretty good, to give credit, but i kind of prefer documentaries and such as the ultimate extra.

The problem with film-related documentaries originally produced for other purposes (usually television) is that they're often the most expensive extras to clear - Visions of Light, with its dozens of film clips including several mainstream Hollywood titles, being a case in point. In Britain, the Network label represents many of the classic British film libraries and also the ITV libraries, so they have access to loads of TV documentaries - but many have had to be included in truncated versions because of rights clearance issues (since it's vastly more expensive to clear rights for retail than it is for one-off TV broadcast). If the extras cost more than the main feature, something's gone wrong with your budgeting!

We were lucky with the BFI's Jan Å vankmajer DVD - when I first approached the producer of the original documentary version of The Cabinet of Jan Å vankmajer, he said that we were welcome to licence his original materials (the Quay Brothers animation and the talking heads), but he had no say over the film clips. Fortunately, all the clips were from titles featured in full elsewhere on the DVD, so it was a (relatively) straightforward process to insert a clause in all the relevant contracts granting us permission to feature clips elsewhere. But had there been clips from anything else, we'd have had to track down the rightsholders (and bear in mind that this was a 23-year-old documentary, so they might well have changed in the meantime) and negotiate separately.

Let's take this Nestor Almendros interview that Broadwayrock mentions - was it just an hour of talking heads, or did it also feature clips from his work? If so, Criterion would have to clear the retail DVD rights separately - and pay handsomely for the privilege.

[Matt]

Let's take this Nestor Almendros interview that Broadwayrock mentions - was it just an hour of talking heads, or did it also feature clips from his work? If so, Criterion would have to clear the retail DVD rights separately - and pay handsomely for the privilege.

Or just cut the clips and replace them with stills, which is what they normally do.

[broadwayrock]

Its just talking heads with the interviewer holding up various on set photos of the films Nestor has worked on.

They seem to mostly talk about the Truffaut and Rohmer films he worked on, so i don't think they discuss Malick or Days of Heaven at all.

[tavernier]

So it sounds like a good extra for a Truffaut or Rohmer release.

[MichaelB]

In fact, it sounds perfect for Criterion's Rohmer box set, so it's a pity it's already been released!

[John Cope]

Just wanted to post a link to this recent, very well considered piece on the film.

[bruce holecheck]

A friend just watched the check disc for DAYS OF HEAVEN and said that thankfully the color timing is fine; it didn't feel wrong at all and wasn't bothersome in the slightest. He also said the amount of detail was amazing, and it'd be well worth the upgrade. I'll see if I can get some screengrabs.

[miless]

A friend just watched the check disc for DAYS OF HEAVEN and said that thankfully the color timing is fine; it didn't feel wrong at all and wasn't bothersome in the slightest. He also said the amount of detail was amazing, and it'd be well worth the upgrade. I'll see if I can get some screengrabs.

Czeck or Check?

[Matt]

A friend just watched the check disc for DAYS OF HEAVEN

Czeck or Check?

A check disc is a test pressing of a DVD to "check" for errors before the final pressing is made.

[Saarijas]

DVDBeaver comparison. I like the criterion look, a lot more natural. It's not as different or as shocking as I was expecting. Still, it is a big change, but I feel for the better.

[Cronenfly]

DVDBeaver comparison. I like the criterion look, a lot more natural. It's not as different or as shocking as I was expecting. Still, it is a big change, but I feel for the better.

Agreed.

[glaswegian tome]

wow..... i was somewhat worried about the color correction after having read that malick was changing it, but definitely not anymore. looking forward to getting this one in the mail.

[Luke M]

It looks pretty good.

[domino harvey]

that is like the least dramatic disc comparison ever

[exte]

Further Captures from the Criterion

Why not just finish the comparisons?

[domino harvey]

Further Captures from the Criterion

Why not just finish the comparisons?

Just tilt your laptop screen back twenty degrees.

[denti alligator]

I like the golden hue and the overall darker image on the Paramount better.

[John Cope]

Slant's review.