I worked on the movie as a PA and became a lifelong friend of Nestor. Great to hear John's shared memories. His comments about the fire - it was TOTALLY out of control - the FX guy had sprayed the wheat with diesel - crazy! We almost burned up - and the fire came dangerously close to the house. It drove Nestor crazy that he could not operate - but I think it lead to a unique bond with the crew. He was such a gentle soul - such a contrast to the fucking asshole Wexler who tried to take credit for the entire film when he only worked the last few weeks when we ran over schedule. Nestor loved shooting in Alberta - and in the years that I knew him after that still talked fondly of it.
Haha no foolin'. The best approach is to savour it tho. If someone gifted you with a case of 1945 1st growth Bordeaux you would of course be selective about when you opened each bottle. All at once would not be ideal 🐱
My father was a filmmaker and a huge fan of Malick and "Days of Heaven" specifically. He would have loved watching this documentary as much as I just did. Thanks for some many incites.
Thanks for sharing this amazing interview. The cinematigraohy from "Days of Heaven" is stunning, so it's a real pleasure getting to learn from the behind the scenes and commentary! Best!
Thank you. Always wondered how the locust scene was shot. Technical brilliance. Just beautiful.Also Mr. John Bailey,President of ASC and the cinematographer of my favorite film ordinary people. This is gold.
16:20 ..... "it was probably more dangerous than any of us realized at the time" ..... my mom was the script supervisor on Days of Heaven..... up until that fire scene that day..... before she was put in the hospital for months..... she was in an iron lung with severe pneumonia from burns and smoke inhalation when the smoke machine backfired during that so-called "controlled" fire scene..... never gave her credit for the work she'd done prior to that fucking fiasco either..... I still love Terry Malick..... but "probably more dangerous than any of us realized"?..... no shit Sherlock?
So sorry to hear that - sadly not surprised. I hope she fully recovered. Sorry to hear she didn't get credit - I didn't either, even though my name is in the press book credits. I worked on the film as a PA from prep to post - I was so sick and exhausted when we finished, I caught pneumonia and was sick for weeks. I am sure the fire and smoke must have contributed to that. John plays down how crazy that fire was - it was TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL. Roy, the Brit FX guy sprayed the wheat with diesel fuel. It jumped the fire breaks and we scrambled both to not get fried and to get as much film shot as we could because the fields were burning all around us. We were supposed to shoot the fire over a few nights, but it almost all burned at once. I was among the extras that night running through the fire with walls of flame all around us - I was drafted into it because several of the extras we had in holding got too drunk (staying warm). It was madness, as was much of the shoot.
'Days of Heaven' was something of a sensation among the European 'cinerati' of the late 70s and though they always admired a particular American nihilistic gusto in filmmaking which seemed to elude their genteel sensibility [despite how Marxist and political they could be...and, let's face it, no matter how shocking and insurrectionist Pasolini or the veritable Godard could be, they were too intellectual, too ideological to completely sink into the jouissant 'Guignol' exemplified by a film like 'Taxi Driver' (and its later second cousin once removed, 'Pulp Fiction') which seemed so effortless, so consciously unselfconscious]; I don't think they ever quite believed a 'European' film would come out of America, let alone a 'European' film about American themes, and that's what makes 'Days of Heaven' so enigmatic in its immovable occupation of one's mentality: at once it doesn't at all feel like an American film and yet feels absolutely like one - but a kind of parallel American film, coming from a cultural mind that was always running alongside more dominant forces but remaining near invisible, spitting across in 'Badlands' and then retreating...but 'Days of Heaven' is as if this parallel consciousness was shunted full on over the divide and has remained stuck here ever since, a gorgeous and troubling anomaly. Bailey's personal account of the film being, to his experience, the first through and through American 'Nouvelle Vague' film (aside from what was before predominantly 'gestural' - Nichols' snappy hipness -which works, don't get me wrong! - in 'The Graduate') is a piquant observation, and explains very much the idiosyncratic tone of the film (I have far more respect for the handheld and Panaglide shots than I did formerly, often wondering why such a beautiful film didn't engage in more magisterial tracking shots, etc. Now I appreciate that some shots - Bailey's goose bump crane shot - contrasting with the hand helds is part of the film's fascinating auteurism. I will watch any Terrence Malick film and find something transcendentally overwhelming in each - and will defend him to nearly no end (ie; 'To the Wonder' is a much better film than it is given credit for being), but again and again I return to Days of Heaven as the favourite which establishes the phenomenological themes upon which Malick has based his variations of the last 40 some years.
What a fantastic remark. I agree wholeheartedly with the final sentence especially. Also, I read your entire post in the voice of Patrick Bateman, hope you don't mind haha.
