Heaven is in the eyes

I have been wracking--probably wrecking too--my brain for movies to show at this upcoming workshop, since I almost immediately made the decision to show movies of more artistic or social importance than merely those that had a tangential connection to this immediate area. So, John Ford's The Searchers--that's a given; and to give the opposing point of view, Chris Eyre's Smoke Signals, a movie I was very happy to get to know.

So that leaves--what? Shane? Maybe, because then one can play the later Eastwood cards of Pale Rider and especially Unforgiven against it. But I also want to show the same historical event through the refractive lens of the movies, show how a legend is built--or deconstructed. So six gunfights at the O.K. corral, from Ford's black-and-white chiaroscuro in My Darling Clementine (Victor Mature as a consumptive!) to George Cosmatos's almost apocalyptic Tombstone (which, incidentally, is the one probably closest to the "truth"--Doc Holliday actually answered the cowboy who said, "I have you now, you son of a bitch," with "You're a daisy if you do.")

Then I watched Terence Malick's Days of Heaven, and was completely bowled over again by the beauty of its cinematography (supposedly shot by Nestor Almendros, but a lot of work was also done by Haskell Wexler). Most of the movie is supposed to take place in Texas, but, as is usually the case in these degenerate times, America's pristine landscape is played by--drum roll, please--CANADA. Much of the outdoor shooting was done during the time when the sun has not yet risen or has just already set, and the land glows. Even the actors' beauty becomes part of this theme, especially that of the males--the young Richard Gere and Sam Shepard, even the ragged, time-lined face of Robert Wilke. Few movies remind me more that the cinema is a medium of the senses, primarily the visual, but also the auditory, with Enni Morricone's delicate score, supplemented by Leo Kottke's guitar. The only weakness is the script, the initial version of which, I'm not surprised to learn, was thrown out, so the actors could find the story. Linda Manz's voice-over narration, which verges on the edge of incomprehensibility at times, has all the strengths and weaknesses of improvisation.

But those images overwhelm any weaknesses.