Movies at the Museum: Terrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven' (1978)

Name: Movies at the Museum: Terrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven' (1978)
Start: 2026-02-19T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-02-19T21:00:00-05:00
Location: 101 Monroe Center St NW, Grand Rapids, MI, United States, Michigan 49503

Schedule

Thu Feb 19 2026 at 06:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

101 Monroe Center St NW, Grand Rapids, MI, United States, Michigan 49503 | Grand Rapids, MI

Join the Grand Rapids Art Museum and the Grand Rapids Film Society for a screening of Terrence Malick's 'Day's of Heaven' (1978).
Inspired by GRAM's exhibition The Matter of Awe: Landscapes in Art (on view Nov 22, 2025 - Aug 16, 2026), this collaboration celebrates the work of filmmaker Terrence Malick, with a film retrospective honoring his lifelong devotion and attention toward nature and the landscape.
6pm Social hour
7pm Movie start time
This is a free event. Registration is required.
Location: Grand Rapids Art Museum
After the acclaimed release of his debut feature Badlands (1973), Terrence Malick gave us Days of Heaven (1978): a sweeping drama centered around a fraught romantic triangle that develops between a wealthy landowner and two itinerant farm workers. Featuring transcendent Oscar-winning cinematography primarily shot by Néstor Almendros (who was losing his vision during production), Malick renders the landscape of his 1916 Texas Panhandle setting with a scope that takes on biblical dimensions, encompassing the rural space as both a resource to be exploited and a backdrop of American love and labor. Days of Heaven marks the arrival of the Malick we would come to know through his later work, where elliptical editing, poetic voiceover narration, and a magisterial visual approach evolved into a singular cinematic language that charted his path away from the conventions of Hollywood storytelling towards new territory for cinematic expression and inquiry. After this film, he would disappear from the film world for twenty years before reemerging with his sprawling war epic The Thin Red Line (1998).
Before the film, the Grand Rapids Film Society will offer a brief introduction to help set the scene and provide context for the films production, and GRAM staff will share insights on how each film connects to the history of landscape painting.
Contact: For more information, contact Associate Curator, Terra Warren at [email protected]
Cost: Free