Jacob Brackman on Days of Heaven VO

Executive producer (and second unit director) Jacob Brackman talks about the development of the structure of Terence Malick's Days of Heaven, including the evolution of the voiceover. Which arose as a strategy during production as they were realizing that the dialogue scenes were just not working. A fascinating insight into the film's wonderfully innovative storytelling approach.

Okay, so here's the other thing, about a year later (in May, 1979) Brackman would go on to complete the screenplay for my favorite movie of all time (also the story of a tough teenage girl in a hard scrabble environment) Times Square. (Go ahead and click that title to read my epic research on the film's production history). Which bears a definite resemblance to the voiceover of Days of Heaven -- particularly in the character's heavy accent (Days of Heaven's Linda claims to be from Chicago but her at times almost unintelligible accent sounds astoundingly similar to Robin Johnson's Brooklynese in Times Square).