Terrence Malick's 1978 masterpiece is a fantastically rewarding experience, and it contains ideas and themes that would re-emerge in The Tree of Life

This was the film that Terrence Malick made in 1978 before heading off for his 20-year sabbatical: an inspired American pastoral, perhaps inspired by Henry James's The Wings of the Dove. In the early years of the 20th century, Richard Gere and Brooke Adams are Bill and Abby, a Chicago couple on the run from the law who pose as brother and sister to find itinerant farm-work in the Texas prairie. Sam Shepard's ailing young farmer, with evidently just a year to live, falls in love with Abby; Bill then persuades her to take up with him, give him some happiness in what little time remains, and then they can be rich together with his money after he's dead. Of course, the plan goes wrong. The film,...