If Days of Heaven had never been made by Terrence Malick in the mid ’70s and come out instead as a brand-new film a month or so ago with Jake Gyllenhaal, say, in the Richard Gere role and Reese Witherspoon in the Brooke Adams part, it would be the hands-down Best Picture choice of every film critic and Academy member out there. It would be so far ahead of everything else it wouldn’t be funny.