Badlands (film)
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Badlands is a 1973 film directed by Terrence Malick from his own script. It stars Martin Sheen as Kit and Sissy Spacek as Holly. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured. Malick has a small speaking part although he does not receive an acting credit.
The story, though fictional, is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.
The film was edited by Robert Estrin, although Billy Weber is credited as associate editor and both he and the art designer Jack Fisk went on to work on Malick's next two features Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998).
Badlands is narrated from the perspective of Holly, juxtaposing Holly's romantic, naive perception of Kit with the violent, criminal reality of his acts. This use of voice-over to create a dialectic between sound and image has become a dominant feature of Malick's work.
The film's score makes repeated use of a short composition from the didactic works of Carl Orff. The same piece was used in the film True Romance, which has some thematic similarities to Badlands.
In 1993 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Similarities with Starkweather/Fugate Spree killing
- Both Starkweather and Kit had an interest in James Dean
- Like Starkweather, Kit spent time working as a garbage man.
- Starkweather was considered a poor worker, and Kit loses his job as a garbage man.
- Starkweather murders Fugate's stepfather, and Kit murders Holly's father.
- Starkweather and Fugate remained in the house of Fugate's murdered family for a few days, as did Kit and Holly remain in the house of Kit's father.
- Starkweather left a message on the door of the Fugate family house that warned people off because "Every Body is sick with the Flue", while Kit manages to convince a visitor to the door of the rich man's house that the owner is too sick with the flu to come to the door.
- Both Starkweather and Kit killed a teenage couple in a storm cellar.
- Both Starkweather and Kit accost a rich man and his hearing-impaired maid (Starkweather, however, murdered them).
- Both Starkweather and Kit left messages for the police pursuing them.
- Both Starkweather and Kit are involved in a car chase directly before being caught.
- Both Starkweather and Kit were executed in the electric chair.
- Both Fugate and Holly were spared execution (Fugate, however, was incarcerated for a time).
Trivia
- The man who appears at the front door of the rich man's house is an uncredited Terrence Malick.
- Martin Sheen was 32-years old when he played the 25-year old Kit. Similarly, Sissy Spacek was 23-years old when she played the 15-year old Holly.
- The deaf maid was played by Dona Baldwin, who was a member of the film crew (hair/wardrobe).
- This is Martin Sheen's favourite film of his own. He also regards it as being his best performance.
References
- Michel Chion, 1999. The Voice in Cinema, translated by Claudia Gorbman, New York & Chichester: Columbia University Press.
- Michel Ciment, 1975. ‘Entretien avec Terrence Malick’, Positif, 170, Jun, 30-34.
- G. Richardson Cook, 1974. ‘The Filming of Badlands: An Interview with Terry Malick’, Filmmakers Newsletter, 7:8, Jun, 30-32.
- Charlotte Crofts, 2001. ‘From the “Hegemony of the Eye” to the “Hierarchy of Perception”: The Reconfiguration of Sound and Image in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven’, Journal of Media Practice, 2:1, 19-29.
- Cameron Docherty, 1998. ‘Maverick Back from the Badlands’, The Sunday Times, Culture, 7 Jun, 4.
- Brian Henderson, 1983. ‘Exploring Badlands’. Wide Angle: A Quarterly Journal of Film Theory, Criticism and Practice, 5:4, 38-51.
- Les Keyser, 1981. Hollywood in the Seventies, London: Tantivy Press.
- Terrence Malick, 1973. Interview the morning after Badlands premiered at the New York Film Festival, American Film Institute Report, 4:4, Winter, 48.
- James Monaco, 1972. ‘Badlands’, Take One, 4:1, Sept/Oct, 32.
- J. P. Telotte, 1986. ‘Badlands and the Souvenir Drive’, Western Humanities Review, 40:2, Summer, 101-14.
- Beverly Walker, 1975. ‘Malick on Badlands’, Sight and Sound, 44:2, Spring, 82-3.
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