MOVIE REVIEW: Badlands (1973)

Terrence Malick based his feature film debut on an unusual story that took place in the 1950s. Loosely based on the real-life crimes of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, a young couple who went on a killing spree that took the lives of eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming. They were eventually arrested, with Fugate serving 17 years in prison before being released in the mid-1970s, whereas Starkweather was sentenced to death by electric chair a year and a half after being taken in by authorities. It's the kind of "lovers on the lam" story that was seen in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, as well as being a direct influence on later films such as Tony Scott's True Romance, Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers and Dominic Sena's Kalifornia. Each of these films tend to put a greater deal of focus on the violence in the crimes that were committed, with Tony Scott and Oliver Stone's films using violence in a particularly stylish manner. What separates Malick's film, however, is how it subverts conventions of the crime genre by using a tone that would be fitting for a children's story. That sentence alone will probably raise more than a few eyebrows to anyone who has never seen this film, but it's this surreal quality that makes the film so unique and memorable.

Much like the real-life story that inspired the film, Badlands opens by introducing Holly (Sissy Spacek), a teenage girl who explains she moved with her father (Warren Oates) to South Dakota from Texas after the death of her mother. Kit (Martin Sheen) is a garbage man who speaks his first lines upon seeing a dead dog on the side of the road, "I'll give you a dollar if you eat this collie." The two eventually meet one day in the street, as Holly is twirling her baton, and the father soon discovers that they have been seeing each other. His disapproval results in Holly's father shooting her dog. One day, Kit shows up at their house and shoots Holly's father, before she agrees to go on the run with him and leave her house burning while a great piece of classical music plays. From here the two encounter several people, hide in a tree house out in the woods, evade being captured by the law, and find out that they've made headline news in their murder spree.

Malick's decision to make the tone resemble a fairy tale is an interesting one. As the film is told from Holly's point of view, it's clear that there is a certain amount of innocence and naivete in her voice over. The film is full of juxtapositions, particularly when Holly gives a very romantic portrait of her time on the road with Kit. She tells the audience how deeply in love they are, despite very few scenes of intimacy together. At one point she mentions how Kit told her to enjoy the beautiful scenery while driving through the badlands, despite that scenery only being images of a barren landscape. Much like Kit, there's a disconnect in her voice from any kind of emotion that would be expected under such circumstances. She even responds with a sort of indifference to her father being shot by Kit right in front of her, almost as if he's just another dead body to add along with her mother and dog.

What separates this film from most stories about serial killers is that it's willing to show the banality of the characters. Films such as Bonnie and Clyde or even Natural Born Killers were controversial upon their release because some critics felt that they both glamorized violence and criminals. One of the things that Malick's film does is shred any kind of myths that could possibly be associated with these two characters. The use of juxtapositions work as a way of dismantling these kinds of myths that are often associated with criminals, a trait common with American criminals such as the outlaw Jesse James and Depression era-gangsters such as John Dillinger, who gained reputations as being modern day Robin Hoods. Trying to understand the psychology of Kit and Holly would have ended up glamorizing them into this same kind of Robin Hood-type story, so Malick instead shows Kit and Holly to be two characters living in their own sort of childlike fantasy with barely any sense of the reality around them. Amidst these scenes are moments of brief but shocking violence, which give their actions an even more powerful effect. By the end, the deconstruction of myth is made even more explicit when, after all the sensational news coverage and tall tales about the couple in the press, the Deputy handcuffs Kit and remarks, "Hell, he ain't no bigger than I am."

A lot of this film wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it does if it weren't for the two performances by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Sheen is able to bring a certain kind of charisma and danger to the role, making him an unpredictable character who can from eating lunch with an old friend, and then in the next instance shooting him. Considering this is a character that barely expresses any emotion, and doesn't have the luxury of having the story told from his perspective, it's very impressive how well Martin Sheen is able to pull this off. His character remains an enigma not only to the audience, but even Holly. It's Sissy Spacek's performance that really guides the audience through the story, giving the impression that she's not so much a bad or evil person, but someone who has just become numb to the amount of loss and tragedy experienced in her own life. Her line delivery is purposefully flat and monotone, as if she were reading notes from her diary that no longer ring true.

To say that Badlands has been influential would only be stating the obvious. The films it has inspired tend to vary in regards to quality, with True Romance being a decent but overly violent and somewhat shallow take on a similar story (Hans Zimmer's score for that film also pays direct homage to Carl Orff's song that is used in this one), while I have always found Natural Born Killers to be a messy and tedious film to sit through. Bruce Springsteen wrote the song "Nebraska" after reportedly seeing this film late one night on television, which has unsettling lyrics that is sung in the same kind of eerily monotone voice that is reminiscent of Malick's film. Malick's debut is a very strong one, introducing several trademarks of his work that would only continue to evolve in his later films. There's no question, however, that this is the most straightforward and accessible film that the director has ever made, and likely ever will make. Plus, it's the only time you'll get to see the man himself in an on screen cameo, as pictured below:

It could just be me, but I always thought that he sounded like Hank from the television show King of the Hill when he speaks here. You can watch the film and decide for yourself. It's well worth it.

Rating: 4/4