Badlands (1973)

Badlands (1973)

Directed and written by Terrence Malick

Runtime: 1 hr, 34 min

I first became acquainted with Terrence Malick through the beautifully pretentious and liberating film The Tree of Life.  That movie put Malick on the “watch whatever he has directed” list.  But as I discovered, there are not all that many films that he has directed.  In fact, even though his directorial career starts in the early 1970s, The Tree of Life was only the fifth film under his belt.  Certainly that makes him easier to catch up on than, say, Michael Curtiz or George Cukor.  And what better place to start than at film number one, Badlands.

Loosely based on the Starkweather homicides (thank you, Billy Joel), Badlands casts Martin Sheen as Kit, a garbage collector in South Dakota.  Kit, who’s in his mid-20s, falls for the fifteen-year-old Holly (Sissy Spacek); the two try to keep their relationship a secret, but when Holly’s father (Warren Oates) finds out, things turn ugly very quickly.  Kit shoots the father, sets the house on fire, and takes off with Holly.  They spend the rest of the film on the run as Kit piles up an ever-growing body count.

With all that murder and the constant fear of getting caught, one might expect Badlands to be an emotionally charged film.  Certainly there are a lot of emotions bubbling below the surface, but the presentation of the film is remarkably restrained.  Spacek’s narration throughout is delivered almost disturbingly matter-of-factly, and the actors find themselves in a nearly continuous state of numbness.  At times it almost feels like the film is a story being told by a history teacher, rather than a tale of a crime spree.

However, while that feeling is present, I think the presentation ultimately works to the films advantage.  Had the emotions been more visible—more screaming and crying, for instance—then it would have certainly been more movie-like.  But the more restrained tone allows the audience to explore the characters on a deeper level, which is more or less the film’s goal.  With very limited amounts of action, the relationship between Kit and Holly is brought to the forefront, and the long moments of inaction present them at default state.

The emotional distance in Badlands is particularly beneficial for Sheen’s Kit.  There may have been a temptation to play Kit as a sociopath.  Well, he is, but Sheen doesn’t make that the focus of his performance.  His actions may demonstrate his mental issues, but he is not defined by his bloodthirsty ways.  If anything, it’s something he’s grows into, as Sheen’s character does not always seems aware of what he’s doing.  Further, and more importantly, it’s not his sole motivation; his affection for Holly, after all, it what triggers the crime spree in the first place.

Holly, meanwhile, goes through a lot beneath her flat expressions.  Initially, she is quite clearly drawn to Kit’s whole James Dean clone persona, but there is an element of self-deprecation in her narration as she describes life before the death of her father.  There may be genuine affection for Kit at first, but she gradually falls into staying because, well, what other options are there?  Her face seems to be holding back tears towards the end, and she goes from reading Kit a warm narrative in there tree house to the dry celebrity gossip column of a magazine on their way to the border.

The actors and the story tend towards the subdued, and the cinematography furthers this feel.  On the one hand, some of the sequences are absolutely beautiful: a bright full moon against a clear sky, that one mountain way in the distance that appears ever so closer, etc.  It is all so lovingly shot, yet it also creates an overwhelming sense of loneliness (or as Kit prefers, “solitude”).  This is not to say that the film creates the illusion of there being no way out.  Rather, than gorgeousness and loneliness combine to create an oddly blasé texture to the proceedings.

You know, the word “indifferent” might be a good descriptor of the film.  Not in the sense that I didn’t care what was happening—or that the filmmakers didn’t, either.  No, I mean that there’s no sense that Malick or anyone else had a particular message or point to send.  There was simply a story of two people to tell, and everything else involved in the production is merely window-dressing.  This can make Badlands more than a little alienating, but it also makes the film commendably fair and direct—no one’s beating around the bush here.

Malick, both in the script and on the screen, neither condemns the two fugitives nor holds them up as some misunderstood rebels.  That may be the greatest strength of the indifferent tone of the proceedings: it portrays Kit and Holly as people without passing judgment.  I could neither root for them to elude the authorities nor desperately want them to be caught.  Again, to many viewers this might be a major demerit—I certainly get the desire for a rooting interest—but I do appreciate the ambiguities.  In fact, that may be all that a film needs.