Badlands (1973)

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Directed by Terrence Malick.

Starring Ramon Bieri, Warren Oates, Sissy Spacek, Alan Vint, Martin Sheen.

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"He wanted to die with me and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms." A young couple goes on a Midwest crime spree in Terrence Malick's hypnotically assured debut feature, based on the 1950s Starkweather-Fugate murders. Fancying himself a rebel like James Dean, twentysomething Kit (Martin Sheen) takes off with teen baton-twirler Holly (Sissy Spacek) after shooting her father (Warren Oates) when he tries to split the pair up. Once bounty hunters discover their riverside hiding place, Kit and Holly head toward Saskatchewan, leaving dead bodies in their wake. As the law closes in, however, Holly gives herself up -- but Kit doesn't hold it against her, as he basks in his new status as a momentary folk hero. Inaugurating the use of voice-over narration that he would continue in Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick juxtaposes Holly's flat readings of her flowery romance-novel diary prose with the banal and surreal details of their journey. Singularly inarticulate with each other, Kit and Holly are more intrigued by mythic celebrity gestures, as Holly peruses her fan magazines and Kit commemorates key moments before orchestrating a properly dramatic capture for himself (complete with the right hat). The sublime visuals lend a dreamlike beauty to the couple's trip even as their actions are treated casually; Malick neither glamorizes Kit and Holly nor consigns them to the bloody end of their fame-fixated predecessors in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). With the couple's opaque dialogue and Holly's fanzine dream narration, Malick further denies an easy explanation for their crimes. Made for under 500,000 dollars, Badlands debuted at the 1973 New York Film Festival, along with Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and was released within months of two other outlaw-couple road movies, Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express and Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. Although Badlands did not make an impression at the box office, its pictorial splendor and cool yet disquieting narrative established Malick as one of the most compelling artists to come out of early-'70s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

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Reviews and discussions

Badlands (1973, Terrence Malick ...
by kristen in kristen Blog

hasn't rated it.

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"Terrence Malicks first film, Badlands (1973), provides insight to the desensitization of a murderer. The characters Kit (Martin Sheen) and Holly (Sissy Spacek) are depraved; the voiceovers allow them to be human while their actions distance them from humanity. Hollys relationship to Kit is interesting. They fall in love. When Kit murders her father, Holly makes the decision to stay with him. Their relationship is no longer the same. At first, they have fun, but Holly becomes more removed. She thinks about her future husband, and reveals to other characters that she feels as if she must support Kit, for he is lost and needs someone. Holly stays true to her initial decision to be with Kit, but she longs for a different life. It feels almost as if she fells obligated to stay with him because she first choose this path, though now she wants to be a part of society. It seems that many people can relate to this situation. A person may fall in love and decide to be with a person, but lat ... " [More]

movie year countdown - round #2 ...
by Risselada in Risselada Blog

loved it.

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"This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown round #2”. Read more about that here.The New WorldWell it's strange but I seem to like each of Malick's subsequent movies less and less. Badlands is one of my absolute favoirtes of all time. In the cold, decisive world of movie ratings I gave it at 10. Days of Heaven I gave a 9, The Thin Red Line an 8, and The New World a 7.I feel like the movies are losing the inherent ironic humor of his characters and narration for something that's trying to be more poetic and profound in it's sincerity. It's not connecting with me as much.I don't think I ever really connect with Malick's characters. I guess at first I didn't think we were supposed to. But now he uses the same distancing techniques on conjunction with techniques that seem to be striving for the opposite. I won't deny the cinematography is gorgeous. The worlds and history come alive to an extent that is rare on screen. Bu ... " [More]

Re: My favorite directors (by a ...
by tmoney in Directors

loved it.

"I wasn't too impressed by "The New World." I think this might have been a case of overselling. I'd heard so many good things about the movie, so I figured I'd really like it. Then I watched it, and I was sort of bored. I know I expected more of something, but sadly I don't remember what because it's been more than a year since I watched it.[/quote]It breaks my heart every time someone is dissapointed with The New World. It is one of my absolute favorites, and I have seen it probably six or seven times (days of heaven and thin red line being at close second, surprisingly Badlands is my least favorite, even though I love it.) I think one needs to watch it understanding what a Malick film is. The one complaint I have heard by dozens is that they thought The New World was boring. And yes, it is a slow film as are all of Malick's films, but I think that really adds to the beauty. Some words that come to mind: contemplative, nature, poetic, emotion. Malick do ... " [More]

Re: My favorite directors (by a ...
by indieabby88 in Directors

hasn't rated it.

Re: My favorite directors (by a ...
by Risselada in Directors

loved it.

"Actually a director who has made less films is in some way at more of an advantage because it is easier for me to see a higher percentage of the number of films they have made. And if the few I have seen are all extremely good, then their score shoots up high. That's why people like Malick, Todd Solondz, Wes Anderson, PT Anderson are on this list. Then again if even one of their movies was a total stinker it would take down the average quicker.In the case of Malick specifically, I have seen Badlands which I gave a score of 10, Days of Heaven which was a 9, and The Thin Red Line which was an 8. I have yet to see The New World. So the average score works out to be 9. But it's a higher percentage of movies.I have also seen three movies by Vittorio De Sica, but his average comes out to 9.667. But because he has made so many more movies I haven't seen he is inadvertently at a disadvantage.The way I originally rated it was that each movie I haven't seen would be au ... " [More]

Re: The Response!
by tmoney in What An Ending

loved it.

"Oh Rizzo I cannot believe that you have yet to see The New World. When I first saw it I was blown away yet hesitant to leap this level of praise on it, but in retrospect, I can now say this is my favorite film. period. My heart aches just when i think about it. But you have to see it on a big screen. it won't do the cinematography justice otherwise. and make sure you are not tired when you watch it because some people I talk to refer to it as the most boring film ever. but i was so captivated by it when i first watched it i didn't notice its slow pace. If you like Terrence Malick, this is in my opinion, his best work. And that is saying a lot. " [More]

Badlands
by rlpolo04 in rlpolo04 Blog

is neutral about it.

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"Badlands- ***Directed by Terrance Malick May 2, 2007At the end of the film an officer tells Kit (Martin Sheen, never better) “you’re quite an individual” Kit replies “you think they’ll take that into consideration?” This scene really sums up the entire movie because Kit wants to be his own person and wants people to know him. Badlands (1973) is based on the true story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate (Malick changed the names to Kit and Holly). They went on a shooting spree in the Midwest during the year 1958. Terrance Malick brings this story to life as he writes, produces and directs for the first time at the age of twenty-nine. It happens all too quickly. I really couldn’t figure out why they loved each other so much. That is the only problem I had with this beautifully shot film. Kit, who is twenty-five, just got of work (he’s a garbage man) and lays eyes on a young red headed girl twirling a baton in her front yard. T ... " [More]

Re: Top War Films
by Risselada in Top 5

loved it.

"[quote user="SkyPilot"] 1. The Thin Red Line--I've never been in the military but the movement of the film feels very realistic, a hurry-up-and-wait situation. But since it's Malick, it's often slow-down-and-wait, too. 2. The Deer Hunter--By now we probably all know that there is no evidence for the Viet Cong forcing their prisoners to play Russian roulette. Fine. It's still one of the most compelling scenes in cinema history. 3. Apocalypse Now--not the Redux, in which the scenes had some interesting points or themes, but I don't think most of the scenes helped the movie. Except maybe the scene where Kurtz comes to the guys' cell and reads to him from--Time magazine was it? Still, you have a trade-off because that's the only time you see Kurtz in the daylight, and I like how in the original he's always in the dark of the temple. 4. Saving Private Ryan--UPPUM WILL YOU GET UP THAT F***ING STAIRCASE! It still does it to me every time. 5. Platoon--I don't have much to say a ... " [More]

Re: NEW Group, Top 5 current di ...
by Risselada in Top 5

loved it.

"1. Joel and Ethan Coen 2. Jim Jarmusch 3. Hal Hartley 4. Tsai Ming-Liang 5. Terry Gilliam Gilliam was actually hard to say because I haven't seen several of his movies. Anyone seen Tideland yet? Werner Herzog is another one I thought of as well, but there are so many of his movies I haven't seen either. I also thought about Terry Zwigoff, but still haven't seen Art School Confidential yet either. And I almost wanted to say Aki Kaurismäki just based on The Man Without a Past. I haven't seen a single one of his other movies because they all seem to difficult to be able to find, but if most of them rival this film, he'd definitely be up there. Paul, this is a really cool list! I'm surprised someone else listed Tsai Ming-Liang. Badlands is one of my aboslute most favorite films. And Days of Heaven is extremely good. I just saw The Thin Red Line for the second time recently and didn't find it as good as I had remembered it. Mallick is such a mysterious figure. Have you seen ... " [More]

Re: What If Hitchcock Could Use ...
by Risselada in PulpFiction1975

loved it.

"Well, I'm not one for claiming one movie is objectively "better" than another. But of my personal appreciation and enjoyment, YES, I am ready to claim that Duel ranks higher than Raiders of the Lost Ark. Although I like Raiders very much, I also prefer Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, and Jaws as well. Although I think I've only seen about half of the movies Spielberg has directed. You probably won't like me saying this, but I just saw The Thin Red Line again recently and found it to be not as intriguing as I had remembered. Maybe it's just because I've become so infatuated with Badlands since then that it just can't live up to it. " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

loved it.

What could have been just another story about delinquents on the run was turned into something extraordinary by first-time director Terrence Malick. A uniquely lyrical story of violence and teenage mythos in the 1950s, Badlands is probably the most low-key film ever made about a mass murderer. Twenty-four-year-old Kit Carruthers (played to perfection by Martin Sheen) has so deeply immersed himself in the studied, affectless cool of James Dean that he appears incapable of showing emotions, while his 15-year-old girlfriend, Holly (Sissy Spacek, also excellent), is at once too baffled by Kit to know how to react and too bored and starved for attention to turn him away when he drags her along for a multi-state killing spree; their crimes seem to stem less from anger than from ennui gone wrong. Much as Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns featured amoral men in a landscape at once beautiful and desolate, Malick places his murderous couple in an American landscape both stunning and strangely barren; Kit's violence seems less an act of focused rage than a pitiful attempt to make something new of his otherwise plain surroundings, much as Holly's flowery narration tries to derive an exciting story from their arid, sordid lives. (Malick's camera crew, led by Tak Fujimoto, Steven Larner, and Brian Probyn, do brilliant work on a limited budget.) Presenting his killers without judgment (but without approval, either), Malick wrought a strange and unsettling beauty for this first chapter in his remarkable (if not prolific) film career. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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