Badlands: A Review

BADLANDS

While watching Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, I saw that The Boss was inspired, in part, by the film Badlands. Sparse, simple, Terrence Malick's feature film debut tells its story of murderous love effectively.

Badlands is told primarily in voiceover by Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek). She is a fifteen-year-old who has recently moved from Texas to Fort Dupree, South Dakota. Holly soon attracts the attention of 25-year-old garbageman Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen). He models himself after the actor James Dean, which adds to his allure for Holly.

Holly's father (Warren Oates) is none too pleased by this blossoming romance. Mr. Sargis kills Holly's dog as punishment for her continued romance with Kit. Holly's father senses that Kit is bad news. His instincts prove correct. Kit wants Holly to run off with him. When Mr. Sargis comes home to find this scene, he tells Kit that he's calling the police. Kit responds by shooting Mr. Sargis to death. Holly, either in shock or in idiocy, does not seem to understand that Daddy is dead.

With that, Kit confesses his crime on a record and then sets the house on fire. Holly goes with him. They go to the badlands of Montana, where they live off the land and off the grid. Bounty hunters eventually find them and Kit kills them. Now, it is off to try and get out of the United States. Kit begins a killing spree. He kills his friend Cato (Ramon Bieri) after Kit senses that Cato was close to turning them in. Two young kids who stumbled onto Cato's homestead are locked in the storm cellar. Kit shoots down at them but does not know if they were killed or not.

Kit and Holly then stumble onto a mansion where they hold the homeowners and their deaf maid hostage. They continue on the lam, somewhat aware that there is a massive manhunt for them. Will Holly and Kit go down in a blaze of glory? Will Holly leave her murderous lover or attempt to keep going to the magical land of Saskatchewan?

One of the most fascinating elements in Badlands is that while there is much violence, we see very little of it on screen. For a couple of crazy kids on a murderous crime spree, Badlands keeps things quite clean. The killings of Mr. Sargis and Cato are the only real moments of blood that I can recall. Even those killings are pretty tame, especially compared to how graphic some contemporary films can be. 

I think that Badlands is not about this killer and his accessory after the fact. Director Malick may have based his screenplay on the real-life case of Charles Starkweather and his teen girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. However, Badlands is not a Starkweather/Fugate biopic. I would say that Badlands is about the coldness of crime. Holly does not participate in the killings. She is metaphorically and literally there for the ride. 

As played by Sissy Spacek, Holly is very passive. She narrates Badlands, and in her voice, we hear someone almost detached from things. There is a passive manner to Holly which Spacek captures exceptionally well. Holly is not a bad person by any stretch. She is just someone who might be suffering from a form of Stockholm syndrome.

In her narration, she calmly explains how Kit differentiates between lawmen and bounty hunters. As such, he appears to tell her that his killing of the three men who stumbled onto their rural hideout was justified. It would not have been had they been law enforcement officials, as it was their job. It was right if they were bounty hunters, for they were in it for the money.

Martin Sheen is also a standout in Badlands. His Kit Carruthers is surprisingly not an evil man. I would say that he is a hollow man. I found him to be more soulless than evil. In a sense, Sheen had to play two characters. He played Kit Carruthers, a man who seemed abandoned by life with no sense of the future. On the other, he also seemed to play someone attempting to be like his hero, James Dean. Sheen even manages to make Kit a bit charming at the end. He seems to delight in his notoriety among the lawmen who have captured him. There is something moody, hollow, strangely detached from things in Kit. It is a credit to Sheen's skills that he did not make Kit into a monster. Instead, he is a man who exists but who has no core to him.

Badlands has beautiful cinematography. That is no small feat given that the film had three cinematographers during its production (Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Provin). It is I think impossible for the viewer to know who did what. It speaks well of Robert Estrin's editing that Badlands holds together as well as it does. 

Badlands also uses the music of Carl Orff along with composer George Tipton's original music. Of particular note is when the Sargis house is set ablaze. The music here is sad, mournful and quiet. It reflects the somber nature of Badlands.

Badlands is a quiet film. That is not to say that it does not have the power to move the viewer. By keeping things sparse, the viewer can focus on the characters. The bad romance of Kit and Holly leaves one feeling sadness for them. It does not celebrate their actions. It does give them a great sense of tragedy.

DECISION: B+