Film Review
In that all too brief period in the 1970s, when the auteur flourished
and brought an exciting new impetus to American cinema, there was a
surge of new talent comparable only with the French New Wave of the
previous decade. Among the fresh crop of individualistic
filmmakers to arrive at this momentous time was thirty-year-old
Terrence Malick, who received instant acclaim with his remarkable debut
feature
Badlands. A
provocative mix of road movie and juvenile romance, the film was
inspired by the real-life story of Charles Starkweather, a teenager who
went on a mad killing spree with his 13-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann
Fugate in 1957. Rather than portray his gun-toting killer as we
might expect, as a mad, habitually aggressive psychopath, Malick makes
him out to be a sympathetic outsider, someone who, with his striking
James Dean looks and mannerisms, we cannot help identifying with.
Presented from the perspective of its 15-year-old heroine, Holly,
Badlands has the alluring character
of a children's fairytale. Both protagonists, Kit and Holly, are
innocents who are scarcely aware of the gravity of their crimes.
They are unable to engage with either their victims or the world around them,
and their only reality is the idyll that they share together, an
unsullied teen romance that is played out against a landscape of
extraordinary natural beauty. The monstrous nature of Kit's
random acts of violence momentarily shocks us but it does not diminish
our sympathy for him - his star-like charisma and individuality have an
intoxicating effect on the spectator, a chilling reminder, perhaps, of
the lure of the celebrity to which our present era is particularly
prone.
It is hard to believe that
Badlands
is Malick's first film, even harder to believe that it was made on a
shoestring budget. Strong central performances from Martin Sheen
and Sissy Spacek (both at the start of their impressive film careers),
coupled with Malick's trademark use of stunning natural locations, make
this a distinctive piece of cinema that has echoes of the legendary
American westerns of the past whilst prefiguring the great road movies
that were to come. The influence of Arthur Penn's
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is
easily recognised, as are the recurring references to James Dean's
films
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
and
Giant
(1956), and yet Malick still manages to forge his own identity and
deliver a film that is quite unlike any other that has gone before.
The intense lyricism contained in the stark images is heightened by a
soundtrack that takes in an eccentric diversity of themes, which
includes some popular songs of the 1950s, extracts from work by Carl
Orff and Erik Satie, and a specially composed piece by George Tipton,
which has been endlessly imitated since. Many subsequent
filmmakers have taken their inspiration from
Badlands, but few have succeeded in
matching its effortless cinematic brilliance and unsettlingly ironic
poetry. This is a film that admits various interpretations, from
a dark commentary on the futility of dreams to an acknowledgement of
the moral bankruptcy of western society in the wake of the consumer
revolution, but it is also one that stands on its own artistic merits, a
seductive piece of cinematic art that resonates with truth and beauty.
© James Travers 2013
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Film Synopsis
Some time in the 1950s... In a small South Dakota town,
15-year-old Holly lives a dull but contented life with her father, a
sign painter. One day, she meets Kit, a handsome young man, ten
years her senior, who resembles James Dean. Kit has just lost his
job as a garbage collector and is unable to find work, so he whiles
away his time in the company of Holly, both taking care to keep their
budding romance from Holly's father. When Kit enters Holly's
house to take her away with him he has a frosty encounter with her
father, which ends with him shooting the unforgiving painter
dead. Having set fire to the house, Kit and Holly take to the
road and embark on a long drive across open country, both knowing that
it is only a matter of time before the authorities start chasing after
them...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.