Badlands (1973)

Film: Badlands (1973)

Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates

Director: Terrence Malick

Oscar History: The film was actually eligible in 1974, for the record (it is famously a "1973" movie but it was only at film festivals that year), but got no nominations despite a generally enthusiastic reception when it first came out.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As part of our month-long celebration of the 10th Anniversary of The Many Rantings of John, I am completing all of the remaining gaps in my Terrence Malick filmography (one of my favorite film directors) with what we're calling "Terry Tuesdays" throughout June.

One of the weirder aspects about doing "Terry Tuesdays" (which we'll do chronologically the next four weeks) is that most of the Malick films I haven't seen are the "classics."  While Malick doesn't have a particularly long filmography, by-and-large I've seen the deep cuts.  As a result, you aren't going to get short-changed here with a lot of Knight of Cups, but instead we're going to dive into one of the most important films of the 1970's, Badlands.  While Malick had worked in the film industry before this making short films and as a script revisor (he reportedly was an uncredited contributor to Dirty Harry), Badlands was his first film, and luckily for Malick, he came of age in the 1970's, when major studios were taking a chance on a director as unorthodox as Malick, which is why Warner Brothers was willing to back such an iconic film with actors who were still up-and-coming (though Malick, true-to-form, was able to pick out the legends that would be Martin Sheen & Sissy Spacek).

(Spoilers Ahead) For those who have been raised on modern Malick, it might surprise you that Badlands has a relatively conventional approach to story, one where the script is actually pertinent and it's not just about the natural surroundings & feeling of the film (which would become his trademark in the decades to come in movies like The New World and The Tree of Life).  The film involves Kit Carruthers (Sheen), a troubled young 25-year-old who falls in love with a teenage Holly Sargis (Spacek), whose mother has recently died and is now living with her father (Oates).  Holly falls for Kit because he looks like James Dean (the film is set in the 1950's), and when they decide to run away together, Holly's father stops them, and in a moment of surprise, Kit kills him.  The two run away, burning down their house, and become fugitives on the lam, with Kit increasingly exhibiting bloodlust (killing police officers, and at one point, a friend of his for no reason), until they are caught by the authorities, with Holly getting off (and eventually marrying her attorney's son), while Kit is executed for his crimes, though he's experienced a semblance of fame as a result of his crime spree.

Badlands was not nominated for a lot of Oscars when it first came out, but it was recognized pretty quickly as a remarkable achievement, and it's hard not to see why critics became obsessed with it.  The movie is gorgeous, though because it's 1974 the cinematography might seem underwhelming compared to the ceaseless beauty of The New World.  However, compared to pretty much any other outdoors scenes being shot in 1974, you'd be hard-pressed to find a film that could compare.  The Montana and South Dakota Badlands are a wonder to behold, and there are moments where the camera has taken over, totally telling the story despite the film's relatively conventional (at least for Malick) approach to the screen.  It's a crime that the film wasn't nominated at least for Cinematography.

But Malick's style isn't just about pretty pictures-it's about capturing a mood, about capturing a longing, and that's what he does here.  Badlands finds something really rough but beautiful in the promise of these two young people, who are given the one thing in American culture you can commodify but you can never truly sell: youth...and shows how it comes with an aching to understand that is only possible with age.  The way that the two slowly realize that they are in love not with each other, but with the idea of being young-and-in-love, crossing the plains only for a short time, is glorious.  The film is also not shy about violence, but unlike Bonnie & Clyde (one of my favorite movies, so don't take this as a slight), this isn't glamorized, but instead it's lackadaisically vicious.  It's not entirely clear if romantic, dreamer Kit is just misguided or a full-on sociopath, but it feels like Malick is hinting at the latter, which makes his handsomeness & disarming charisma all the scarier amidst these soft meadows. Badlands understand that the American dream isn't real, and if you admit that, none of the myths about the American experience can hold much water...but that doesn't mean that they aren't important weights that enforce our experience here.