"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 ...
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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, Rovi
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Add this copy of Badlands (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-Ray] to cart. $19.98, very good condition, Sold by BMC1701 rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Norwalk, IA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Criterion Collection.
Add this copy of Badlands [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray] to cart. $42.71, new condition, Sold by Importcds rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sunrise, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2013.
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Seller's Description:
Martin Sheen; Sissy Spacek; Warren Oates; Alan Vint; Ramon Bieri. New. Run time: 95 mins. Language: English. New in new packaging. USA Orders only! Brand New product! please allow delivery times of 3-7 business days within the USA. US orders only please.
Add this copy of Badlands (Criterion Collection) [Blu-Ray] to cart. $45.76, new condition, Sold by newtownvideo rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from huntingdon valley, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Criterion Collection.
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Sissy Spacek, Martin Sheen. New. 1973 Run time: 94. Buy with confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Delivery Confirmation included for all orders in the US.
This outstanding film was recommended by a Facebook friend who is a noted crime author and scholar of American literature. This year is the film's 50th anniversary and an article by Gus Mitchell dated October 27, 2023 on the director, Terrence Malik, who made his debut with "Badlands" says it all: "Fifty Years Later Badlands Remains a Pure Encapsulation of American Violence."
The film is set in middle America in the 1950s, in a small South Dakota town and in the vast spaces of the Great Plains. It is loosely based on real events and tells of the relationship between a charismatic James Dean like character, Kit, 25, (Martin Sheen) violent and with no prospects and Holly (Sissy Spacek) age 15. Holly frequently narrates the film through voice-overs. There is a real chemistry between Sheen and Spacek and superb acting throughout and beautiful cinematography of small towns, never-ending plains and mountains, and passing trains. Kit and Holly go on the run after Kit murders Holly's father. There will be many more murders before the film ends.
Kit is a violent loner and isolated person while Holly is cool and distant and ultimately able to look after herself. With all the violence, the film is provocative, lyrical and transcendent. It has been placed on the National Film Registry maintained by the Library of Congress.
A recent book "Beyond Twisted Sorrow: The Promise of Country Noir" discusses many noir-related American novels and films set in rural areas and in the West with noir influenced themes. Gertzman discusses D.H. Lawrence's description of some American literature as involving characters who are "hard, isolate,stoic, and a killer" and applies this depiction to "Badlands" and Kit. He describes "Badlands" as "a stunning example of a nihilistic isolate, set in the American west." Gertzman also describes Holly's "diffidence regarding responsibility" as "she describes Kit's execution on a sunny day six months after his capture as if she were reciting the end of a fairy tale". (Gertzman, pp. 182-83)
I was grateful to see this film at last, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
Robin Friedman
peter
May 22, 2014
Malack is a genious
Badlands is a sereal,almost hipnotitic,dreamlike look into a part of american culture.... lovers living in a dream, living by their own rules...which are not many. A road movie told in the context of lovers on the run from murder ...for love ...longing to be free , but knowing the dream will end.
Badlands is in a class of it,s own, thanks to the vision of Terance Malick and the beautiful preformances by Martin Sheen and Sissy spacek.
Many attemps have been made to capture the dreamlike story , but Badlands will always be in a class of it,s own.
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