In 1958, a deranged 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, went on a short-lived murder spree, killing eleven people, including a two-year-old girl. This infamous rampage inspired many movies, the first of which was the most closely connected to the true story. It is also, in my opinion, the best movie of all the Starkweather-inspired films. The movie that I am referring to is Terence Malick’s exciting debut, “Badlands”.
All the names and many of the actual details were revised by Malick in his screenplay. The essence of the true story remains within the movie and Mallick’s film works to embellish a primitive understanding of the empty lives of the disfranchised living in small town America.
In his movie, Starkweather becomes the 25-year-old Korean War vet Kit (Martin Sheens’ greatest performance), and Fugate becomes the 15-year-old Holly (Sissy Spacek in her screen debut). Like the real Starkweather, Kit works as a garbage collector when he sees Holly twirling a baton in the most innocent of fashions. He approaches her to just say hello, and we hear through Holly’s narration that she thinks that he was the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. As Kit, Sheen acts and looks like a wannabe James Dean. The true life Starkweather was a great admirer of Dean’s and strove to look and act like Dean’s cinematic image. Sheen’s performance demonstrates a keen awareness of this obsession with Dean. When Holly’s overly-strict father (the always terrific Warren Oats), refuses to allow Holly to be with Kit, Kit arrives armed with a gun at their home, looking to take Holly away with him. Here he confronts the father and, after a few feeble warning attempts, shoots him dead, triggering the ensuing killing spree. The real Starkweather not only killed Fugate’s stepfather, but also her mother and her 2-year-old sister. Not making Kit as cruel as Starkweather was one of the key differences that Malick makes. Kit is instead shown as being emotionally detached from everything except Holly and justifies his actions as just something that needs to be done. He does not show any joy in any of the killings. He also shows no remorse. Both he and Holly live in some sort of fantasy land created within their uncomplicated minds. Eventually, Holly will begin to worry about what she has gotten herself into. While there is still a large question as to the culpability of the real Fugate in the killings, Malick shows Holly as a simple-minded and naïve victim.
Martin Sheen was born to play Kit. Malick knew that his casting of Sheen would be perfect and revised the script to make Kit a War Vet and older than in the original script, so as to allow Sheen a realistic portrayal of Kit. Sheen read about the real Starkweather’s infatuation with Dean and, as such, decided to play Kit like a fanboy who imagines he is Dean, and while imitating Dean, makes everyone aware that he is only pretending. This is not an actor trying to become James Dean, but rather an actor becoming a pitiful lost soul who gets lost in a dream of becoming James Dean. The only thing missing from his dream, was a girl to love him and to be famously loved by everyone else. For this reason, he found a lonely schoolgirl whose own lost dreams and lack of maturity left her open for emotional control. The fame he believed would come through notoriety. He does not kill for pleasure or anger. At one point, someone asks him if he likes people, and his response is an indifferent shrug of why not. While his first murder is made so that he can take control of Holly, and another three are explained as being in self-defense, there are others that are committed for no reason and even one where he kills one of the only people he could call a friend. Kit murders for a purpose in his warped imagination. Sheen plays him hulking like Dean, yet always looking like he is lost inside. While this is the role that made his career, it also limited Sheen. In every subsequent Sheen performance, I always felt there was a bit of Kit within. For example, there is quite a bit of Kit in Captain Willard of “Apocalypse Now.”
As Holly, Spacek is perfect. Freckled faced and gangly in structure, she is quite believable as a 15-year-old insignificant teenager. Since it is her thoughts that narrate the movie, we get to know her quite well by the end. She is not very smart and has even less ambition. When Kit first approaches her, she is astonished that such a good-looking man would find her attractive. The first part of the movie is almost a romance as Kit courts her after school, and she loses her virginity to him. Throughout it all her thoughts stay consistent and lost. She is not capable of deep thinking and is easily swayed to go with Kit after he kills her father. It is not easy for an adult, even a young adult, to play an adolescent, and Spacek knocks it out of the park.
“Badlands” is one of Cinema’s great directorial debuts. The only debut that I can think of that is better is Wells, “Citizen Kane”. Within the crime drama and a road movie premise, Malick finds his style. After killing Holly’s father, Kit and Holly drive away to the badlands of Montana. They build a tree house in a remote area, steal chickens for food, and live like lost children in a fairy tale. Here Malick first introduces us to his iconic expansive landscapes and incisive shots of wildlife that are some of his trademarks. Elements that can be found in all his subsequent movies. There is a feeling here of how violence in humanity is akin to the natural violence of nature.
Malick would be known in his filmography for being a master of visualizing thoughts and aspirations in people. There is a powerful scene where, in the middle of the empty landscape, Holly takes out her father’s old stereoscope viewer, using it to look at some old images of a family, while we hear her thoughts narrating her awareness that if Kit did not kill her father, she would have a chance of this type of normal life. This is all done wordless through Malick’s sensitive camera and Spacek’s sad monotone. I felt like I was looking through a window into the thoughts of Holly. The scene is extremely poignant and dreamlike.
The closing section of the film stays true to its tone, but also hints at the sickness of modernity and its obsession with pain. There is a hint of the dangers of infamy and its lure to the young that is subtly portrayed. At one point, even though he is being led to his doom, Kit seems almost happy to have people notice him.
With “Badlands”, the great director Terrence Malick created a debut film that is thought provoking, horrifying and beautiful at the same time. It is one of the great American films of the 70s and a masterpiece.
1001 Movies before you die 