i have joined a dvd club in order to start filling the many gaps in my cinematic database. Badlands arrived last week. It is a strange and mysterious and oddly beautiful film, about a young couple from Nebraska who go on a killing spree. Like Bonnie and Clyde, but nothing like it.
it was directed by terence malick, who, in a heroic act of self-editing, has made only three films in thirty-five years. At least two of them, including this one, are considered stone-cold classics. (imagine if everyone was forced to abide by the same talent-to-production ratio). Malick has never done an interview, and makes no public appearances. There are no photographs of him.
The fascinating and surprisingly moving featurette that accompanies the film on DVD has interviews with the stars (Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek), plus the editor and the cinematographer, but not Malick (it is titled 'The Absence Of Malick'). The film, Malick's first, was made for next-to-nothing, with all the participants working for a fraction of their usual rate. They did this because they loved the script, and because they believed in Malick.
The whole team knew they were on to something special. Sheen talks about how, the day after he'd been awarded the role, he was driving down a Californian highway listening to Dylan's Desolation Row when he started weeping for joy and had to pull over. He was absolutely certain this film was going to be a classic.
what makes the film special? It's not that easy to enjoy - though it is beautiful to look at. The imagery is consistently ravishing. What's most striking about the film is its mystery. It refuses to offer obvious psychological or sociological explanations for the actions of its characters, which makes it almost unique for Hollywood movies on similar subjects. We don't learn about Sheen's childhood. He is not obviously oppressed by society. He's just a guy. Quite a nice guy. Who starts shooting people. The copy on the poster captures the film's tone well. Malick - a wide reader in philosophy, including Wittgenstein and Heidegger - just isn't interested in explanations for extreme behaviour, or for anything, as this reviewer notes:
Malick's films are not interested in “how the world is,” or what happens to be true, but in “that it is,” the uncanny (and tragic and wondrous and humbling) fact of its very existence (which is to say, they are not trying to say something at all).
which can be baffling. Until you start seeing things his way, and you start to admire the humility of his vision.
Malick appears in the film himself. Sheen and Spacek have taken over the mansion of a rich man, at gunpoint, and are using as a rest stop on their journey. A friend of the owner turns up on the doorstep. Sheen opens the door, and explains that the owner has flu. The man (Malick) is slightly bemused, accepts his explanation, toddles off. Now, we know from the featurette that Malick hadn't planned his own appearance. He thought he was standing in and that they'd reshoot later with an actor. But Sheen - much to Malick's displeasure - refused to shoot the scene with anyone but Malick. So, it was an accident, but it's a nice metaphor for Malick's approach. He doesn't attempt to get inside these people's heads. He's a curious, somewhat bemused, spectator.
One final thing. The movie's editor, in the featurette, says something wonderful about the film, something I hadn't noticed. He points out how Malick will often cut away from the central action in a scene to an object or person that is seemingly irrelevant. It is Malick's way, he said, of reminding us that even when extraordinary, terrible things are happening, life goes on elsewhere. In the final scene of the movie, a handcuffed Sheen is taken into an airplane in order to be flown to prison (and ultimately to his execution). As we we're watching the plane take off, with its already notorious mass-murderer inside, there is a brief shot of a postman with a bag of mail, walking dully along, oblivious to what's happening a few feet away.
