Badlands (1973)

Last Saturday I was thinking back to some of the films I watched in college. The New World by Terrence Malick stuck out in my mind. I recall my friend sharing that Malick took years to plan his films. Indeed, he has been directing for years but has released few movies over his long career (Malick’s filmography here), especially given his success.

I suspect that superficial attributes of a person prompt us to assume a hidden depth to their words and work. Malick is no exception. With his degree in Philosophy from Harvard, I am quick to assume that his time between films is spent brooding over the implications of each shot and detail. But at first glance, nothing about Badlands struck me as philosophical. It was Martin Sheen in a white T-shirt and jean jacket that captured my attention, a handsome man in his prime, a James Dean not of Hollywood but South Dakota.

That said, without having seen many of his movies (and he has far more than Malick) Martin Sheen is someone I like. I owe this to Krista Tippett (to whom I owe much) who interviewed Sheen in 2017 on her podcast, On Being. There, Sheen mentioned The Brothers Karamazov as a book that changed his life. It is a book my Existentialism professor in college recommended as his all-time favorite, but it was Sheen’s glowing review that convinced me to read it. A few years later, I am slightly embarrassed that all I have to mention from the tome is the same quote you’ll find all over the internet, that “without God, everything is permitted.” Nonetheless, it may be this quote that best characterizes Badlands.

In Badlands Malick takes many liberties with the true story of Charles Starkweather. From Nebraska, not South Dakota, Starkweather was only 19 when he murdered 11 people. Malick casts Sheen as 25-year-old Kit Carruthers, though Sheen was actually 33 at the time, with a physique far better than what you might imagine for an outcast serial killer. Kit’s magnetism and Malick’s shots of the wide-open South Dakota prairie defy expectations throughout the film. It’s not a dark, twisted psychological thriller like Joker from 2019, which though an impressive performance from Joaquin Phoenix, was disturbing in the ways one might expect. Kit Carruthers on the other hand, surprises his audience throughout Badlands, holding up innocent victims and pulling the trigger without a second thought, without ever calling his actions into question, all the while bringing his 15-year-old girlfriend, Holly, along for the ride. It is, for Kit, and for Malick, choreographing Kit’s tear on the silver screen, as if everything is permitted, existing entirely without reason. In Badlands, Kit Carruthers has no schizophrenic parent as does Arthur Fleck, The Joker, to explain his detachment from reality and human suffering. In fact, there is no back story, only his immediate desire for Holly, his 15-year-old companion, and a life free of authority, neither of which vindicate his character.

Even for those, including yours truly, who admire youthful rebellion, the James Deans of the world, the Easy Riders (a favorite worth comparing to Badlands), there is nothing to admire about Kit Carruthers. There is no ambition or idealism offered by his actions or words to put in contention with the commonly accepted values of society, for Kit makes no such contention, and neither does Malick who merely portrays a mind in which everything is permitted, and lays bare the reality of such an attitude on the silver screen, against the backdrop of the golden, South Dakota prairie. In this way there is nothing to value in Kit’s rebellion, not even freedom, something Kit himself can’t stand. He allows himself to be caught. He has no more reason to flee than to be captured.

Just as a life free from authority is not Kit’s ultimate motive, neither is his love for Holly, particularly if the actions of the real Charles Starkweather may speak for Kit Carruthers. In his capture, the real Starkweather turned on his girlfriend, insisting she was guilty for the murders he committed. “Nebraska”, the Bruce Springsteen song about Starkweather, put a spin on his insistence, claiming that Starkweather wanted Caril Ann Fugate, the real Holly, on his lap when he went to the electric chair on June 25th, 1959.

Charles Starkweather was the last Nebraskan to be sentenced to death until 1994. It was not Malick’s intention for the viewer of Badlands to rejoice in the death of Kit Carruthers, or even to lament it, as no doubt many viewers like myself are opposed to the death penalty, no matter the crimes committed. Instead, Malick cuts Badlands short, sharing that Kit was sentenced to death but ending the film without showing it. Instead, the film ends with the viewer wondering what to make of the bloody spree of Kit Carruthers, not whether or not his death at the hands of the law is justified. Similarly, there is little room for the viewer to question if Kit’s murders are justified. They are simply permitted in his mind, and by Malick who believes there is something worth seeing in the story, which, among other things, is also a beautiful excuse to show off his cinematography. But it is no mistake that these go hand in hand: the beautiful and the terrible, the commendable and the reprehensible. There is something so clear about Badlands that we wonder if it was necessary to represent, which is perhaps exactly why Malick chose to represent it. After all, we are made to come to terms with the film. And perhaps there is something to love in the search for depth where maybe there is none. Or, there is a very big mistake in the mind that finds no depth, and needs for some things not to be permitted.