AND THEN THERE WAS…
BADLANDS
By Raymond Benson
Terrence
Malick fans will rejoice for the newly restored (and director approved, I might add—so apparently he’s not as reclusive
as he’s been made out to be), marvelous release of the auteur’s first, and very
low-budget, feature film. It was
originally screened at festivals in 1973, and released to the public in early
’74. No punches pulled here—Badlands is a masterpiece, and its
arrival immediately garnered a fan following for the enigmatic director who has
made only five films in so many decades. But as producer Edward Pressman says in the exclusive video interview
that The Criterion Collection included as one of several good extras, Badlands was not a success on its first
release. Reviews were mixed—as would be
the case for any Malick film—and the public didn’t go see it. Pressman also had to fight for Malick to have
his own artistic vision, despite complaints and pressure from the backers. The film was properly “discovered†when it
started playing on cable television some years later. By then, Malick was making Days of Heaven, and these would be the
only two pictures he would make before a twenty-year gap in output. Already his mystique had been established.
Badlands is indeed a
remarkable film, not only because of the unique point of view Malick brings to
the table, but for the performances of young Martin Sheen and young Sissy
Spacek. They are both knock-outs, and
they were undeservedly ignored when awards season came around. Sheen, especially, gives a chilling
performance of psychopath-as-James Dean, more or less, because the character
fashions himself after the famous actor. You can’t help but like the guy. He is utterly charming to the girl he’s chosen to run away with him on a
killing spree, and the couple’s love for each other is so real and so oddball
that we can’t help but be fascinated by them.
It
is Malick’s most “accessible†film, perhaps, for it tells a linear,
sweeps-you-along story with characters you can follow through a story arc. If you know Malick only from his recent works
(The Tree of Life, The Thin Red Line), you’ll know he
didn’t always stick to that format. However,
Malick displays many of his signature traits even here. A common stylistic and thematic element of
the director’s films is the marriage of nature to whatever story is being told,
thus there are striking cinematographic images of plains, bugs, birds, flowers,
wheat, and sky, all set to some unusual piece of music from an eclectic palate
of recorded works. (The unique soundtrack
to Badlands has never been compiled
and released, and someone should do
it!)
Loosely
inspired by the real-life Charles Starkweather case of the late 1950s, Badlands is a road movie that is poetry
in motion, haunting and unforgettable. The 4K digital transfer is gorgeous. Other extras include an engrossing forty-minute piece on the making of
the film, featuring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek today, reminiscing about the
extraordinary experience they had with “Terry.†Associate editor Billy Weber also provides an interview, and a highlight
is the 1993 episode of TV’s American
Justice about Starkweather.
If
you’ve never seen Badlands, take a
look at this exquisite Criterion release and experience something beautiful and
strange.
Click here to order from Amazon
ALSO NEW FROM
CRITERION:
Ministry
of Fear,
1944, directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, and
Dan Duryea, looks fantastic on Blu-ray. It’s one of the best restorations and transfers I’ve seen of a
black-and-white film noir of the
period. Lang’s German Expressionistic
background is classroom-clear in the look of this intriguing spy tale, based on
a novel by Graham Greene (The Third Man). The high-contrast light-and-shadow and angled
lines are all over the place. Nazi spies
in England are the bad guys, and our innocent man on the run (Milland) thinks
he knows where a few of them are hiding. The problem is, he’s a former mental asylum patient who served time for
mercy-killing his already dying wife. This is a terrific World War II-era paranoia thriller, despite the fact
that so many American actors in the picture are supposed to be British, and they
make no attempt to sound that way. Still,
the story is compelling and the direction is superb. Includes an interview with Lang scholar Joe
McElhaney.
Click here to order from Amazon