Badlands

“Well, I got some stuff to say. Guess I’m kind of lucky that way”(Kitt;Badlands)

With reference to the following quote “... as an influential ‘road movie’, Badlands is almost misnamed as the majority of the film is a departure from the staple road movie iconography of gas stations and diners.” (Ian-Malcolm Rijsdijk)  I will be discussing the ways in which Badlands both represents and challenges the road movie genre.

The Road-Movie most often described as a sub-genre of the Adventure and Western Genres, which generally focusses on the protagonist who is either going to a specific destination or is running away from a former place of familiarity,“the liberation of the road against the oppression of hegemonic norms”(Cohan and Hark;1;1997).The genre itself explores multiple American Ideas of the frontier, freedom, youth-rebellion, anti-authoritarianism and reinvention. The road enables the protagonist to develop for better or for worse, in the hope to break free from the past and enter the future with new reinvented conceptions. The road movie normally seeks to further embed certain ideologies and values of the society at hand. 

The themes which Badlands explores, is the same as that of other road movies. Yet instead of instilling the ideals and values of the dominant society, it creates an arena of irony and debate and questions the core of these notions. Kit and Holly’s restless and violent journey / murder spree, portrays the individualistic pioneer and frontiers man and the pure idea thereof. Who attempts to escape the constraints of an oppressive highly institutionalized society, which is contrasted by the accompaniment of Holly’s naive and romantic narration of what happened.

“He was handsomer than anybody that I’d ever met, he looked just like James Dean.”; “He wanted to die with me... I dreamt of being lost forever in his arms” (Holly; Badlands)

“...What remains is a chilling circularity reflecting a pessimism about society’s motivating values and underlying beliefs, not least because of the generic responsibility films themselves must bear for the maintenance, perpetuation and unquestioned reinforcement of these very same damaging, but persistent, American cultural myths and ideologies.”(Neil Campbell;50;2007)

Kit further strengthens the tension between what values he supposedly believes in, with what his actions dictate. After killing Holly’s father, he makes a recording in which he says that it is important to listen to parents, which is a direct contradiction to what he did not do, after being told by Holly’s father to leave Holly alone and or leave the house when he approached her father with a gun, and in the end killing him. He often makes statements that is embedded with what a “good citizen” should be doing, and at the same time “Kit resents restrictive controls and being ‘too much like others’ “ (Neil Campbell;46;2007) He’s a walking talking contradiction, or is he? In-fact Kit is but a hero of old cast in the world of new.

“Kit is not rebellious or anti-social, but ‘an Eisenhower conservative’ and a very conventional American Dreamer, if in extremis, troubled by the loss of moral direction in community and family whose individual action and ‘frontier spirit’ is his way of purging the world. Like frontiersman his gunplay suggests, Kit’s amoral actions resonate with classic, mythic American traits..” (Neil Campbell;45;2007)

A narrative similarity that Badlands shares with other road movies is that the protagonist might be against the norms of society at first “By my definition, the road movie is a vehicle for either one or a small group of individuals who seek to escape the world they are living in and set out towards redemption on the road.” (Sam North;2009;Hackwriters.com)  and through the decisive use of the Bildungsroman “A narrative where the protagonist experiences growth, spiritually, and mentally, throughout the story.”(Writinghood;10 literary terms;2009) where the character makes a conscious choice to enter society again. Although in Kit’s case it is him handing himself over to the police, where he gets processed by the system and is eventually executed. At the same time this conforms and goes against the conventional road movie. Yes, the character does go back to society and has a strong understanding and respect for the values and ideologies of the society, but it in turn makes a comment on whether the society in which this hero of old and his ideals will still be wanted.

“Though road films exalt rebellion over conformity Laderman notes that these films often give only the appearance of rebellion, as they were products of the Hollywood genre system.”(Gordon Alley-Young; vol. 9;issue 1; 2007)

From an aesthetic point of view, Badlands deviates from the conventional sense of what one would think a road movie would look like. Aesthetically you never really see much of the actual road (Tar), as you would think you would. I believe it breaks from the road and becomes a western as they are seen crossing the open plains and barren areas of land, not inhabited by civilization, just as the early-settlers crossed the land on horseback, Kit and Holly now as the youth cross it in their own way.  This as a theme, references back to the idea of reinvention of old ideas and progression of the Bildungsroman, not of the specific story, but more of a post-modern Bildungsroman looking at the development of the Road Movie genre as whole in it’s entirety.

“Fearing there’d be roadblocks on the highways, we took off across that area known as the Great Plains. Kit told me to enjoy the scenery, and I did.” (Holly; Badlands)

 Another note on how it breaks from the conventional conception of a road movie, is the movies use of multiple forms of transportation, such as the train, even though they don’t travel by it, they consider jumping onto it. The helicopter which Holly takes, also deviates from this idea, yet Kit’s reluctance to be caught by the authorities, may be a motivation for escape, but it could also be said that if Kit is the representation of old ideas. It can be seen that the reason why he escapes in a car he still holds these old ideas close and still refuses to conform to the modern world. At least only until the end when he gives in to the authorities, he boards a plane to on his way to his eventual execution.

Road Movies often follows their main characters getting lost or deviating from the original planned out route.  Holly’s inability to identify certain places and replacing them with made up names, clearly brings her need to be familiar with her surroundings across, yet Badlands deviates from a planned route as Kit travels in any direction, an example of this is when he spins a bottle to determine into which direction they should travel.

“We took off at sunset, on a line toward the mountains of Saskatchewan, for Kit a magical land beyond the reach of the law.” (Holly;Badlands)

“We could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I’d ever seen”(Holly;Badlands)

When we look at road movies, we cannot look at it without realizing that we are watching the ever-changing reflection of American culture. One of the themes that Badlands deals with, is the relationship between men and woman in society. Holly follows Kit throughout the entire movie, even though he killed her father and it would be wiser to report him to the police, the reason I believe she does this is because, she as a young girl finds it hard to survive in the society without a fatherly figure.

Kit automatically takes this role, when he kills her father. Holly rarely has a concise opinion as to how she feels about Kit. She sometimes wishes she could be with him forever and at other times wishes she could drown him in the river, because of his lack to provide for her adequately. This is an example of a stereotypical assumption, often made by movies of this kind.

“The film consciously examines wider ideologies of identity, gender and power that are fundamental, to the way in which these genres have operated in the construction of an American national imaginary.” (Neil Campbell;40;2007)

“ From the earliest days of American cinema, the road movie has been synoumous with American culture, the road movie has been synonymous with America culture and the image of America to the world.”(Sam North;2009;Hackwriters.com)

It might be said that, if the road is the means by which change can take place. That the road itself, might not change Kit, all that much in the movie, but in real life Badlands can be seen as the road or arena of debate, where a society can analyze ideologies and values, and through this process go on a journey of self-exploration on the road, without even leaving the cinema.

Bibliography:

• Rijsdijk, Ian-Malcolm. ‘Badlands’. In “Seeking the Other Shore: Myth and History in the Films of Terrence Malick, “ 64-99. PhD diss., University of Cape Town, 2007.
• Cohan, Steve & Ina Rae Hark (1997)  The Road Movie Book. London: Routledge. 
• Campbell, Neil. “The highway Kind: Badlands, Youth, Space and the Road.” In The cinema of Terrence Malick : Poetic Visions of America 2nd Edition, edited by Hannah Patterson, 40-51. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.
• Sam North (2009), Hackwriters.com. “An essay on the continuing fascination with the road in cinema”; “The irony of the road movie is the weak leave, but only the strong survive”.                http://www.hackwriters.com/roadone.htm
• Gordon Alley-Young (2007), “Book Review: Driving Visions: Exploring The Road Movie” ; Kingsborough Community College - City University of New York. an electronic Journal.              http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol9/summer/reviews/movie.html
• Writing Hood (2009); “ 10 Literary Terms and Devices: Bildungsroman”                                     http://writinghood.com/literature/10-literary-terms-and-devices/