Author Topic: Beginners' Marathon #3: Badlands  (Read 13826 times)

oneaprilday

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 13746
  • "What we see and what we seem are but a dream."
    • A Journal of Film
Re: Beginners' Marathon #3: Badlands
« Reply #30 on: April 23, 2008, 11:11:52 PM »
I envisioned the Holly's story coming first, then Malick illustrating her narrative. 

I like that idea.

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: Beginners' Marathon #3: Badlands
« Reply #31 on: October 03, 2010, 09:47:07 PM »
I envisioned the Holly's story coming first, then Malick illustrating her narrative. 

I like that idea.

That's what I thought was going on, too.

That is all.
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

worm@work

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 7445
Re: Beginners' Marathon #3: Badlands
« Reply #32 on: March 15, 2012, 10:48:06 AM »
Someone just posted a scanned copy of an interview with Malick in Sight and Sound magazine from 1975 where he talks about Badlands.
He talks a little bit about the style of the narration and the disconnect between what she's saying and what's actually important / pertinent etc.

Jeff Schroeck

  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 982
Re: Beginners' Marathon #3: Badlands
« Reply #33 on: October 31, 2013, 07:21:27 AM »
I just watched this last night, and two things struck me that were brought up in this thread. I'm not sure if Cato was running to get to the phone to call the police and collect the reward money, assuming that there was a reward, or if he was just running to the truck to get the hell out of there, but I was certain that there weren't actually any Spanish coins found in the field, and Kit may have killed him out of that realization, too.

The other thing is that Holly seemed a bit too detached from reality, even in the direct seconds after seeing her father being killed. I was trying to wrap my head around this, plus the simpleton tone and therefore, as someone stated above, the unreliability of the narration, and I thought that maybe it's not Holly's narration, but Kit's imagining of Holly's version of the story. If you've seen Charles Starkweather, he was a weird looking guy, but that character imagining his own story would picture himself, and his girl, as looking like James Dean. He's kind of a dummy though, so he would have a certain limit to how bright Holly would've been. In the real version of events, Holly would've probably been visibly upset about her dad being killed, but in Kit's memory it was probably more like "oh, right, I guess she was sad for a second."

And, obviously, great cinematography and music, except for the multivoice music that came on a couple times, though I can't exactly remember the scenes.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Beginners' Marathon #3: Badlands
« Reply #34 on: October 31, 2013, 10:30:27 AM »
The other thing is that Holly seemed a bit too detached from reality, even in the direct seconds after seeing her father being killed. I was trying to wrap my head around this, plus the simpleton tone and therefore, as someone stated above, the unreliability of the narration, and I thought that maybe it's not Holly's narration, but Kit's imagining of Holly's version of the story. If you've seen Charles Starkweather, he was a weird looking guy, but that character imagining his own story would picture himself, and his girl, as looking like James Dean. He's kind of a dummy though, so he would have a certain limit to how bright Holly would've been. In the real version of events, Holly would've probably been visibly upset about her dad being killed, but in Kit's memory it was probably more like "oh, right, I guess she was sad for a second."
Hum, an interesting interpretation. Parts of it still seem definitively Holly in my mind such as the "this very moment" scene, but it's a cool idea.

 

love