This 42-minute retrospective documentary covers a lot of interesting ground on the making of Terrence Malick's remarkable debut feature "Badlands." Martin Sheen discusses how he thought that he was too old to play Kit and that Kit originally was going to wear a cowboy hat. Sissy Spacek came up with the idea for Holly to twirl a baton and felt that the voice-over narration gave extra dimension to the character. Art director Jack Fisk notes that he does his work with the characters in mind and that he learned the valuable lesson from Malick that less is more. Among the other topics subjects that are talked about are the impossibility of getting fifteen minutes of fame in the middle of nowhere, the tree house was built in a single day, how Kit was funny and likable instead of a typically evil villain (Charles Starkweather, the real-life killer Kit was patterned after, was also a disarming character), the theme of how the environment effects the characters in Malick's work, Malick didn't encourage the cast to do research on Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate, and a harrowing mishap that occurred during the filming of the scene in which Kit burns Holly's house down. Recommended viewing for fans of "Badlands."
2 Reviews
It's okay, but...
Jeremy_Urquhart14 April 2024
This is a decent making-of documentary, but it loses so much without Malick's involvement. I know that's who he is and he'll probably never take part in any modern-day interviews like the ones featured here, but man... when a film is as complete a personal vision as Badlands is, it just kind of sucks not having the writer/director commenting on his process (and he was still alive at the time the documentary was made).
There's something interesting in seeing an attempt made at a relatively comprehensive making-of documentary with just the involvement of the two main actors and the production designer, but in the end... it doesn't quite work, despite the noble attempt at making it do so. There are tidbits of interesting info here, and it's nice to revisit Badlands in some capacity, but it still disappoints.
There's something interesting in seeing an attempt made at a relatively comprehensive making-of documentary with just the involvement of the two main actors and the production designer, but in the end... it doesn't quite work, despite the noble attempt at making it do so. There are tidbits of interesting info here, and it's nice to revisit Badlands in some capacity, but it still disappoints.
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