651 Badlands

[cdnchris]

I have to ask, which WB logo plays at the beginning of the Criterion disc? Is it the original, old Saul Bass zoom-in logo? Or, did WB supply Criterion with a master that contains the current, updated logo? I know it may seem rather insignificant, but it really does bother me that WB seems to frequently replace the logos of old films (i.e. Mean Streets, Barry Lyndon, etc.).

It's the old red Saul Bass one.

[flyonthewall2983]

I liked the inclusion of the Starkweather A&E Bill Kurtis special. Besides making one keenly aware of how brutal the fact is over the fiction, the tone is a hilarious dichotomy to everything else on the disc.

[manicsounds]

Caril Ann Fuguate (Sissy Spacek's reallife counterpart in the film) was critically injured in a car accident, husband killed in the accident

[movielocke]

Anyone else thought of Badlands every time you heard about the San Diego girl who was abducted and taken to the wilds of Idaho?

[Drucker]

Watched this film for the first time last night, and enjoyed it about as much as I expected to. I still need to see The Thin Red Line, but I've yet to become a true Malick convert. I was a bit disappointed in the similarity between this and Days Of Heaven in terms of story content (a film I already own), but the film was indeed excellent. What I liked best about it towards the end was just how sick (mentally) Martin Sheen has become. It almost felt like a more subtle version of the end of A Clockwork Orange or something of that ilk. As the film goes on, Sheen's character certainly becomes more and more interesting, but the film does a good job of not making Spacek's revelation of her boyfriend's shortcoming too overwhelming or dramatic. She just slowly grows tired and lonesome. There's a wonderful contrast in her character. In the beginning, one might be inclined to think, "What the hell is she thinking" or "That's so unrealistic, why would she go with him?" But by the end, she's acting in a way that's really none-too-surprising. A 15-year old caught up and bored with a boyfriend which seems like a great idea at first, but gets old quick, as so much does when you're that age.

The blu-ray is absolutely fantastic. This is, again, my first exposure to the film, but the film's colors certainly didn't seem "off" to me. They seemed very natural and normal. The pictures on blu-ray.com/DVDbeaver, on my display at least, look a little bluer than they actually looked on my TV, for what it's worth.

[Jack Phillips]

As the film goes on, Sheen's character certainly becomes more and more interesting, but the film does a good job of not making Spacek's revelation of her boyfriend's shortcoming too overwhelming or dramatic. She just slowly grows tired and lonesome. There's a wonderful contrast in her character. In the beginning, one might be inclined to think, "What the hell is she thinking" or "That's so unrealistic, why would she go with him?" But by the end, she's acting in a way that's really none-too-surprising. A 15-year old caught up and bored with a boyfriend which seems like a great idea at first, but gets old quick, as so much does when you're that age.

I've always assumed there was more going on than that. Spacek's voice-over at the end seems to indicate what the shrinks call "dissociation from affective states." Whether the source of her flattened affect comes from something like PTSD or something more fundamental, Spacek's character perhaps should be on medication.

[flyonthewall2983]

It also might have affected her memory of the actual events, as if what actually happened was more brutal and even closer to Starkweather territory. In the film Kit is not killing people for fun, but for survival. He even intimates some regret towards killing the father at the end.

[stroszeck]

I don't wish to bring up a topic that's been beaten to death but this past weekend I ended up watching both Aliens and badlands with my younger cousin who is in film school on the most recent blu ray editions and have to say I was surprised at just how altered the color timing seems to be. Movies, as I recall, from the 1970s and 80s did not have the same orange and teal grading that modern movies shot on digital have due to modern grading techniques. Both of these movies struck me as having a very obvious distinct blue hue to them (although I know aliens originally had blues and steel colors because that is a james cameron movie). What is interesting is there apparently were people on this and other boards who have questioned the Badlands transfer and having seen a 35mm print in Berkeley years ago I can honestly say like many movies of that era being upgraded into the digital age, he original look of the film has been significantly altered. Yes, even on a "directors approved" transfer.

[The Narrator Returns]

For what it's worth, the booklet lists the telecine supervisor as Emmanuel Lubezki, Malick's current cinematographer, so there may be a little bit of the movie looking how Malick wants it to look now. That being said, I didn't think the transfer pushed too heavily on teal and orange, and I'll take a little bit of revisionism over the godawful original DVD (watching it on Blu-Ray really helped to appreciate it more, just because it wasn't so damn fuzzy).

[movielocke]

And if you're looking for orange and teal you'll find it everywhere regardless of whether or not it was implemented.

[flyonthewall2983]

Oral history of the film from GQ's website.