***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Ramon Bieri, and Warren Oates
Directed, written, & produced by Terrence Malick
1973
94 min PG
There’s a lot of space in Terrence Malick’s “Badlands.” The plains stretch for miles, uninterrupted by civilization or mountains. Conversations are spare, desultory affairs that punctuate the loneliness. The back of the VHS box says there’s a “killing spree,” but no one in “Badlands” could get worked up enough to have a “spree,” killing or otherwise. Malick’s narrative strings together episodes that fit together naturally enough, but at the same time seem so aimless. There’s also a lot of interpretive space, which is a fancy “criticspeak” way of saying I don’t really know what the hell kind of a point Malick is trying to make here. But, the older I get, the more I’m starting to appreciate movies that pull me in and then leave me hanging.
Of course, there’s the surface interpretation of “Badlands,” about a killer and his girlfriend roaming from South Dakota to Montana, and the movie’s utter refusal to give them any psychological examination. Obvious targets like sex, drugs, alcohol, and TV are not to blame. The killer, Kit (a brilliant Martin Sheen), blows some people away because, well, why not? He shoots them almost out of sheer boredom. He appears to have no dreams, no ambitions, and not enough self-esteem to maintain real opinions. He solves problems at gunpoint not out of frustration but some kind of malaise, just to see what will happen next. “We’ve had fun,” he says to his 15-year-old girlfriend Holly (Sissy Spacek, as great as Sheen), but if they’ve had any fun we haven’t seen it. The only fun Kit has is being caught.
Holly joins him on the joyless cross-country jaunt because, well, why not? They pick up souvenirs along the way, but Malick selects the pieces to be as random and meaningless as possible. There are echoes of “Bonnie and Clyde” and of the real-life killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate but, again, Malick is not interested in anything sensational, nor do Kit and Holly even have the “plans” that Bonnie and Clyde shared. She admits to having no personality and we agree. She takes her schoolbooks with her on their flight from the law and we laugh, but…well, what else is she going to do?
I keep reading analyses of “Badlands” and I was trying to arrange my thoughts in the last two paragraphs. But maybe that makes me a liar. Maybe the allure of this movie is its aura of futility told with picturely framing; its aimless lives surrounded by a fairy tale soundtrack; its humorlessly precise structure used to juxtapose the utter lack of structure exhibited by its characters; the dreamy blandness of Holly’s narration, giving voice to the dead lives led in the gorgeous, unforgiving landscape. “Badlands” is a beautifully shot, bleak parable, and a clinically detached way of saying life is kind of pointless. Roger Ebert has a description that reminds us why he’s paid for this and I’m not: “inhabitants of lives so empty that even their sins cannot fill them.” “Badlands” is a very odd, entrancing film about lonely, bored people. That must make it good for something, right?
**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Clifton James, and Bernard Lee
Directed by Guy Hamilton & written by Tom Mankiewicz, from the novel by Ian Fleming
1973
121 min PG
007 vs. Black People. It sounds a little bit less offensive when you consider that 007 fights and has fought pretty much every other people on the planet—barring perhaps South America and Antarctica—including his own. It’s only fair that he eventually comes around to Americans of African descent.
James Bond (Roger Moore) does battle with and rescues a white virgin (a psychic named Solitaire, played by a busty Jane Seymour) from blacks from the Caribbean, blacks from New Orleans, and blacks from Harlem. The villain represents both the threatening black street tough and the super-educated “uppity Negro” of the gigantic vocabulary. He’s played by Yaphet Kotto of “Alien,” who’s having a blast doing a magnificent Goldfinger impression, unable to keep from giddily spilling his plans to Bond because he’s convinced 007 will be presently torn limb-from-limb by alligators.
Even if put to questionable ends, “Live and Let Die” contains some memorable imagery involving a brass-powered “Just a Closer Walk” New Orleans funeral, and has some haunting bits to do with voodoo, snakes, and burning skulls. There is good black guy, too, although his death is so unimportant that it’s only implied and not even shown. My only artistic complaint is that, like so many Bond movies, “Live and Let Die” moves in fits and starts, sometimes drags, and runs long. Kotto tells his underlings to “kill Bond!” and then, when the thugs fail, he tells new thugs to “kill Bond!”
Some of the failed killings are truly spectacular; the swamp boat chase is priceless, as 007 again and again launches his speed boat into the air across one isthmus after another. And, of course, he boinks a honey one minute and lazily puts his pistol in her face just after putting his pants back on. The way Roger Moore indifferently cocks the weapon when she tries to waffle her way out is great. Kick ass theme music by Paul McCartney, too, and the villain has a huge, fat sidekick named Whispers.
Finished Thursday, January 19th, 2006
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