Opening Statement

Badlands begins as if in a dream, in a dark room with a pale girl petting a large dog on an old bed. Soon, the girl’s narration sets the scene and the characters, and now it’s as if we’re in a novel. Then we see a hunk bending over a dog in an alley, looking just like James Dean, and it’s as if we’re watching a film. Which we are, actually – by Maddie Freeman, May 22, 2017

The Fantasy of Romance

Holly is 15 and Kit is 25 and as the events of the film ultimately reveal, both violent and unstable. But Badlands doesn’t follow the path you’d expect here, either. What we see of Kit and Holly’s relationship is neither horrifyingly violent nor passionately romantic. Instead, it occupies a strange space somewhere else entirely: a world of fantasy – by Sarah Gorr, May 23, 2017

In Context: Cinematic Psychopathy

While Hollywood loves to focus on the most sensational parts of psychopathy, it often fails to cover its more interesting aspects. It sticks to the trope of the psychopath as serial killer and wierdo without fleshing out what a psychopathic person is like in reality. In fact, it’s rare to find any movies that realistically portray people with psychopathic tendencies – by Alex Moore, May 24, 2017

Shut Doors: On Malick, Heidegger, Music, and Faust

This musical exploration of Badlands ended far removed from my starting point. But then, Faust, like Badlands, is about a man dissatisfied with the world who looks for alternative answers in all the wrong places, and for whom, at the end, all that is left is Worry and Death – by Patrick Brown, May 25, 2017