The Violence of a New Start:
A Review of Badlands

September 25, 2006

America has a central narrative: the possibility of new birth. It crops up regularly in political contexts, from Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" campaign to George W.'s vision of a new Middle East. It is of course a central trope of American religious thought, centering as it does on the need to be "born again." Then when you turn to American arts and letters, it is right there again, staring you in the face: the re-invention of the self.. the new start.

Terence Malick's film Badlands begins by offering a vision of a new start.. it is one that instinctively appeals to us. A charismatic guy (Martin Sheen) falls for a young girl (Sissy Spacek). Her father forbids them to see each other, so they run away to start their own life together. They begin by going out into the woods and living off the land, like some modern Thoreau. When the law gets close to them, they take off across the countryside. It is hard not to root for them. The only problem is that they are killing people as they go. The girl's father.. police officers.. anyone who happened to run into them.. are shot and killed.

There is an innocence to the young protagonists. The girl dreams about getting married.. and blithely narrates her hopes and feelings to the audience. The older guy has a can-do spirit and seems affable.. as if he had never shot a friend. But then what to make of the trail of violence? The sight of death does not necessarily make innocence disappear. In the vision of this film, violence is even an outgrowth of that innocence.. something that comes easily.. nonchalantly.. from the choice to start a new life.

It is common for Noir films to point out the folly of a genuine escape from the past. It is the genre that is most ready to break down the overriding American theme of a new birth. But Malick seems to go a step farther in Badlands: not only is the dream of a new life a folly, but it unleashes something terrible. Watching the film in 2006 it is hard not to think about the American actions that have led to so many deaths. Like the young man in Badlands, we have easy explanations for why it is OK to kill.. and somehow the horror of it all.. the horror.. does not break through. There is something terrible about innocence.. especially national innocence.