Yes, I'd read that Malick had consulted with her about the film, even though it's not (nor was it intended to be) a documentary or even, technically, a dramatization.
I can understand her anxiety that the film might have hurt her chances at parole. This would also explain why she was eager to cooperate with Malick. A very negative portrayal, even though the film was fiction, wouldn't have helped. On the other hand, I'm sure she hoped that if her sort-of character (Spacek) came across as a dumb innocent it might help her. Either way, considering the fact that this film was not about Starkweather and Fugate, but rather no more than inspired by their killing spree, it'd be a shame if the parole board took it into consideration, whether for or against. But clearly, she was trying to manipulate the situation to her advantage.
does anyone really believe Starkweather was a proper gentleman and only dated a thirteen year old for the sparkling conversation?
Best line on the board, Shoes! One thing I suspect Sissy Spacek caught about the real Caril is her vacuousness, not just intellectually but emotionally. (In fact, in so far as Fugate is concerned, I think Spacek's character would have harmed her reputation.) But let's face it, this movie, like
In Cold Blood, Bonnie and Clyde, Bugsy and other films based on real-life criminals (whether the films use fictionalized characters or not), glamorizes the protagonists, making them not only more physically attractive but trying to "understand" them and excuse their conduct (at least to an extent), almost making them seem like victims themselves. All this is really disgusting. These people were responsible for their actions and knew exactly what they were doing.
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franzkabuki
8 years ago
I guess casting the handsome and charismatic Martin Sheen as the lead may indeed lead to the "glamourization" charge (Sissy Spacek being hardly anyone's idea of a glamour girl though), but to me it seems his easygoing charm mainly serves to accentuate the fundamental, baffling divide between his outward normality on one hand and his callously murderous ways on the other. He's not someone to be made sense of - and, despite the superficial charm, about as relatable or ripe for outlaw hero worship as a blank slate. Furthermore, the film appears profoundly disinterested in psychoanalizing its protagonists, making no effort to explain their behaviour or assign any blame to either their upbringing, social conditions, being wronged in some major way or what have you (the only thing we learn about Kit's motivations is that he longs to make some kind of mark on the world, leave something of his existence behind - hence the recordings, burying stuff for future generations to find). So I don't really see how they themselves can be seen as victims of anything or how the film is making excuses for them. Sure, some might argue that, for instance, Kit murdered Holly's father because he came between the couple and thusly romanticize it as some king of archetypal crime of passion, but that reading is undermined by the casual, off-handed way Kit goes about the killing - there ain't no passion to it; the dude happened to inconvenience him, so he swatted him like a fly. Same with the rest of his murders - there's never any emotion of any kind, not even anger. He doesn't come across as a monster - more like an alien attempting to pass as a human being.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
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hobnob53
8 years ago
You make some good points, but let's face it, the outward way a character looks plays a huge role in how the audience perceives him, or at least colors their attitude towards them. Starkweather was a fat, homely, pimple-faced pig who, were an actor resembling him cast in the movie, would in the way of human nature evoke no sympathy from any audience -- indeed, he'd engender hostility because of his looks. All this would be quite apart from how his demeanor or reactions are depicted or, more importantly, perceived. By glamorizing him with a good-looking, soulful Martin Sheen, regardless of what other message Malick was trying to convey, the film inescapably tilts the audience's emotions toward Sheen -- at least to a critical point.
Sissy may not be anyone's idea of a glamour girl but she was cute-looking and had that innocent appearance, while here too, the real Caril was a fat, unattractive slob. I can understand the notion of wanting to push the audience to consider their characters and behavior separated from their physical appearances. But while casting unattractive actors closer to the actual looks of the people involved might prejudice the audience against the characters, and obscure the subtler personal aspects the director might want to emphasize, the reverse is also true: casting attractive actors conveys a bias toward the protagonists, even if it's intuitive more than intellectual.
It's all based on superficialities and how they affect us, but that's in no small part how films work. This is why the films I mentioned are in this respect so dishonest, because they manipulate the audience into holding a favorable view of the central characters, one that, in the viewers' minds, even somewhat mitigates their violent acts.
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franzkabuki
8 years ago
I agree that the actors' appearence goes some ways and, obviously, Kit/Holly are considerably prettied up and their deeds sanitized compared to Starkweather/Fugate and their exploits (which were so grisly that they pretty much 'had' to be sanitized in order to prevent the audiences from leaving the theaters in disgust after half an hour tops), but does it mean they're really sympathetic, exactly? I certainly didn't perceive them as such and I don't think Malick ever asked for our sympathy, either. For one thing, the film's tone is radically removed, taking sort of bird's eye view of the events unfolding and keeping the characters firmly at arm's length. For another, even though Sheen may be a "soulful" actor, as you put it, I think here he successfully communicates the fundamental emptiness behind Kit's affable veneer. Also, Holly's innocence has some rather odd, if not sociopathic undercurrents (her only reaction to the murder of his father is to slap Kit over the head once and later, when Cato, whom Kit had shot in the back, lies dying on his bed, she acts as though the guy has a slight case of flu and comes up with baffling questions like "is he upset?" - to which Kit even more inanely replies "he didn't say anything to me about it") and her dispassionate voiceover seems to actually underscore her inscrutability rather make us understand or empathize. There's a quality of romanticism - albeit ethereal, elusive and removed - to Badlands, but nevertheless it's a far cry from Bonnie & Clyde, for instance - a film that appears to buy into the folk hero mythos of the titular tandem quite a bit while presenting a lot of their robberies and killings as some bizarre retro slapstick and then proceeding to actively court our pity as the inevitable demise draws nearer (as for In Cold Blood, I don't really get what Capote/Brooks were doing there - it seems like an interesting study of criminal psychology and the dynamics between the two perpetrators, but then I read that a lot of this stuff was actually made up by Capote even though - quite unlike Badlands, where Malick only appears to have used the Starkweather/Fugate case as a springboard to put across his impressionistic world view - it was advertised as a docudrama that sticks to the facts).
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
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hobnob53
8 years ago
I don't believe Malick made Kit and Holly sympathetic, but by resorting to the all-too-usual recourse of casting attractive actors in the roles the true nature of their characters is somewhat muted in the audience's eyes...though I certainly agree that showing the banality of evil by such casting can also work very well.
Of course, it's more than just actors and their appearances. Granted that Malick was only using a true story as a jumping-off point for his dramatic purposes, not even a docudrama, still, his Kit and Holly are a far cry from the real life Starkweather and Fugate, and their crimes in the movie as you say are nowhere near as horrific or prolific as were the real-life couple's. The unfortunate aspect of this is that, however fictionalized, removed and deliberately inexact Malick's version is, a lot of people will see the film and take it for a close recounting of the real killers and their spree...and as we agree, that reality is considerably more terrible than anything in the movie.
However, you touch upon something I feel also: that Spacek's character is more chilling, more sociopathic than Kit's. Kit is a soulless killer without human feeling -- but Holly is emotionally even more vacant. Kit at least recognizes (though he doesn't care about) what he's doing and its seriousness. Holly is off on some plane where even the human emotion of satisfaction in killing is absent -- more than simple denial, it's an utter detachment from reality, an inability to understand or worry about events. I find a stone killer easier to handle than someone who is emotionally empty, both incurious and stupid. So, the question is: how close does "Holly" resemble to Caril? From the latter's claims and statements over the years, perhaps more than we'd be comfortable imagining.
Your characterization of Bonnie and Clyde is spot-on. As for In Cold Blood, while some of Capote's original reportage was tainted (he did, after all, invent the term "non-fiction novel" for it), the film in several crucial parts veers far from the facts, omitting some things and essentially inventing some others, in its effort to somehow equate the nature of the fates of the innocent victims and the murderers. A line delivered near the end by actor Paul Stewart (a sort of Capote stand-in, though his character's views are different from Capote's), as he witnesses the hangings in 1965, contains this morally repugnant observation: "Six people murdered -- four innocent and two guilty." Pro- or anti-capital punishment, it's a factual inaccuracy to state that the two killers were "murdered". Rarely has so blatantly pernicious and dishonest a bias been introduced into a supposedly serious film, and that tone permeates much of what is a well-made and compelling film. But as with Badlands, it points up the need for people to actually check out the truth of such people and events.
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