Badlands

Badlands is a 1973 American crime film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and featuring Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri. The story, though fictional, is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958, though that basis was not acknowledged when the film was released. Like other Malick films, Badlands is notable for its lyrical photography, and its music, which includes pieces by Carl Orff. Badlands was the closing feature film at the 1973 New York Film Festival, reportedly “overshadowing even Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets.” Vincent Canby, who saw the film at the festival debut, called it a “cool, sometimes brilliant, always ferociously American film”; according to Canby, “Sheen and Miss Spacek are splendid as the self-absorbed, cruel, possibly psychotic children of our time, as are the members of the supporting cast, including Warren Oates as Holly’s father. Badlands is often cited by film critics as one of the greatest and most influential films of all-time. In 1993, four years after the United States National Film Registry was established, it was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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