Badlands

Year of Release:  1973

Director:  Terrence Malick

Screenplay:  Terrence Malick

Starring:  Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri

Running Time:  93 minutes

Genre:  Crime, drama

In the small town of Fort Dupree, South Dakota, in 1959, 15 year old Holly (Spacek) meets 25 year old Kit (Sheen), and falls for him despite the objections of her father (Oates).  When she tries to run away with Kit, her father confronts them, and Kit shoots him dead.  They start a strange, violent life on the run, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake, as they try to keep ahead of the authorities.

This film is loosely based on the life and crimes of American spree killer Charles Starkweather who, along with 14 year old Caril Anne Fugate, murdered 11 people between December 1957 and January 1958.  It also marks the debut of writer/producer/director Terrence Malick, who has made his name with long, strange, and beautiful films which straddle the boundary between the mainstream and the experimental with varying degrees of success.  This film is much more accessible than much of Malick's later work, but there are a lot of hints as to what was to come.  The film opens with bleak images of the dead-end town and Holly's strangely disengaged voice-over narration which runs throughout the film, influenced by the teen romance and movie magazines that she reads constantly.  Holly and Kit are strangely dispassionate characters.  There is no great love between them, and Holly never seems to think that they will be together forever, they really seem to just hang out together, and while they have a sexual relationship it is just briefly mentioned.  Kit approaches killing in the same way.  The killings are really murders of convenience, he doesn't seem to have a problem at all with murder, but doesn't particularly enjoy it either, it's just a quicker way of dealing with problems.  Holly never takes part in the murders, she's just there, although they don't particularly bother her either, even her own father's death she just takes in her stride.  The film is set in 1959, although it doesn't really lean into the '50s period, Malick said he wanted it to appear "like a fairytale.  Outside time."  The film does have a strangely lyrical quality.  Kit and Holly build a treehouse in which they live in an Edenic idyll.  Holly's naive narration is accompanied by the gentle strains of Glassenhauer by Carl Orff.  The two exist in their own kind of worlds built by pop culture.  Holly seems to see herself in a teen romance, and Kit, who is frequently compared to James Dean, seems to view himself as an old time cowboy.  At one point Holly speculates on the preparations the authorities are making to catch them, which is depicted like a black and white '50s movie.  Martin Sheen is perfectly cast as the charismatic, but ruthless killer, but the real breakout is Sissy Spacek, who was 22 at the time of filming, playing a 15 year old, her strangely ethereal quality really works for the role, and her flat, heavily accented delivery does cast a spell.  This movie manages to take a conventional narrative, with all the hallmarks of the "lovers on the lam" genre, and turn it into genuine poetry.  It has proven hugely influential on other films in the genre.  True Romance (1993) pays homage with Patricia Arquette's narration being very similar to Sissy Spacek's, and the use of the Glassenhauer music.  Terrence Malick has an uncredited cameo as a man who knocks at a house where Kit and Holly are hiding out.  Also Martin Sheen two sons, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, appear very briefly as two boys hanging outside Holly's house.

Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek enter the Badlands     

Carrie

Year: 1976
Director: Brian De Palma
Screenplay: Lawrence D. Cohen, based on the novel Carrie by Stephen King
Starring: Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen, John Travolta, Betty Buckley, P.J. Soles, Piper Laurie
Running Time: 98 minutes
Genre: Horror, supernatural, high school, coming-of-age

Summary: Carrie White (Spacek) is a shy, unpopular and frequently bullied sixteen year old girl, who is frequently abused by her fanatically religious mother, Margaret (Laurie). The girls at Carrie's school frequently torment her. One day after a gym class, Carrie has her first period while she is in the showers. Not knowing what is happening and genuinely believing that she is bleeding to death, Carrie panics and her classmates respond by pelting her with tampons and sanitary napkins while chanting: "Plug it up!"
This traumatic experience awakens in Carrie a previously latent power of telekinesis (the ability to move or cause changes in objects by the force of the mind). This power steadily grows in strength. Meanwhile, popular girl Sue Snell (Irving), feeling guilty about her part in tormenting Carrie, convinces her popular football hero boyfrend, Tommy Ross (Katt) to ask Carrie to the Senior Prom. Initially suspicious that it is a prank, Carrie eventually agrees.
Meanwhile, one of Carrie's principal tormentors, Chris Hargensen (Allen) and her hoodlum boyfriend, Billy Nolan (Travolta), plan a sadistic trick to completely humiliate Carrie at the Prom. However, now Carrie has the ability to finally exact her own revenge.

Summary: Carrie was the first novel by Stephen King to be published, and it was also the first of many to be adapted as a film. It is a powerful and disturbing piece of work, which will doubtless strike a chord in anyone who has ever been bullied or felt like an outsider. In the lead role Sissy Spacek gives a superb and sympathetic performance. The film's huge success didn't just kickstart Stephen King's career, it also made director Brian De Palma's name as a Hollywood director, and uses a lot of his trademark visual tricks such as split-screen, soft-focus, slow-motion, speeded up images, sequences shot in reverse and a mobile camera. It also helped to make John Travolta a star.
The film is made all the more effective by the blending of humour and high-school drama with the horror elements, which makes the story even more effective and disturbing. Despite obviously showing it's age, the film has dated well and remains both shocking and funny, sometimes even at the same time. Interestingly enough the film completely belongs to the female characters who make up almost all of the principal cast, both of the main male characters are completely manipulated by the women. Also, despite the violence of Carrie's revenge, she remains a sympathetic character, who just wants to fit in in the violent and cruel snakepit that is the average high-school.
The film was followed by a belated sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), which received almost unanimously negative reviews and was a box office failure. The novel was also adapted as a Broadway musical in 1988, which was a legendary flop and closed after sixteen previews and five performances. In 2002 the novel was adapted as a television mini-series starring Angela Bettis in the title role which received mixed reviews.



Mother knows best: Piper Laurie comforts Sissy Spacek in Carrie.