BADLANDS Explained: Dreaming and Killing…

Those were restless and difficult times. In 1958, Charles Starkweather had just turned nineteen. He felt like a victim of fate, and that was how those around him saw him. He suffocated in his hometown of Nebraska, where he saw no prospects, no hope, no purpose. Idolizing James Dean, he spent hours styling his hair in front of a mirror and practicing the most nonchalant way to smoke a cigarette. He liked to think of himself as a “rebel”—nurturing a hatred for everyone around him. For his peers who mocked his speech impediment and crooked legs. For his teachers, none of whom realized that Charles’s school problems stemmed not from a lack of intelligence but from poor eyesight. For the society that had condemned his family to poverty and mere existence. Even then, he struggled with sudden and uncontrollable outbursts of aggression. Yet if he accepted and loved someone, there was no kinder or more loyal companion. Who could have guessed that the combination of these two tendencies would prove so tragic? Badlands.

When Charles met Caril Fugate, she was only thirteen. She fully accepted him, admired him, and—rebellious by nature herself—agreed with everything he said. He fell hard. He was convinced he had met a goddess. He was ready to do anything to keep her by his side. The aggression simmering within him, occasionally vented in brutal schoolyard fights, finally found direction: it turned toward anyone who might try to separate him from Caril.

She makes me stop hating myself. I see myself through her eyes, and I look good in them, he used to say. They spent entire days dreaming: about robbing a bank that would make them rich. About getting married and having a child. Charles even started spreading rumors that Caril was pregnant. The gossip reached her parents. That was the beginning of the end.

By the time Terrence Malick began working on Badlands, Charles Starkweather had long been dead. He was executed on June 25, 1959. Caril Fugate, however, was alive and well, fighting for early release (which she ultimately achieved in 1976). For years, she posed as an innocent and intimidated victim of the man who killed her family, so she firmly demanded that the film’s characters’ names be changed. Thus, instead of Charles and Caril, there were Kit and Holly, but perhaps only Caril herself could believe that this would make any difference.

He was handsomer than anyone I’d ever met. He looked like James Dean, Holly confides to us. She herself is petite, fair-haired, with a face covered in freckles. But should she really admire someone who makes a living as a garbage collector, even if he has such muscular, compact physique, a brooding and sensual gaze, and hands casually tucked into his pockets? Still, few girls, especially so young and lonely, can resist unconditional adoration. Kit isn’t really bad—he can be funny and doesn’t worry too much about anything. Although sometimes he’s sad, heartbreakingly sad. That’s when he says things that speak directly to Holly’s heart. About how dull and boring the world is. How everything is repetitive and routine. And how much he, Kit, longs for adventure. Holly longs for it too; after all, she knows the town inside out. She isn’t particularly smart or exceptionally attractive, often at a loss for words. But he likes everything about her. Why? Holly doesn’t know that either.

They tried, to be fair. They tried to be happy the right way, stealing moments together, promising each other they’d always be together and wouldn’t let themselves be separated. But she was fifteen, and he was ten years older. Holly’s father didn’t waste time talking to her. He shot the dog she loved to punish her. He ordered her to take more music lessons to keep her off the streets. Had he already lost his daughter by then? Even if not, it surely happened when he dismissed Kit’s earnest and sincere words. He humiliated him. And Kit couldn’t stand being humiliated.

I had no idea that what began one afternoon on the streets of our town would end on the plains of Montana, Holly remarks.

The scene of Holly’s father’s death is chilling. Everything is decided in that scene; a new era begins, and there’s no turning back—yet Kit is as cool as a cucumber, and Holly as naïve and helpless as ever. They talk in exactly the same tone and style as before, by the river, after consummating their relationship. Except now there’s a corpse on the floor. And what? Holly’s response is just to slap Kit across the face. Maybe even suggest telling someone about it, as if it were just an ordinary, unfortunate accident… nothing serious, nothing that could profoundly change the world or weigh on their lives. She still doesn’t realize that the center of her life has imperceptibly shifted, that it has become Kit—only and entirely him. After all, she’s still a girl who needs care, protection, and support. And if she cries, it’s mainly because she’s simply scared. But betray him? Kit? Her father did say that, didn’t he, that she betrayed him. That’s when he shot the dog.

So, what can they do? Burn her past life, her childhood, naively believing that they can make it, that they are enough for each other and that the world will respect that. Create their own movie and stick to the script that protects and glorifies the rebels.

Tell me, Charles, what do you think about the fact that your life has been endlessly inspiring filmmakers for four decades? Would you be happy about it? Is this what you wanted?

Then things become so cinematic it’s almost grotesque. That little house among the trees? Traps and sneaking around? Do they really understand what they’ve done? Kit, playing war like a child? Holly, stubbornly calling her murdered father daddy?

We’d sometimes argue, but most of the time we loved each other, Holly sums up this play at domesticity.

But it’s enough for the first intruders to break into their illusory Wonderland. The need to protect the illusion starts dominating Kit’s entire life. He shoots his friend—and still considers him a friend.

Just bad luck, nothing more. I hit him in the stomach, he says.

Will he be mad? Holly asks worriedly. What is there to say? A man does what he has to do; her role is to stand by his side, not question, not undermine. After all, he’s doing it for them. For their good. For their future. Only when Kit starts getting nervous—the atmosphere is, after all, getting tense—does Holly casually note that he had never shown violent tendencies before. Well, maybe once. Yet the thought of fearing him doesn’t even cross her mind. Half of America, however, is utterly terrified. Where will Kit show up next? Whom will he target? Their quiet escape suddenly turns into a breathless marathon. Slowly, they begin to realize that there’s no place to hide, that nothing protects them.

Not even love.

He’s a little strange, Holly confides to the owner of the house they’ve broken into for supplies. And she adds, with admiration, what a beautiful house! Thank you, the owner mutters, unsure if he’ll survive the next half hour. Unsure what to think of this delicate, tired blonde with thin wrists. Victim or executioner? Accomplice or innocent girl manipulated by circumstance?

Somewhere midway to Saskatchewan, something finally comes between them. Even for a girl longing for adventure, living in a car day by day is too much—and too little. He begins to panic and talks more than he ever has in his life. She stares indifferently at the map. Not even Nat King Cole’s voice can transform the script back into a love story. She no longer wants to go on. In that one moment, he loses everything. Then comes the waiting, the chase, betrayal, and even more betrayal at the end. And perhaps just a bit of cinematic solace for the boy who looked like James Dean.