Paul on Badlands

Banner status. So god, I think this should be a nice relaxed film discussion of bad Lands. Yeah. Man. So here's a little bit of short history for this movie is I was supposed to do this movie with uh, you know the band The Hold Steady, Craig Finn, the lead singer. Yeah, he was supposed to do this, like geez, probably, I mean it was pretty early on actually in uh I think probably like eight months into the show or something.

And I'm not blaming him whoever it was handling his business though, really screwed it up like he was supposed to. He was performing at um the venue the City Winery right next to the building, and I was like, all he's gotta do is come right over the building. I got the time set aside, I got an engineer coming in. It was on a weekend, it was on a Saturday evening before his performance, and then literally like, no show.

I'm up at the office and like thirty minutes after he's supposed to be there, I get an email from his handler that was like, so where over here at City Winery? Are you coming over and bring an equipment or what? And I'm like, dude, it's like we had this all set, Like how did you screw up every part of this? So I got really salty. Um long way of saying, I have now watched this movie twice for this show, and then another oh probably five times on my own for pleasure. Well, first of all, it's

nice to know that, um, he's a fan of the movie. Yeah, that was his favorite movie. Can speculate what he thinks, Well, I know, Craig Finn, but I will do my best to bring some of that hold steady energy to uh what I think of the film. But um, you're better. Oh thanks man. Uh, Well, that's awesome to know you've seen it that many times. I've probably seen it, uh,

at least probably four or five times. I came to this movie in college in one of my film history classes actually, when we were studying the nineties seventies, kind of the American New Wave. Uh, and this was the film our teacher decided to show us as kind of representative of that. And I think at the time, I don't think I really knew Malick at all. I don't think i'd seen any of his stuff or even had

heard of him. Since then, I mean, he's, without a doubt one of my favorite filmmakers, and this is one of my favorite films of him by him. Uh And so I'm really excited to talk about it. Yeah, man, me too. It's Terrence Maleck's first film, written, produced, directed. He made it when he was in his late twenties, which is crazy to think about. UM, a movie that was fraught with problems with financing. I know he chipped in some of a lot of his own money. UM,

a lot of problems on the shoot itself. I think I read that, you know, there were some injuries during certain scenes, there were people that walked off the crew, and what I read was the last literally the last two weeks of filming, it was him and his wife and maybe Jack Fisk and like a couple of other people, and that was kind of Yeah, by the end, it was I think I read the same thing, like four or five people and uh, it was a non union crew. And what I read was that the movie's total budget

was roughly three hundred thousand dollars. As you said, some of that was malis own money, so even for nineteen seventies standards, that's that's very much a low budget independent film. And um, yeah, about by the time they got to the end, I saw a thing where they were filming unblimped, which means, um, I'm sure you know this, but basically with film cameras, they generate noise when you're shooting, and so you have to basically put this blimp around the

camera to sort of quiet dampen the sound. And because they just didn't have time and we're on the run to just grab those last shots, they shot a lot of it unblimped, meaning all of the sound they got was unusable, so they had to record I think something like sevent the dialogue had to be re recorded in post for a with a d R. Yeah, that's what I read. Yeah, Um, And I feel like you can kind of tell, like I was watching The Blu Ray and like sometimes it's like kind of easy to tell

when stuff has clearly been eight yard, you know. Yeah, And um, I mean still even if you notice it, it's not something that sticks out as taking you out of the film by any means. Yeah. And I mentioned Jack fisk He was the production designer, and I'm sure he had a very small crew and did a lot of it himself, but you know, he very famously met

Sissy Spasic on this film. Uh at young just sort of perfect and beautiful young Sissy Spasic when she was in her early twenties playing I think, like a fifteen year old, And she and Jack Fiske fell in love and got married, and they're one of the great enduring, um Hollywood couples, if you even want to call them that,

they're really not a Hollywood couple but movie couples. And uh, he's become one of my favorite production and set designers too, works a lot, has worked a lot with Malick over the years, and just does a great job in this movie um made in seventy three, but it really looks like it was made in the ninety fifties. It's so authentic looking. Yeah, and and it's funny you mentioned Jack Fisk be one of your favorites, because it's like, how many set deck art directors do people know by name

in the movies? Not Jack Fisk is one of the few. Um he's he works with David Lynch a lot, among other great directors. But um yeah, I agree with you. And it's interesting though to think about because the movie takes place in the fifties and at the time they were shooting, that was only fifteen years prior. So that's like us me making a movie about two thousand five right now. I mean, it's crazy to think about. But I have no idea. I don't know, man, Baggy, your

baggy cargo shorts. Cargo. I still have those cargo shorts. But uh, but you're right about the look of it.

And it's interesting because Malick, you know, Malick is famous for not doing interviews or press or anything, but he actually did do a handful of interviews when this movie came out for a few magazines, and there's some they're really fascinating to read because he's very open about out the process of shooting the film and his intentions with it, and he even talks about, um, how when it came to like the period piece aspect of it, he didn't

want to overwhelm that. He just wanted to be sort of subtle because he said, nostalgia can kind of overwhelm the picture. Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned how you still feel like it's the nineteen fifties because it's not. It doesn't hit you over the head with it, but

it's just there. It just it just feels so natural. Yeah, it's not like a movie I love, but Back to the Future, you know, which is they just they smash you over the head with the nostalgia bat like, over and over and over as soon as they get to the nineteen fifties, which was kind of the point of that movie. But this movie just feels very lived in,

very real. I think they shot it mostly in Colorado, but um, it certainly has the look of, you know, the flat lands of the Dakotas and Nebraska and the Great Planes and you know, Colorado's I don't know if you've ever been there. It's one of the states that's very varied. You think Colorado is just nothing but mountains and the Rockies. But there are all these big, huge, wide open plains areas of Colorado too. Yeah. Well, I'm

I think you know this. I'm originally from Western Kansas, small town in western Kansas, and yeah, so, uh, you're right. The first time, I haven't been to Colorado that much, despite me being from a state next to it. But the first time I went to Colorado, I was so surprised that when we crossed from Kansas into Colorado, how it was still flat. It still looked exactly like Kansas for quite a while, and then eventually you can start to see the rocky mountains in the distance. But um, yeah.

One of the things I love about this movie is it feels so much like the town I grew up in, Like that small town vibe, wide wide, neighborhood streets, um main street where everyone parks, doesn't parallel park, but they park um kind of at an angle, you know. Yeah yeah, and just those vistas that you can just look out for miles. It really feels like kind of where I grew up, which is another reason I kind of have

a soft spot for this film. Yeah, and you know, Malick would go on to be known for exactly what this movie embodies aesthetically. Um, I mean it's all there from the beginning those Uh. The only thing that's really different is the running time. He made a very short movie.

He went on to make much longer films. But the the obviously, all the magic hour stuff, all the shots of nature, the close ups of nature, the dappled sun, might and shadow, and it's just interesting to see, Like, right from the beginning he sort of had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do aesthetically with

his camera and with his lens. And I think what makes bad Lands interesting to talk about is because unlike his subsequent films, you know, when you talk about a lot of malik subsequent work, it's easy to throw around sort of these vague words like transcendent, uh, you know, beautiful, uh,

all these words that are hard to define. Poetic, yeah, lyrical and those are all true, but they're also these kind of words that you're like, I get it, but they don't they don't do much for like talking about a movie, whereas bad Lands it's a little easier to sort of, uh, to talk about it in more grounded

terms because unlike a lot of his other films. This is a very grounded story in the sense that it has a very clear narrative progression from A to B. We know where the story is going, and I think it's just very accessible in that sense. Yeah, yeah, And you know, I don't know how big of a fan you are of Days of Heaven, but that's always been

my favorite Terence Malick movie. And uh, I did find it very interesting with those first two films, they both very much had a narrative plot, you know, that you could follow um point A to B to C. And then he went away for many, many, many many years and and then started making different kinds of movies, and that they still had that Malick look and I and I love Thin Red Line, and you know, it's been a bit of a mixed bag since then, I think, but uh, this in Days of Heaven are both just

I think Malick kind of it is best. You know, my favorite Malick film is actually The New World, the the John Smith pocahonas one from two thousand five. Love that movie, and I think the reason that's my favorite is because I think it's it's the best blend of his sort of still kind of in telling more narrative stories from his older films while still having that very roving camera, that lyrical poetic quality. And I think that John Smith Pocahona story really lends itself to the merging

of those two styles. Yeah, I forgot about that movie. I love that movie. Yeah. Yeah, But but bad Lands might is definitely my top three for sure. And um, it's just like the fact that this was the first film, Like to have your first film be this good at what age, you know, Like, I mean I I made a film, as you know, a feature film last year and like either you know, I'm proud of it, whatever,

but it's not bad Lands for sure, put yourself up. Yeah, but it's it's it's like, did a human really make this? You know? Yeah, it's astounding, especially for someone in their twenties to make something this sort of mature and focused and assured. Uh, you get the feeling that just out

of the gate he knew exactly what he wanted. Um. I think Martin Sheen still says that it's his best movie or maybe his favorite movie that he's been in, and he's so good and and seeing this again through this lens, was it really hit me how much they are their children. Uh. Not only she supposed to be fifteen, he's supposed to be twenty five, but the way they act is at the same time very childlike, but also there immediately this old couple somehow in the way they

interact with each other. It's really really interesting, Yeah that I noticed that to the old couple vibe. Where there's certain scenes where, um, maybe it's when they're hiding out in the woods and she's just walking around with like curlers in her hair and she, you know, he he like what She walks up to him and she takes the cigarette out of his mouth so she can smoke it, and it has this feeling of like the way a couple who's been married for twenty years would act around

each other. Um. And yet you also get the sense that they're kind of they're doing it maybe because that's what they like, their play acting a little bit like an old couple would. Yeah, but they're also like very childlike, especially him, um, like setting up code words. And in the scene where that really got me was where they go to the rich guy's house and kind of hold up there for the afternoon, and he does he rings

the little servants bell and he goes. Next time you hear that, that means it's time for us to get up out of here. Instead of just saying, hey, we gotta go, he sets up a little you know, something like a child would do, Like I ring the bell when it's time to go. Yeah, it's he. He is, without a doubt, one of the most like fascinating characters I've ever seen in a movie. Uh. And and Martin

Sheen is just perfectly cast as him, as as Kit Caruthers. Um, and I want to talk a little bit about, um, the real life story, that real life case that inspired this movie. Are you familiar much with it? A little bit? Uh, the Charles stark Weather, Charles stark Weather and caroly And Fugate Um nineteen fifty eight murder spree that started in Lincoln,

Nebraska and ended in Wyoming. And Um, he was nineteen and she was fourteen, and they killed I think ten people all in all over a few weeks, about a month. Maybe that's roughly the body count in this somewhere. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Um and uh stark Weather when they were caught, stark Weather was set to death by electric chair and he was executed, and Carroly and fugate actually received life imprisonment, but she was paroled in ninety six. Uh and this

is an interesting fact. But to this day, she's the youngest female in US history to have been tried for first degree murder at I think fourteen or maybe fifteen by the time she was tried. So so this is clearly the inspiration for bad Lands. And yet Malick takes a lot of these details, but he he doesn't you know, the movie doesn't say based on a true story. It's not interested. Yeah, he's not interested in in telling that

exact story. But stark Weather in fact did sort of model himself after James Dean, and some of the lines in the movie that um Kit says were things stark Weather said like, um, I always wanted to be a criminal, just not this big one. That was an Actually Sather such a great line. Um And I just think that case, like, it's such fascinating case because it's sort of gripped the nation as it was happening. It was almost like a

modern day Bonnie and Clyde. At the time, in the nineteen fifties and the nineteen fifties you think of as being this sort of innocent time. Um sort of like The Way Back to the Future depicts it, you know, when everyone's drinking milkshakes and you know, going dancing at the hop or whatever. But uh, this kind of shook the nation, you know. And yeah, and they portrayed that

in the movie. You know that one kind of great um sequence where it talks of it shows the guards walking the kids from school and she's in the narration. You know, I guess we might as well talk about that a little bit, that great narration through the whole movie from Her, which Quentin Tarantino blatantly ripped off along with the score for true romance. This movie was very much a model for true romance, a movie I love. And he it's not like he ripped it off. He

very much just said, like, yeah, I stole it. I stole it from bad Land is one of my favorite movies. So that's fine, you know, he borrowed it. But it's really good, a good lesson in narration, like if you're gonna go in, go all in. Yeah. Um. The narration is different than what we think of in usual narration because it doesn't it doesn't give you exposition for the most part, it kind of tells you things that are not really related to the story, which I think is

what good narration does. It. Malick is not using it as a crutch to sort of fill in storytelling gaps. Necessarily, it's her. It's her mental thoughts really more than anything. Yeah. And it's sort of like, um, maybe this is her diary or her journal or something. But but the thing she talks about are so fascinating. And this is related in some of the interviews Malick gave back in the seventies about the movie, Um, he didn't want you to think Holly is like dumb or simple. It's that she's

she's she's a typical Southern girl sort of. And she has this like weird sense of propriety where it's like, I'm not going to talk about myself, you know. Um, And so she relates this story as if she's like giving a school report on how you how she spent her summer vacation. Almost Yeah, So it's like, here's what we ate, and here are some of the flowers we saw, and just those very childlike things. Yeah. And I mean, and there's some of my favorite lines to uh. I

jotted a few of them down or through her narration. Uh, and this sort of shows a little bit of the cracks early on in their relationship. When she goes kid accuses me of only being along for the ride and sometimes I wish he would fall into the river and drown so I could watch, But she just says it so childlike a matter of factly. It's just the impact as it's just phenomenal. So this is something I wanted to ask you about, and I sort of noticed it

more watching watching the movie this time? Is to what degree do you think we're supposed to take Holly as an accomplice or somebody who's complicit or culpable for these these crimes. Do you think Malick wants us to see her as just you know, one half of the team or is it something else? Is she uh more of a more of a victim than a perpetrator? What do you think? Well, I definitely don't think that he wants her to be seen as an accomplice because she never

really takes part in anything actually physically. Um, But I think it's interesting in that he also doesn't player as um captive And until sort of near the end, there's this one part where is it here I have it written down where there's sort of a switch that happens, and uh, it seems like she's a little more captive, but they don't, they don't play that up, like, uh, you know, like she doesn't ask to leave or anything, and he says, you can't, Like it's all I mean,

you see how the dialogue in this movie between them is just so mundane that he will kill somebody and then talk about you know, uh, you know something sitting on the table that looks weird to him. You know, I mean, he's he's not smart. It's like you're talking about her not being smart. He's kind of a real dumbshit. And I've known guys like this that like he thinks

he's smart, but he's not a true narcissist. Like when he's recording all of his thoughts and advice into the dictaphone, he really thinks he has something important to say, but he doesn't. And I think it's so it's so ironic that at the beginning of the film, when he first meets Holly, when he walks up to her when she's twirling her baton in the yard, he says something like, oh, I just got some things I want to say. Most

people don't have anything to say at all. And then throughout the film, everything he does end up saying are, like you said, not smart things, these sort of like received you know, platitudes and ideas that clearly he doesn't have. That he probably just heard someone say and thinks they

sound smart. Yeah, and he's and he also belittles her at times for being dumb um, like when when they're parked under the train track and you know, he clearly has no plan, he didn't know what the funk he's doing, and he he spins the bottle, but the bottle get points in a direction that he clearly doesn't want to go, and he's like, well, I'll just go pick a direction. If I can't do that, then what kind of a man am I? And she says, I don't know, or and he and he says something like uh, He's like

you understand that. She's like, well, I don't know, and he goes, oh, what do I expect from you anyway? Or you know, like the guy that feels like in order to make himself feel smart, he has to put down the woman he's with. Yeah, And you never get the sense that Kit really loves her or cares about her. It feels much more like he just feels like I'm a guy that should have his girl by his side, and so here I picked a girl and I've got

her now again. So much of I think how he models himself is again that James Dean idea of like I'm a rebel without a cause, even though i don't know what any of these things mean, but I've received them, perhaps from TV or movies, and this is how I should act, as the self made outlaw. Yeah, and the things that are important to him, um, like in the in the end, in that final chase sequence, you know he's he's looking in the mirror and checking his hair.

He after he gets caught or he doesn't, you know, get caught and he gives himself up, shoots out the tire. And the first thing he thinks about after he checks his pulse, which I thought was great, was um stacking up those rocks as like a monument to where like the great Outlaw was finally captured. Yeah, and you know along the way there's a scene where they bury some of their their tokens in like basically like a time capsule, and he's like, what do people think if they dig

this up in a thousand years. He very much treasures the idea of like being remembered. He thinks his life is of some great importance of like to to society, like people should be interested in who he is, and I mean the ironic things that they are, like when he gets captured, when when he's in chains in the airport, hangar yea. Literally on the stage. Yeah, he's on the stage,

he's holding court. He's he's handcuffed, but I mean they're asking him, like, you know, who's your favorite singer, and he's like, he throws them his the things he has in his pockets. So he thinks a guy is lighter his comb and they just eat it up. You know. He's kind of like a modern day or for that time, like the prototypical like reality TV star or something. Yeah, and man, that whole last bit was so fascinating. You know.

You see it turn when he's in the car getting taken away and the deputy in the back says that he looks like James Dean, and man, he you can just see him light up when he hears that. That's like the nicest thing anyone ever could ever say about him in his mind. Yeah, and then when he's on that plane wing, he's literally standing on the stage and

just holding courts and they're laughing at him. And it was interesting how he played or how Malick chose to have the deputies play that as then being so interested in him, and you know, he shakes their hand at the end and sorry if you guys calls you any trouble, and deputy says, good luck to you. I mean it, yeah, man, It's really really fascinating as they're getting walked off with exactly how he would want, with a literal army, like escorting him out like that. This is what in his

mind is like, yeah, this is what they needed. They needed an army to to to take care of me. And he says, you know, I could have I could have hold out a whole army if I had just got behind the mountains in Miamo. Didn't didn't know, you know.

And I love those two those two policemen who actually capture him when they're in the car, because you can see them, they give these looks where they're sort of I think they even say like, hey, we did it, we caught him, like they know that they're sort of gonna be etched in history as the guys who caught him too, they're they're very much happy about that fact, you know. And I think it just speaks to how um fascinated we are with with both celebrity and um killers.

You know, Like think about how people fascinated people are with Charles Manson or all these other famous you know, Ted Bundy, these famous killers. It's just this morbid fascination that I think is a very a very American thing, more so than in other places. Yeah, probably so um And you know, natural born killers I think played off of this movie, like the cup cal in the movie California, the k like the couple on this murder spree. Um. And then it Springsteen fans will be really mad if

we don't mention this song. Nebraska was also based on the stark Weather case. Also a line in Uh we didn't start the fire bell, Joel. He says, I wrote it down here stark Weather Homicide, Children of the Little Mode. So yeah, he gives a little name drop to stark

Weather to word. Yeah. I thought, I really love the scene where they had where she loses her virginity, and you know, because they don't show any of that, it literally just shows her kind of buttoning up and he gets up and she's just sort of like, you know, is that it is? You know what? What's everyone always saying with what the big deal is about that? And like you can tell it kind of wounds him a little bit because you know, he's the man and and but he plays it off like, well, yeah, it's no

big deal at all. And then in like I don't know how you write dialogue like this, but he said, we should take this rock and smash both of our hands so we'll always remember this day. Like, who what twenty nine year old thinks about to write dialogue like that? It's just amazing. Yeah, And it's it's also you know, you can kind of it's sort of teases out Holly's psychology without putting a fine point on it, because again,

she's supposed to be fifteen. She has a child in many of her specs, and you know, when he says we should smash this rock and she's like, won't that hurt? And he's like, that's the point, stupid, And it's just you know, Malick doesn't overdo it. But there is this kind of um in a very notable imbalance of power that's there on the edges of the film that, um, probably if you made a film like this today, you

see that pushed much more to the forefront. But in this film it's very very subtle, just kind of there in the background. Yeah, absolutely, Uh. And that the scene kind of buttons up with a There's so many tiny little moments that just make his character so much more interesting. Where he goes, well, you know, I'm gonna keep this rock anyway, and he walks like three ft with his big gas rock, then throws it down and he's like, well,

let me get a smaller one. Yeah, just to just to yeah, to follow up on sort of Kit's character. He has all these little idiosyncrasies, um like uh, like when they're walking in town and he gets mad at somebody for littering, and he's like, if everyone did that, the whole town would be a mess or something like that, and uh, people And this is so interesting and it's one of another thing I want to touch on that

Malick did talk about again in these aforementioned interviews. I keep going back to you, but he saw Kit as very conservative, uh, and he thinks most of the people he kills are kind of worthless, and he has these very sort of traditional American values like don't litter. When they decided to go on the run. He has Holly Bringer homework, so she won't won't fall behind in her studies, you know. Uh. And the one person it's interesting to know that the one person he doesn't kill is the

rich man. Well, I mean, you know, the one person who he very clearly it seemed like he was going to kill. Uh. And I think that's interesting because it's like the one guy, you know, I think there's a sense of Kit maybe like has some like sympathy for this guy, or he sees himself as like this is what I could be, this rich man living in this fancy home. Yeah, and it's like the one guy who doesn't need our sympathies is the guy Kits sympathizes with

the most. Yeah, he has an interesting code. I will say that because you know, she even talks early on when they invade the camp um which, by the way, the production design on on their wooded camp was just so cool, like every little kid's dream to like you know, set traps and like live in the trees. But um he she even says in the narration she was like, well, Kit said that they they deserved it because they weren't law men. They were just out for the bounty reward.

So like he has a code in that way shooting these men in the back, but and shooting his friend Cato. But then he he doesn't kill the couple. He locks them in the thing. He fires off two shots into the Yeah, so we don't know. I mean, maybe he does, but yeah, he it's hard to know if you know, he actually did kill them. But yeah, but he doesn't like outright killed him. And then the rich guy and and his housekeeper. Uh, he doesn't kill them either, So there is a weird code. Uh. But like I said,

I think he's a dumb shit. I don't think he knows what his code is for sure. Yeah, no, I think again it's like these received ideas of what a man should act like, you know. And um, there's there is one quote. You know, I love to bring quotes in a quote from one of these Malick interviews, and I want to hear what you think of it about this because I think it, um it even speaks to

sort of our current time political climate per se. But again everything is Yeah, but he's talking about the conservativism of kit and Malix said, quote, it's not infrequently the people at the bottom who most vigorously defend the very rules that put and keep them there. And speaking about quick Kit, yeah, geez, the more things change. Huh. Here's another Mallet quote. Actually, and this really drives home um

a point about who this character is. And you probably read this one, but he at a news conference he said that Kit is so desensitized that he can regard the gun with which he shoots people as a kind of magic wand that eliminates a small nuisance. And that's kind of the the thing through the whole movie. He's wantonly killing, but it's uh, you know, he kills her. Warren oates the Great Warren notes h as her father.

Who's who's gonna go call the cops on him? He's like, this gun, you know, we'll stop you from doing that. His friend Kato, that's clearly kind of running to go turn them in. He's like, this gun will stop him from doing that. This gun will stop these people from trying to rat us out in the woods. Like, I don't even think he sees it as murder. Yeah, And I think this is one of the strongest parts of the movie. Is the way the violence is depicted, or

should I say not depicted. Yeah, because you think a movie about a spree killer who kills probably almost ten people by the end of the movie, you would think that would be a very violent film to watch, and this film is not violent at all. And and when there is violence, it always happens very quickly, and like there's barely any blood. You might see a little blood on a shirt, and it's just over and done with

very quickly, and it doesn't linger on it. And I think it's it's very much sort of maybe a commentary on the astheticization of violence and the way, you know,

we tend to want to see violence in this morbid way. Um. But also I love how watching it this time, what I noticed was how there's so many times where like they'll kill somebody and then they'll kit in Hollywood just kind of hang around and like just just hang out and look kind of very blow Especially after he kills her father, they just sit in the house for like the whole night before figuring out what to do, and they just kind of both stare out at the at

the window or something, just like you you think if you did that, you might want to like immediately have a plan and run away, but they just kind of hang out and just just relax almost. Yeah, and she never she you know, it's so underplayed, like she never gets hysterical. Holly just is sort of nonplussed about it all. You know, when when he shoots Kato, she goes in the room with him where he's ostensibly just sitting there dying very slowly, and she just goes in and just

starts having a conversation with him and asking him a question. Um, very childlike. Again, like neither one of them, I don't think understands the gravity of what they're actually doing, but

she slowly does, and I think that's that turn. It takes towards like the three quarter mark where she feels sort of captive but she doesn't know even when when they're in the back seat and he's kissing her when she has the rollers in her hair, like it feels like he's sort of forcing himself on her, but it's not, you know, she's not pushing him off and saying no, no, no, it's not like that. But you can tell that she's

not there anymore with him, Yeah, exactly. And and shortly after that, I think is the scene where they're dancing to not King Cole, Yeah, which is in the headlights of the car, which is a great scene, but if you if you pay attention, it's really like it's really just a Kit is the one who's feeling these emotions. Holly's just they're going along with it. You yeah, yeah, you know the line. I couldn't quite tell what he said, so I had to turn on the subtitle, but it's

another great line of dialogue. He's listening to that King Cole and says, if I could sing a song like that, a song about the way I feel right now would be a hit. Such a great line and the narcissism again, you know, and the fact that if you look at the lyrics to that song, Um Blossom Fell, it's it's all about like love coming to an end, the dream is ended, true love dies, and stuff like that, which

I think is maybe sort of lost on Kit. Yeah, I think so, but it's very appropriate for the movie because I think shortly after that is when they get to that um that area in the planes where the helicopter starts chasing after them, and that's where Holly finally says, no, I'm not going to go with you, and she finally makes that decision to break off from him, yeah, and and does it again in such an understated childlike way.

She she kind of just sits on the ground and she's like, I don't want to go, and you know, he gets more frustrated and asked why what's going on and she's like, I don't know, I just don't want to go, and and like that's her big stand. Uh. The way that she handled handles it is just so childlike and um, and he knows, you know, he tells her that, you know, you know, we're gonna meet up on this damn on New Year's Eve and whatever ten years from now at noon, and it's like, where do

you come up with this ship? Man? But can you imagine the relief that she felt when he left? Oh? Yeah, I mean when you when you mentioned this sort of childlike aspect. I mean, I know you have a young daughter. I'm sure there have been situations where she's like I don't want to do this and you ask why and she's like, I just don't want to. Yeah. It was very much like that scene right before. That scene too,

is one of my favorite parts of Narration. That again It's just shows what a master writer Malick was from the very beginning where she goes, she's talking about what you know again, like what he's doing, what she's doing, what he's doing, what she's doing, And she goes, I spelled out entire sentences on the roof of my mouth with my tongue where nobody could read them, just like,

how do you write that? Ship so brilliant And also like in relation to what's happening in the movie, you know, the idea that that's what her fictional audience would be interested in hearing about. It's just it's such a misplaced sense of misjudging who her audience is, you know. Yeah, Um, I mean that whole last sequence when they're driving through the bad Lands, Um and the Great Plains, just hauling

acid in that sweet Cadillac off off roading it. Basically it was just such a cool decision to not put it on the highway somehow, you know. Yeah, And and once the cops start chasing him in the car, we get an actual chase scene. That's like, again, you don't really think of Malick as the guy who's gonna film chase action sequences, but it's it's really gripping. It's a

really gripping chase sequence. Um, even though they're you know, they they obviously filmed it with not much money, but it works well when he speeds through the field and the cows are running out of the way in a dirt road where the dust is kicking up behind him and you can't you know, the cops probably can't even see ahead of him because of that. It's it's really really well shot, it is, and it feels genuinely dangerous.

These cars kind of fish tailing and the dirt hauling ass right next to each other, these big, gass old cars that don't handle that well. You know, these aren't like stunt cars, guarantee. They were just an old stock caddy that he bought to destroy. Basically, it does feel very dangerous. Yeah, And I noticed watching it this time where the cops are chasing him and they're on a dirt road and Kit makes a sharp left turn and the cops follow and do the same and the cop

car tips. It doesn't tip upside down, but it tips like straight up, slowly comes back down, and I'm like, there's there's no way they meant that, And it's like, where there are other takes where it flipped completely, Like I I can't imagine how if they just got really lucky with how far the car tipped, you know, well, and I think that's the ones who ended up getting him, right, I mean, yeah, it is. It doesn't really show that, it doesn't draw that line, but you get the feeling

that that cars drove away from that that brief sideways tip. Yeah, because it seems that's when Kit it seems like he's going to get away from them, and that's when he decides to stop and shoot out his tire because I think he needs again, like we talked about earlier, he needs that sort of movie script ending to his tail where the cops apprehend him in a high speed cha. Yeah. And it's a really interesting decision to shoot out the

tire rather than just give up. Um. And she even says so in the narration you know that that she thought it was or she was onto him basically and suspected that he shot out his own tire instead of the tire actually just blowing out naturally. Yeah, because it's almost like he feels he needs he can't be seen as having given up of his own volition. So it's

like there had to be something that stopped him. You know, yeah, absolutely, let's talk a little bit about that Cato sequence, because you know, I mean, we talked a little bit about it. But they've um they got to his friend's house that I guess he just knows somehow, and he goes to turn him in. They shoot him. He dies very slowly, and that's I feel like, when a couple of interesting things happened, that's the first time that you see him emote and like act upset after he locked set couple

in the in the cellar or whatever. And then you see him like kicking rocks and like, really, um, can't get ahold of himself. But beside that big truck, and that's the only time you see him sort of not at least pretending to be in control of himself. And that, I think is where it kind of turns to where I feel like she's feeling like a hostage for the first time, and I think onto him a little bit,

like he doesn't even know what he's doing. And I think that's when the voiceover says, he's the most trigger happy person I've ever met, which is a very interesting way to describe him. Murdering a couple of people. But but yeah, that's scene where he's walking walking by himself and sort of kicking rocks and cursing. It's interesting because we don't hear what he says, like I think there's either music or maybe voiceover on top of it. And so again, we were never really allowed an entry way

into kits psychology. Even we see you know, we see that emotion, but we don't really know what he's thinking. And I think maybe that's one of the brilliant things about this movie is that Malick never, um, he never attempts to psychologize Kit and never explain his actions. Um. He never says, oh, Kit, you know, grew up in a broken home and this is why he is the way he is, or he had an abusive father, is this this is why he is the way he is.

It's never known nothing about him, you know, nothing about him, Yeah, except I think a little bit at the beginning when it shows him just kind of working these dead end jobs exactly. Yeah. And and the fact that early on we see Kato as like maybe his one friend from the garbage todays on the garbage route, you know, and the fact that he has no problem killing Kato. You know, Oh was that Kato at the beginning? Yeah, when he's

when they're hauling garbage and uh yeah at the very beginning. Uh. The other cool thing that happens in that sequence to which is very instructive I think of or, is when the couple shows up and that he's walking him out to the field to put him in the cellar, and she and the girl are talking and it's just girl talk. She's like a kid. She has this connection that she hasn't had in weeks, and she's asking him if she loves her boyfriend, which, man, I mean, just what a

great way to play and write that scene. You know, it's so banal. Like again, like you said, girl talk, just do you love him? Well, I gotta stick by kid. I think he feels trapped, you know, as they're clearly walking out to a field where there's a very good chance they might die. Yeah, And she even asked, She's like, you know, what's he gonna do? And she's just like, I don't know, you know, you'd have to ask him. Basically. Yeah, it's very it's it's incredibly chilling in a in a

very detached way. Uh. How these scenes play out. Yeah. And and also for a movie that sort of plays out like a fairy tale in a lot of ways, Um, it's somehow not grounded in reality the way they play all this stuff, uh, and not reacting to you know, there's never, like I said earlier, there's never one moment even when her dad dies, where she gets upset about stuff. And that that point is interesting too, because Malick talked about how, um, it's not that maybe she never felt

emotion about her dad's death. It's maybe she did cry buckets, but she would never think of telling you that, Like that wouldn't be proper to to share with the audience, because it would you know, she's again doesn't want to put too much attention on herself, and she just wants to come off in this the best possible light, so to speak. Yeah. I mean there's a brief moment when he's dying where she runs to his side, but even that is pretty underplayed and she says, are you gonna

be okay? And he's like basically dead. Yeah, And and kids, great line is like he didn't need a doctor, you know, he's gone. And the way that murder is played out is so just low key and uh and real. You know, my favorite moment of that sequence is when a kit moves the body into the I don't think it's like the basement. Yeah, he drags into the basement and then he comes back upstairs and he's like, I found a toaster and he's just holding a toaster abound the toaster.

It's like, why, like what is he what are your values? Man? Like? Why do you take these things? Yeah? I mean he's a dumb ship. The things that he chooses to do, Like he burns the house down, and that one great uh kind of the only handheld sequence in the movie, so it has a lot of impact when he's dumping the gas everywhere and Malick shoots fire so well, it's

just so like with that score, so haunting. And he takes he puts on the record of him on a loop of what he's you know, trying to throw the cops off the scent and uh takes a lamp and then the rich man's house, he takes that trophy cup and and you know, the hat and the jacket and

a couple of other dumb things. Like the things he finds and wants to collect is just weird and It's kind of ironic because, especially when he's on his garbage route, he talks about like he's kind of disgusted by all the junk people have or throw away, and yet he has no problem collecting the same kind of junk for himself. Yeah. He said that about Kato when he when he was

in his room, he looked at all this junk. Yeah, exactly, And that, I think again points to that sort of disgust he has with the lower class, almost, like, especially at the beginning, how he's so sort of ashamed of being a garbage collector and he's like, listen, I don't like this stuff, okay, but I'm just doing it. And he he feels like he he clearly feels like he's way above being a garbage collector. Yeah. And and uh sort of takes the attitude into his first meeting with

her father. Uh, when he goes out in that great, great shot which is so cool, where her dad is hand painting these billboard signs on the highway. Uh. And again with Jack Disk as a production designer, such a small detail that his his work truck had all that paint splatter all over it. Um. Just little things like that make it so rich. But I love that scene where he basically goes out there to sort of tell his father, her father, like, hey, I love your daughter

and I'll do right by her. But the way he does it is not correct. No, I mean he clearly thinks he's above the dad. You know, he plays it, you know, the way you shouldn't play it. Was just sort of like, I'm kind of amused by the fact that i have to come out here and do this like song and dance, but I'll just do it just to humor you, right. Yeah, I love that scene and Warren, you know, the legendary war notes in such a small part,

uh but still very effective. Yeah. He he has only I think a handful of lines in the whole movie, but they're not wasted. And he's just he's so uh kind of menacing, both as a person but also probably as a father. He's clearly a uh probably a strict father to say the least, you know, and Warnotes plays it very well. Yeah. I mean there's not a ton of dialogue in the whole movie because everything is so underplayed.

Like if this movie got remade and it it sort of has been through uh wild at hard in California and uh, natural born killers, like I was saying, but uh, nobody would take this kind of approach. There would be so much more emotion and when the father dies, she would just be like screaming and upset and like everything is just so between this like here and here in this movie. And it's such an it like not brave, but like just a very confident thing for a twenty

something filmmaker to do right out of the gate. Yeah, it's a it's it's it's a very strange movie, like I would very very much call it strange. And uh, it's it's even more of a kind of a miracle when you think about, like we talked about the troubled production of the film, that's the fact that the end product feels so seamless, Like they have three different directors of photography over the course of the movie and it never you never noticed that. It feels always feels like

one clear, coherent vision. Yeah, totally. And Malik has that great cameo at the rich guy's house that I'm sure you know the story there he the actor didn't show and so he just filled in, planning to reshoot it later. Uh, And and Martin Sheen was like, now, man, I'm not reshooting that. You were great, you gotta leave it. And

he he is really good. I mean it's just a small role, but Malik has that kind of like very soft spoken Texas drawl, and uh, It's it's weird because again, we know how Malick is, you know, since then he doesn't do interviews or press or anything, and so just to see him like in his own movie with Dialogue, it's just kind of this weird whiplash feeling like, oh, like, I'm sure a lot of people watch and don't even know that that's Malick, yeah, or or if they don't,

aren't just a sort of a student of him might think, oh, yeah, the director given himself a cameo like m Night Shammelan and like that is not Malex deal at all. Like he didn't, he didn't want to. He wanted to reshoot it. It is Uh, he did it as a last resort. I'm sure if there was anyone else on that set he could have stuffed in that suit like he would have done so, but it ended up working. It's kind of fun, fun to see him, and I love that.

Martin Sheen was adamant that He's like, I'm not going to reshoot that scene, Terry, you have to We're keeping it. And little uh, little Emilio and Charlie Sheener in it too. I don't know if you knew that. I didn't I until um, yeah, I was just scrolling on the Wikipedia last night. I was like, oh, there are the two little boys on the street that Holly kind of looks out of her window at. Yeah, very cool their first appearance on film, I think. Yeah, And um, you know

you're talking about Hollywood couples. Um, I didn't know this, but Martin Sheen and his wife they were married, obviously with kids at the time of this movie, but they are another couple that have been together there, uh that this whole time, Um, forty some years and yeah, still growing strong. So that's cool. There there's a handful of him, Jeff Bridges and his wife, like there's I know Hollywood has that reputation, but the ones that endure, like um,

Kevin Bacon and Karas Sedgwick. I just I think it's cool. But I also think I think that's cool when any couple stays together forever, like you don't have to be from Hollywood. I think it might be a little more challenging just due to the scheduling and not being around each other and all that. But uh, mating for life is admirable, you know, coupling up. Uh, do you got anything else? I mean, I'm out of notes. I could certainly talk about it more though, if you have some

more stuff. Um Man's one of my favorite movies. Me too, Man, And there's just so many great lines, Like I don't want to just spend the rest of the time just quoting lines from the movie or throw a couple out. I want to hear well. One of my favorite moments, not necessarily necessarily a line, is where Kit shoots the football. And it's so funny because right before that you hear the voice over Holly saying we would sometimes ram a

cow with the car to say bullets. And then the next scene, Kit decides to shoot a football because it was excess baggage. Yeah. Again, that childlike thing. Uh, he probably wanted to know what what happened if he shot up football, like if it would explode or something. Yeah. Yeah, And and there's a that reminds me just to put a bow on some of the you know, analysis of

of Kit as a character. M Malick talked about how um, which I think is a really fascinating aspect of it, This idea that um suffering makes you deeper, profound, like people who have suffered, especially in movies, usually like you see it on their face. They have this maturity, this wisdom from their suffering. But Malick said, in relation to Kit, like, yeah, that sometimes happens, but sometimes suffering can just make you like, uh, closed off and narrow minded. And I think that could

very much be applied to Kit. That he's sort of, uh, he thinks he has a great depth of knowledge and wisdom, but he doesn't at all, and he's very just sort of simple and and a dumb shit. Yeah, he's simple and a dumb sh it. But that is the classic sort of story of the of the narcissist UM. I mean, truly, there are intelligent narcissists, but man, I've known people like this that that think they have so much to say, Um, this roots he wisdom, and they don't know what the

funk is going on. They don't have a plan. Kit never has a plan. Uh. And it's interesting drawing that line to politics these days, there's some lines that can definitely be drawn yeah, with the folks he wisdom, and how Malick makes it very regional and sort of the way Kit talks like he has kind of that that Southern accent, that sort of Texas Southern accent, and the way he says things like, you know, takes all kinds,

don't it. You know, just he he speaks in UM A lot of those those folks ye aphorisms that um you here in that part of the country. You know,

I know, and I think UM, and I don't listen. Man, I don't want to like disparage anyone, but I have known people from parts of the country that use those aphorisms in in place of having something of their own to say, and they just regurgitate a saying like like it takes all kinds because there's no critical thought going on, and you know, to be fair, there's certainly an amount of that that's just like you say, it as just like kind of something to say, like it isn't meant

to be you know, it's just sort of like a polite thing to say or I don't know, you know, like it's not always it's not always said by people like Kid who think they're super deep. Sometimes it's just said sort of nonchalantly, but with somebody good stuff. Oh yeah, sure. But when somebody thinks that these sort of aphorisms have a lot of truth, and they think that they're the one who's like blessing the world with this knowledge, that's

where you can kind of run into trouble, you know. Yeah, man, I really really love this movie and I'm glad I got to watch it again. Um, we should do Days of Heaven too. I mean, you know, I would do any and every Malick movie you would want to do. Man. I I hesitate a little bit because I know Casey would want to do something will be so mad. He's also big disciple of Malick. But um, but yeah, man, any any time, just you know, you know how to

reach me. I wonder maybe if you and Casey and I could all do Days of Heaven that'd be fun. Like you and your closet, him and his closet in the other room. Yeah, me and my baby saying Casey and I are roommates. Yeah, what do you mean? Uh? Yeah, Days of Heaven is just I mean I rank it as my favorite Terrence Malick film. Um, and you know I had the great Brooke Adams on this show as

a guest. Yeah, yeah, she was on. You know, she's married to Tony Shalub and I got a line into Tony and I was like, would Brooke want to be on two because I'm gonna be in New York. She could you guys could both come in together and just do it back to back. And He's like, sure, she'll come in. So waiting for Guffman, um, which was which

was good. But I got to ask her some questions about Days of Heaven, which I had always wanted to ask about that shoot uh and kind of hear it from you know, one of the horses Mouths, which is great, and another movie with there are There are a lot of similarities here and those movies with the narration and um, not just the aesthetic look because that's all of Malick, but they're the relations a couple on the run. Um, there's some kind of same DNA going on, and that

that that theme. Malleck does a lot of sort of Paradise gained in Paradise lost, you know, like in bad Lands. It's maybe when they're out in the woods living this sort of Adam and Eve style life in nature, and same with Days of Heaven. Where they retreat to, you know, the Texas Panhandle to live in this sort of idyllic setting. And then of course that never lasts. Reality always intrudes, you know. Yeah, and we also got violence too, and

both of those movies is very similar. Yeah, yeah, very true. Um. I was just gonna say, also got to give a shout out to a Linda Man's from Days of Heaven who just passed away. Oh did she? Oh you didn't know that? Yeah, within just within the past couple of months she passed away. Oh man, I don't know how I missed that. Yeah, just just a bummer because she's Um, I forget how old she was, but she wasn't that old. Oh god, she's so great that that voice, in that accent,

in that narration. And she didn't really do much else. No, I think she was in maybe a couple of other projects, but really didn't become an actor full time, you know. Man, So sad. All right, dude, well that was great. I think we should try and do uh, get all three of us in there, because I love that movie so much, and and I know you guys are both big, big malik dudes, so let's let's do that totally down aime. Well, thanks buddy, thanks for having me man. So it's fun.

All right. Everyone go out and see bad Lands, or watch bad Lands if you haven't yet. Three minutes long and one of the all time, all time great movies. Very tight, very tight, nine three minutes. You don't see that from Malick very often, so uh, enjoy it, enjoy all right, thanks everyone. Movie Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, is scored by Meel Brown here in our home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I

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