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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Terence malick's remarkable film of 1974, Badlands, contains a sequence which vividly epitomizes the experience of American violence and deftly connects it to the impulse deep within even the most inarticulate of victims and violators to turn pain into art. Like its cinematically inferior predecessor Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands is based upon actual history—the Charles Starkweather case of 1958 in which a pair of Nebraska teenagers went on a murderous rampage, killing eleven persons including the girl's parents and baby sister. In the film, Kit and Holly flee to the prairie shack of Cato, Kit's fellow worker on the town garbage truck. Cato tries to sneak away and sound the alarm. Kit shoots his friend in the back. Cato staggers indoors, bleeding but silent, and collapses on the bed. As Kit and Holly circle aimlessly around the room, the dying man does something oddly significant—he picks up a mirror and carefully examines his face in its surface. Kit says nothing and Holly offers neither apology nor help. Instead she innocently inquires about Cato's pet spider. What does it eat? Does it ever bite? “It never bit me,” he gasps laconically. After he dies Kit drags the body into the shed, then stalks up and down outside gesturing vehemently to the corpse. Like other victims in this brilliant, disturbing film, Cato has been caught in the spiraling coils of Kit's almost voiceless and casual violence.
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