Badlands

In Two Hearts, Dave Marsh says that Bruce saw Terrence Malick’s 1974 film on television and was so affected by it that he contacted the author of the book on which the film was based. They talked and Badlands became the title of the first song on Darkness on the Edge of Town and, four years later, the subject of the first (and title) song on Nebraska. (335-6) The first two verses of the song, Nebraska, are taken directly from the opening of the film. Holly, played by Sissy Spacek, is twirling her baton on her front lawn when Kit, played by Martin Sheen, approaches her and asks if she wants to take a walk with him. Kit tells her that he works as a garbage man and she is not very impressed. Still, they start seeing more of each other until Holly’s father warns Kit that he had better stay away from her. This confrontation ends with Kit shooting and killing the father and this, in turn, forces the couple to go out on the open road. Kit ends up murdering several more people, often unnecessarily and without much provocation, as they progress from South Dakota to Montana. Holly’s voiceover is used throughout the film both to summarize their deadly adventures and to explain her thoughts about Kit and his behavior. Early in the film she tells us, “Little did I realize that what began in the alleys and back ways of this quiet town would end up in the Badlands of Montana.” As the film progresses, it is readily apparent that Holly is merely along for the ride and that Kit is making all the decisions and committing all of the murders.
There are several lines in Badlands that could be related to themes found in Springsteen’s work and especially to the album Nebraska. In the first scene in the film, Holly tells us (via the voiceover) that her mother died when she was very young and that her father “could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house”. She is almost an outsider in her own home just as Springsteen, as a child, had a father who greatly resented his lifestyle and, especially his ‘goddamned’ guitar. Holly and her father moved from Texas to South Dakota so that he could “begin a new life away from the scene of all his memories”. But like the characters in Nebraska are unable to run away from their problems, Holly’s father ends up dead shortly after their move. When Kit and Holly first meet, he explains, “Well, nobody asked what I thought. They just hung it on me.” This line could be spoken by a Springsteen character on a number of albums. Soon after, Kit learns that he has been fired from his job and that this bit of news has “been in all the headlines”. The irony is thick because, by the conclusion of the film, Kit will be a kind of national celebrity. Holly falls for Kit, at least in part, because “he looked just like James Dean”. At one point, he tells her that he is going to work as a “cowboy” but in reality, he is going to be employed with a menial job at a feedlot. Travis Bickle is likewise called a “cowboy” by another character in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, but both Travis and Kit are not really the cowboys that they secretly idolize and wish they were.
Holly is fifteen when she loses her virginity to Kit, who is ten years older. Afterwards, she asks him, “Is that all there is to it?” Clearly, she is disappointed and there is no real connection between the two of them just as there is no connection among the characters of Nebraska. Sex with her doesn’t mean much to Kit, either. He wants them to smash their hands with a rock so they can remember that it even happened. Even together, they are isolated. However, like the narrator of the song, Nebraska, they “had us some fun”. Kit records his voice (in what is actually a fake suicide note) saying “I can’t deny we’ve had fun though. That’s more than I can say for some.” Holly is often confused about what she truly feels. At one point, she says that “it was better to spend a week with someone who loved me for what I was than years of loneliness”. She wonders about fate and coincidence: “I thought where would I be this very moment if Kit had never met me or killed anybody?” She can also be quite perceptive like some of Springsteen’s characters can be at certain times: “It all goes to show how you can know a person and not really know him at the same time.”
Many of the characters in Nebraska use terms like “Sir” and “Mister” which show that they, at the very least, try to use good manners. In Badlands, Kit takes this to the extreme. As he makes another recording on a Dictaphone, the murderer advises people to “listen to your parents and teachers” and to “try and keep an open mind”. Later, Kit and Holly dance in the middle of an empty plain listening to Nat King Cole sing, “The dream has ended/for true love dies.” The end for this runaway couple is near. When Kit is finally caught by the police, he marks the spot with a pile of rocks. One of the cops is surprised that “he ain’t no bigger than I am” and Kit explains that he “always wanted to be a criminal…just not this big of one”.