Bonnie And Clyde Vs Badlands Comparative Essay

Terrence Malick’s 1973 film Badlands depicts an unusual relationship between a fifteen year old girl named Holly and her rebellious twenty five year old boyfriend Kit, who go on a killing spree through South Dakota. Where Arthur Penn’s 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde presents us with a young couple who meet in a small town and decide to start their life of crime by robbing banks all through the south. Malicks film presents a detached and dreamlike portrayal of its characters, whereas Penn’s film chooses to focus on the relationship between the main characters. These films have an almost parallel theme but differ in many ways. While both Malick’s Badlands and Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde explore the theme of criminality as a form of social resistance

In the film Bonnie and Clyde the couple gets ambushed by a group of policemen and shot to death on the side of the road. Whereas in the film Badlands Kit decides to leave Holly behind because she refuses to go with him. She is then picked up peacefully by the police and Kit goes on the run again and is soon captured by the police after surrendering. Kit gets the death penalty by the electric chair and Holly gets off with probation. Bonnie and Clyde's death from the police shootout resulted from them being so confident about the crimes they committed and having a feeling of entitlement that led them to think what they were doing was right. This is supported by a quote from an article by Roger Ebert where he said, “They seemed to consider themselves public servants, bringing a little sparkle to the poverty and despair of the Dust Bowl during the early Depression years” (Ebert,1967). This made it so they would never surrender to the police, causing them to go into a shootout any time the police tried to capture them. Bonnie and Clyde were much more well known for their crimes which caused them to be hated more by the police. In the film it seemed as if every police man and bounty hunter wanted to take their life rather than capturing them and taking them in. In Badlands Kit and Holly weren't as well known for what they did until after they were

Bonnie and Clyde were obsessed with the idea of being in a paper and gaining popularity through the media. “They know that newspaper readers want all the details they can get about the criminals who do the terrible things they themselves don't dare to do, and also want the satisfaction of reading about the punishment after feasting on the crimes” (Kael, 2). This explains why they so easily became famous all throughout the south so quickly. An example of this is in Bonnie and Clyde when Clyde's brother Buck is reading the newspaper and it says “Law enforcement officers throughout the Southwest are frankly amazed at the way in which will-of-the-wisp bandit Clyde Barrow and his yellow-haired companion, Bonnie Parker, continue to elude their would-be captors. Since engaging the police in a gun battle on the streets of Joplin Missouri and slaying three of their number…” This quote from the newspaper shows that the law enforcement is impressed by how good they are at escaping but still painting them in a bad light by using words like slaying, which has a negative connotation. Even though the newspaper tries to make Bonnie and Clyde look bad to the public they struggle because most of the public seems to like them. This is shown in the scene where Bonnie and Clyde shoot as