Film
Beyond the Canon: The Hitch-Hiker + Badlands
- 7PM
Dir. Ida Lupino
1953, 71min, DCP
With Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman
The only woman to work as a director in the Hollywood studio system of the 1950s, actress-turned-filmmaker Ida Lupino crafted one of the most potent noirs of the era. In this masterfully taut, hauntingly creepy thriller, a fishing trip becomes a nightmare for two men when they give a lift to the wrong guy. Based on the story of a notorious real-life serial killer, this tough-as-nails crime drama conjures a mood of steadily mounting dread that never lets up.
Dir. Terrence Malick
1973, 94min, 35mm
With Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates
In his revelatory debut feature, Terrence Malick transformed a shocking 1950s true crime saga into sublime pulp poetry as Sissy Spacek’s baton-twirling South Dakota teen joins up with Martin Sheen’s troubled greaser for a cross country joyride that soon turns deadly. Set against the mythic landscapes of the Midwest, Badlands is both a one-of-a-kind couple-on-the-run neo-noir and a cosmic meditation on the American Dream.
Badlands works as an appropriate title for both films; Emmett's piecemeal journey of terror across America could have crossed paths with Kit and Holly's own bloody spree in the Heartland, but Lupino's film is an altogether less romantic one: there's no love interest, none of Badlands' tenderness in The Hitch-Hiker.
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