Why Badlands?
Rebel Reel Cine Club at Home
Why Badlands? - Maverick director, counterculture and a favourite that people have seen before (a long time ago) or wished they’d seen - the evening bringing us together on the anniversary of the arrest of the inspiration for the film characters in a time of uncertainty for all of us.
Things we learnt on 29th January 2021
It was 63 years to the day that infamous killers were arrested
Martin Sheen’s name is Ramon (and why he puts his jacket on the way he does)
Jimmy Galvin’s music is haunting and beautiful
PLUS ending Dry January can result in your fire alarm going off (twice)
29th January 2021 – Rebel Reel Cine Club at Home
We collectively watched Badlands after an hour of Jimmy Galvin playing live from Bristol, cooking, quizzes and fun from the home of Rebel Reel Cine Club.
29th January 1958
On this day Charles Starweather (aged 19) and Caril Ann Fugate (14) were arrested - following 10 days of killing and a 500 mile chase across the Badlands of Nebraska and Ohio – read more about the whole case here.
Their story, as well as inspiring Badlands (which in itself inspired Natural Born Killers (1994) and True Romance as well as one of the dance sequences in Dirty Dancing – don’t expect to be seeing anyone carrying a watermelon at Rebel Reel Cine Club …) plus The Sadist (1963), Kalifornia (1993) and Starweather (2004)
Check out Redheaded Peckerwood - a collection of photos taken from 2005 to 2010 along the 500 mile route that Starweather and Fugate drove. Released in 2011 by Christian Patterson as a book, it includes reproductions of documents and photographs of objects that belonged to Starkweather, Fugate and their victims.
Bruce Springsteen penned Nebraska as a first-person narrative from the viewpoint of Charles Starkweather, here’s the lyrics …
I saw her standin' on her front lawn just twirlin' her baton
Me and her went for a ride sir and ten innocent people died
From the town of Lincoln Nebraska with a sawed-off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path
I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while sir, me and her we had us some fun
Now the jury brought in a guilty verdict and the judge he sentenced me to death
Midnight in a prison storeroom with leather straps across my chest
Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir and snaps my poor neck back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin' right there on my lap
They declared me unfit to live, said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world
As well as Springsteen’s song check out J Church’s 1994 song Hate So Real, Nebraska-based electropop trio Icky Blossoms song entitled "Stark Weather" - narrated from Starkweather's point of view and includes references to his killing of Fugate's mother, stepfather, and half-sister, Nicole Dollanganger's song "Nebraska" is a retelling of the murders, Caril Ann Fugate is mentioned “… showed his Caril Ann how to use a knife/picked it up slowly/killed with it twice".
The ‘Badlands’ Murders are also mentioned in Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire" with the line "Starkweather homicide.." but this mentions a huge amount of events throughout the twentieth century – check out Wikipedia on the list …
The Estervez’s
Martin Sheen’s mother (Irish immigrant mother Mary-Ann Phelan and Spanish-born father Galicia Francisco Estevez named their son Ramon Estevez but Sheen changed his name to Martin Sheen (only as a stage name legally retaining the name Ramon) discovering that there were few roles for Hispanic actors in Hollywood. Charlie Sheen’s name is actually Carlos, his older brother Emilio retained his birth name …
There’s a scene in Badlands where Sheen’s character Kit throws his jacket over his right shoulder from behind to put it on – apparently Martin Sheen has one arm 3 inches shorter than the other because his shoulder was damaged during birth complications - If you’ve watched The West Wing you’ll see that 30 years later he’s still doing it that way
From Tadcaster to Greenwich, from Northumberland to Charvill …
A huge thank you to everyone who came on Friday – we’ve sold out of badges now – I hope you spotted the moment in the film that the Voice O-Graph on the badge appears …
Thanks as ever to Smoke and Bones for partnering with us on the Burger Meal boxes – check out their monthly boxes – next month I’m going big on the vegetarian Jackfruit Burger Box which we’ll be putting up on Rebel Reel Cine Club shortly …
Thanks to Alex and Greg at 12 Oz Bottle Shop for curating a selection of craft beers
Jimmy Galvin – how to thank you? I hope you agree that Jimmy’s playing was sublime, his tolerance of me muting him after my confusion with the red telephones … please check out Jimmy’s website – Jimmy puts us all to shame – an artist, composer and curator – I really hope you enjoyed his music.
A huge thank you to my team - Iris for directing me (whilst I consumed the six beers in the hour …), Maud for her research on the films in the quiz (sorry I didn’t use your bonus questions), Felix for the seamless interaction between Jimmy and I with the red telephones and Emma for managing the comments, feeding them to me and endless support.
BUT mainly THANK YOU TO YOU for coming, for commenting, for supporting and hopefully having fun!
As the lockdown continues Rebel Reel Cine Club can’t meet in real life but we’ll continue to do Rebel Reel Cine Club at Home, working with Smoke and Bones again (check out their cute introduction to Smoke and Bones on the Rebel Reel Cine Club YouTube Channel).
The next Rebel Reel Cine Club at Home is on Friday 26th February – I’ll announce our partners next week and put it on-sale.
Oh, I’ve written barely anything about the film … but check out –
https://filmschoolrejects.com/badlands
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/aug/29/drama3