All Cruelty Because of Love Poetry——Comment on the thematic expression of music in the movie "Poor Mountains and Bad Waters"

Kimberly 2021-12-31 08:02:00

Nat King Cole
9.7
Nat King Cole / 1992

Selfish, cold, and arrogant young people, who have been dazzled by freedom, start from the spirit and open up the "small world", it seems that no one can contain it except love, and no one can accompany it.

The film "Poor Mountains and Bad Waters" ("Bad Land") is one of the most iconic American movies of the 1970s. It is based on a serial homicide that occurred in January 1958. In the original case, Charles Starkweather, only 19 years old, and his 14-year-old girlfriend Carol Fugate madly killed 10 people. Starkweather was sentenced to death after being arrested, while his girlfriend Fugate was sentenced to life imprisonment. This is the director Terrence Malik’s debut film. He stretched the age difference between the male and female lead to ten years old. He took the girl Holly as the main perspective and calmly told her 25-year-old boyfriend Kit to be with her. After being together and shooting and killing her father, she fled, killed, and avoided "disaster" all the way.

When people are not awake, it is easy to forget the bottom line and boundary, and love makes people unconscious, freedom makes people unconscious, and weak three views make people unable to wake up. I try to be the director who generally integrates into the film and opens the kit to every part of the film. The poetic treatment of the fragments on the road again after the gun; try to look at the survival of death and murderers calmly as the heroine’s voice with a nasal midwestern voice; try to seriously feel the director’s aesthetic value and his philosophical discussion of love, But it was still unable to extinguish the cold and numb resentment towards the male lead in my heart. This made me think frequently-would such a self-disciplined person really love someone? However, I was finally convinced by the director’s romance—in the song of Nat King Cole—"A Blossom Fell". On the way to escape, in the middle of the night in the desert, they stopped the car and danced with the lights of the car. It belongs to the end of their love.

All this seems to be an escape, but in fact it is the exhaustion of two loved ones struggling and staying together in the catastrophe of love, just like when the boy fell in love with the girl-he had never seen a fifteen-year-old The girl will behave like an adult and taciturn like Holly, just like when the girl fell in love with the boy-he was just a garbage worker, because he met the girl and transferred to the feedlot, handsome like'James Dean'.

[Thinking about bass piano]

The beginning of the love story was supposed to be an encounter, but the beginning of the film's story is the moment when Kit shot and killed Holly's father. The film’s sound treatment of this plot is very subtle. From when Kit was discovered by Holly’s father at his house, a few dog barks made the atmosphere tense, and then, the shallow dog barking always accompanied the two of them. At the end, when Kit shot and killed Holly’s father, a few dog barks appeared when his father fell to the ground. It also started from this place. The film combined such a violent and criminal story with nature. Combine. Wind, birds, vegetation, mountains and rivers...like the sound of humans returning to primitive society-a man killed the father of his girlfriend who was ten years younger than him. From then on, he can only stand on the opposite side of human civilization with the support of love. Carrying on this invisible escape.

What impressed me even more was the use of the bass piano sound after my father fell to the ground. It was neither a song nor a tune. It was just the transmission of the piano's bass keys being pressed, and the dog barking outside the house. After thinking about the rustling insects with the male protagonist, the soundtrack combining music and natural sound makes the film not lose the weight of the heavy topic itself. Perhaps, outside the world, nature, unfettered, and loving what I love is the only thing Kit wants, or, to be more romantic, these are the only romances Kit can give Holly. But all of this is too heavy for Holl. No matter how mature her external performance is, she is a fifteen-year-old girl after all. This should be the most carefree and beautiful age, but she has lost it. After she got married, she lost her parents completely because of the unbearable weight of love. At this time, she had no choice. She was too insecure. There was only Kit beside her, and she still loved Kit. Everything suddenly made her love I wanted to retreat but I was caught off guard. That's all this is cruel and absurd for a little girl's life. Her love, kindness, purity, and innocence were all caught off guard. She can only continue to love Kit first, like those The bass is as heavy as a piano.

[Nature under the lively string music]

There are a lot of close-ups about the natural environment in the film, mostly on the way to escape after Kit shoots and kills, or the explanation of the new environment in which they are changed. These scenes are gradually appearing with string music. Achieved the absolute briskness on the screen delivery. If you haven't watched this film, just by seeing the silhouettes of these sets of shots, you would have never thought that they were included in a serial murder case.

Therefore, what I have to face is that all the pain and horror of all this are "happy" for these two young people at the moment, just like Kit sitting in a rich man's house after killing five people. The chair said, "Even though Huo Li and I are on the run, we are still very happy, and...so far we have done a good job and we have not been caught." This kind of characterization of lines is actually not surprising, they are very tired. , But there is no way, Kit is bound, Holly has nowhere to go, but none of this is an explanation for Kit’s behavior. The only reasonable explanation is Kit’s cold, numb, rampant and incompetent nature, but this nature For Holly, it was impossible to capture and understand, until they came to Cheyenne (the capital of Wyoming), the largest and most prosperous city Holly had ever seen, she began to think of the real "survival" and began to face and Accept the mediocrity of the person she loves.

The happiness and well-being of human beings are often extremely simple, and that feeling often comes from the moment—a kind of detachment of returning to nature as if consciously separated from human society and returning to nature. In this state, people begin to enjoy the wind, rain, and sunshine, but after all, human beings have to be restrained by human beings themselves. Everyone is dancing with an ankle chain. This kind of "happiness" is that they think they can escape human civilization and The "pleasure" of crossing the boundaries of species is fleeting.

[Everything is about to end in the wind ringing]

Everything is finally coming to an end, the fire of crazy love has been burned cold ashes.

-"I just don't want to go."

-"Listen if you don't want to give up. On January 1, 1964, Roosevelt Reservoir, twelve o'clock noon."

Kit just complained about Holly's giving up, he didn't force her to say anything, from beginning to end. He "worked hard" until this time, setting off alone was his accomplishment and the last fight for this "love". He can only give Holly love, but Holly's love has been wiped out. She is a child raised as a princess. She needs trout besides love.

Kit's hunch is also fulfilled, their "doom" is here. The police chased them up and fled all the way. The car ran out of gas, and refueling became more and more impossible. He stopped the car, and at the last moment, he wanted to get rid of the things that were unfavorable to Holly. But he still feels unwilling to give up... A string of wind chimes clever soundtrack sound... This makes the scene that prepared Kit's arrest again poetic. The bell of the wind suddenly blurred this love full of carnage and escape into a tragic fairy tale, and this "rampant" love finally came to an end.

The soundtrack in the film is a description of Kit and Holly's other scenery. The aesthetics of the film must not be without the discussion of the aesthetics of music.

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Extended Reading
  • Wade 2021-12-31 08:02:00

    From the beginning of the debut, the narrative has been in the form of prose poetry, and the soundtrack and photography are all beautiful.

  • Ashleigh 2021-12-31 08:02:00

    Teacher Ma’s feature-length debut (who has seen the short film that he made before in the legend?), the main body of life in the small town continues to [The Tree of Life], and the description of nature directly gave birth to the divine work [Day of Heaven]. Even if Almendros was not found in this film, the photography was gorgeous enough. This vacant "resistance without cause" has been continuously strengthened by the male protagonist who resembles James Dean. It can be seen as the end of the "long sixties"

Badlands quotes

  • Holly Sargis: [Last lines of the film]

    [Voiceover]

    Holly Sargis: Kit and I were taken back to South Dakota. They kept him in solitary, so he didn't have a chance to get acquainted with the other inmates, though he was sure they'd like him, especially the murderers. Myself, I got off with probation and a lot of nasty looks. Later I married the son of the lawyer who defended me. Kit went to sleep in the courtroom while his confession was being read, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On a warm spring night, six months later, after donating his body to science, he did.

    Kit Carruthers: Sir... Where'd you get that hat?

    Trooper: State.

    Kit Carruthers: Boy, I'd like to buy me one of those.

    Trooper: [the trooper smiles] You're quite an individual, Kit.

    Kit Carruthers: Think they'll take that into consideration?

  • Kit Carruthers: Hey, I found a toaster.