'Badlands' (1973): Audio analysis from Left Field Cinema

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Extract:

But there is a darker ironic turn in the tale for Holly and Kit, and consciously they wish to rebel against social confines and acceptable behaviour, but subconsciously they appear to do the exact opposite; Neil Campbell in his essay: The Highway Kind: Badlands, Youth, Space and the Road, states that:

“Contrary to the assumed traditions of youth and road movies as subversive texts, Kit’s actions can be read as his quest for conformity and responsibility rather than as a counter-cultural rebel, for what he desires, above all, is a return to some ideal lost time of manners, respect and honesty. In fact many youth texts have concerned themselves with rediscovering forms of stability, authenticity and values perceived as lost in the ‘phoney’ adult world, as in The Catcher in the Rye, Rebel Without a Cause and The Outsiders.” Campbell clarifies this contradiction in the mythos of the rebel: “The impossibility of fulfilling myths that assert mobility and settlement, freedom and restraint, individualism and conformity. Ultimately, in these joyless, brutally cold lives, youth rebellion on the road goes nowhere and offers nothing, for any hopeful spaces are temporary and transitory at best and seem only to lead back to where the social codes of normalisation and discipline wait to reclaim the highway kind.”

Full written analysis can be found @ Left Field Cinema