Badlands (1973) + Film & Philosophy Lecture

This one-night-only screening is part of the series Summer Movie Nights, hosted by the Cinema Society of Kingston. The screening will be introduced with a lecture by Queen’s Film & Media PhD student William Jennings, who will explore philosophical themes raised by the film.

Admission is pay-what-you-can ($0 to $20).

About The Film

Badlands announced the arrival of a major talent: Terrence Malick. His impressionistic take on the notorious Charles Starkweather killing spree of the late 1950s uses a serial-killer narrative as a springboard for an oblique teenage romance, lovingly and idiosyncratically enacted by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. The film introduced many of the elements that would earn Malick his passionate following: the enigmatic approach to narrative and character, the unusual use of voice-over, the juxtaposition of human violence with natural beauty, the poetic investigation of American dreams and nightmares. This debut has spawned countless imitations, but none have equaled its strange sublimity.

About The Talk

One of the central questions of the philosophy/film studies intersection is: can film do philosophy? By this, we mean to wonder whether or not films can ask the same sort of philosophical questions or perhaps even give the same kinds of philosophical answers as, say, Plato’s Republic, or Aristotle’s Metaphysics. In this new installment of our ongoing ‘Film & Philosophy’ lecture series, we will be considering the philosophy of Terrance Malick’s Badlands (1974). Malick, one of the most curious and idiosyncratic American filmmakers of his generation, closely studied and translated the works of German existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger. This special lecture presentation by Queen’s PhD student William Jennings shall put the film in dialogue with some of Heidegger’s key ideas and contributions to philosophy, considering questions of technology, existence, authenticity, and what it means to be in the world. 

William Jennings is a PhD student in the Film & Media department at Queen’s University. His research focuses on philosophies of time and memory in digital culture.