From Film to Song to Film to Book

January 21, 1958, Charles Starkweather and his partner Caril Ann Fugate went on a Killing Spree through Nebraska USA. This story inspired a well known film.....

'Badlands'(above), directed by Terrence Malick, made in 1973 and based on a true story about a young couple who go on a killing spree in the badlands of Nebraska.
I enjoyed this film when i watched it about one year ago, don't remember much about it and would have to watch it again to talk more about the film side to it.
Terrence Malick Directed and also wrote the script for this, he was obviously Intrested by the story and inspired to write this film. Malick looked at real things that had happened the world to get inspiration for his writing.


From seeing the film, a well known musician went on to write a song about the story seven years later. Bruce Springsteen released a solo album called Nebraska (above) in 1982, the title song was inspired from the story of Starkweather and also the film 'Badlands'. Springsteen was always inspired to write songs from watching films, he loved American B Movies and the whole of his Born to Run Album was suppose to represent an American Style B Movie.
Two of his songs were names of films, one from his 1975, Born to Run album, called 'Thunder Road' (A Robert Mitchum Film) and also 'Badlands' From his 1977 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town.
So Springsteen was also getting ideas for his job from the world around him, just like Terrence Malick was.


Sean Penn's film directing debut came in 1991 with his film 'The Indian Runner' which was based on the song 'Highway Patrolman' from the 1982 Nebraska Album. I can't buy it anywhere, so I've not been able to watch it., but still i managed to watch bits of it on YouTube and reminds me of the setting from the song.
Sean Penn was inspired by a single song to make a film, this how effective music can be.


Lastly a book was released in 2005 by a writer called Tennessee Jones called 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' (above) which was inspired by all the things I've talked about, Nebraska Album, The Indian runner, Badlands and Starkweather. Its a book that is literally a cover album but in book form. Its short stories on each song from the album, it takes the original stories from the songs and elaborates on them and goes deeper into the stories of the characters.

Generating ideas can come from everywhere by the looks of it, even from music which i thing is really fascinating, a 5-6 minuet song can be expanded to a 1 hour 30 minuet feature is very impressive for both the director for doing it and the musician who put so much detail into the original song.