The Influence of “Natural Born Killers”
“Mickey and Mallory know the difference between right and wrong; they just don’t give a damn.” – Dr Emil Reingold (Portrayed by Steven Wright).
In 1994, the film industry was struck by Oliver Stone’s masterpiece, Natural Born Killers. The original screenplay was written by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino who, in a 2003 interview with Playboy magazine said, “I had my name taken off the script just so people wouldn’t think I had written that.” He hated the film so much due to Stone’s alternations that, confirmed by the Tarantino Archives, he published the original draft in 2000.
According to Jeremy Withers in 2012, the film was either lambasted or loved by critics for its brave depictions of two societal rogues and the media’s glorification of them. On the IMDB website, it is classed as ‘trivia’ that Stone himself has confirmed this, claiming that it is a play on how serial killers are adored by the media for their horrific actions. In fact, according to the 2003 blog post written by Karina Wilson, the film was seen to be ‘romanticising’ violence and is still discussed in murder cases as the cause for teenage killing sprees.
It is apparent in an article written for the Guardian, that in 1995 a teenage couple Sarah Edmunson and Benjamin Darras took LSD and screened Natural Born Killers. After this, they shot 2 people, killing one and paralyzing the other. This case, like the other eight separate copycat murders, has been confidently linked to Stone’s film due to the violence depicted. On a timeline provided by FreedomForum.org, A year before this incident, a 14-year-old Texas boy decapitated a 13-year-old girl. The police claimed that the boy had said, “he wanted to be famous like the natural born killers.” From this it became clear to me why Stone’s choice to represent the media as ‘adoring fans’ of serial killers was so problematic.
In his 1998 essay, Beller briefly outlines the plot of the film. It is a satire that concerns itself with the violent crimes of Micky and Mallory Knox, portrayed by the brilliant Woody Harrelson and Juliet Lewis. Their saga begins with the slaughter of Mallory’s abusive parents, followed by a brutal killing spree and their eventual imprisonment. Finally, the film climaxes with the escape and reunion of the lovers. All of which documented by the news crew.
While analysing the film, Sarah Loshe states that Robert Downey JR is cast as the reporter Wayne Gale, whose character symbolises the broadcast media. The representation of him suggests that the media is on a “mission to desensitise our culture to violence.” This is clear through Gale’s pure excitement when reporting on Mickey and Mallory’s atrocities on his ‘America’s Most Wanted’ style television show, as described by Lochhead & Auner in 2002, American Maniacs which includes its very own opening title sequence and voice-over.
Oliver Stone combined his understanding of the magnetism of violence and his use of editing to manipulate the moving image in such a way that it was astounding for the audience (Wilson, 2003). I found that the sitcom pastiches mentioned by Wilson were particularly effective in making me, as a viewer, feel uncomfortable and nervous. Jarret Berman states in an article for PopMatters that Stone was experimental with his editing techniques which led to the film having a monumental 18 different formats. A film format can be described as a set of characteristics for film capture. This meant that there were 18 different shot sizes used throughout the film. Berman continues by highlighting Stones use of shifting point of view shots and superimposed landscapes. He confirms that the film took nearly a year to edit and was so successful that Stone had won an award for Best Director. This style of editing was very unique in the way that it created the effect of multiple different genres. This includes but is not limited to: sitcom, western and romance. Incorporating the aesthetics of multiple genres is what made the film stand out to me regarding post-production.
Taking a long eleven months to edit with a mere fifty-six days to shoot it is clear that the style of editing was the selling point of Natural Born Killers, as controversial as it was, it stands as an example of experimental editing in contemporary cinema, Stone was incredibly brave in the way that he challenged both the conventions of filmmaking and the behaviour of broadcast media as a whole. He used the aesthetics of different genres to effectively criticize how society responds to crime. Even now, 25 years later, it is still being examined and this shows how influential it was.
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Jordyn Kelsey
My irrelvant opinion & essays on cinema
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