| Natural Born Killers | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Oliver Stone |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Story by | Quentin Tarantino |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Edited by | |
Production companies |
|
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time |
|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $34 million[2] |
| Box office | $110 million[3] |
Natural Born Killers is a 1994 Americanromanticcrime film[2] directed byOliver Stone and starringWoody Harrelson,Juliette Lewis,Robert Downey Jr.,Tommy Lee Jones, andTom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childhoods who become lovers andmass murderers, and are irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
The film is based on anoriginal screenplay byQuentin Tarantino that was heavily revised by Stone, writer David Veloz, and associate producer Richard Rutowski. Tarantino received a story credit though he subsequently disowned the film.Jane Hamsher,Don Murphy, and Clayton Townsend produced the film, withArnon Milchan,Thom Mount, and Stone as executive producers.
Natural Born Killers was released on August 26, 1994, in the United States, and screened at theVenice Film Festival on August 29, 1994 where it wonGrand Jury Prize. It was a box office success, grossing $110 million against a production budget of $34 million, but received polarized reviews. Some critics praised the plot, acting, humor, and combination of action and romance, while others found the film overly violent and graphic. Notorious for its violent content and inspiring"copycat" crimes, the film was named the eighth most controversial film in history byEntertainment Weekly in 2006.[4]
Mickey Knox and his wife Mallory stop at a diner in theNew Mexico desert. A duo ofrednecks arrive and beginsexually harassing Mallory as she dances by a jukebox. She initially encourages it before beating one of the men viciously. Mickey joins her, and the couple murder everyone in the diner, save one customer, to whom they proudly declare their names before leaving. The couple camp in the desert, and Mallory reminisces about how she met Mickey, a meat deliveryman who serviced her family's household. After a whirlwind romance, Mickey is arrested forgrand theft auto and sent to prison; he escapes and returns to Mallory's home. The couple murders Mallory'ssexually abusive father and neglectful mother, but spare the life of Mallory's little brother, Kevin. The couple then have an unofficial marriage ceremony on a bridge.
Later, Mickey and Mallory hold a woman hostage in their hotel room. Angered by Mickey's desire for a threesome, Mallory leaves, and Mickey rapes the hostage. Mallory drives to a nearby gas station, where she flirts with a mechanic. They begin to have sex on the hood of a car, but after Mallory suffers aflashback of being raped by her father, and the mechanic recognizes her as a wanted murderer, Mallory kills him. The pair continue their killing spree, ultimately claiming 52 victims in New Mexico,Arizona andNevada. Pursuing them is detective Jack Scagnetti, who became obsessed with mass murderers at the age of eight after having witnessed the murder of his mother at the hand ofCharles Whitman. Beneath his heroic façade, he is also a violent psychopath and has murdered prostitutes in his past. Following the pair's murder spree is self-serving tabloid journalist Wayne Gale, who profiles them on his showAmerican Maniacs, soon elevating them to cult-hero status.
Mickey and Mallory become lost in the desert after takingpsychedelic mushrooms, and they stumble upon a ranch owned by Warren Red Cloud, aNavajo man who provides them food and shelter. As Mickey and Mallory sleep, Warren, sensing evil in the couple, attempts toexorcise the demon that he perceives in Mickey, chanting over him as he sleeps. Mickey, who has nightmares of his abusive parents, awakens during the exorcism and shoots Warren to death. As the couple flee, they feel inexplicably guilty and come across a giant field ofrattlesnakes, where they are badly bitten. They reach a drugstore to purchasesnakebite antidote, but the store is sold out. A pharmacist recognizes the couple and triggers an alarm before Mickey kills him. Police arrive shortly after and accost the couple and a shootout ensues. The police end the showdown by beating the couple while a news crew films the action.
One year later, the imprisoned Mickey and Mallory are thought to becriminally insane and are scheduled to be transferred topsychiatric hospitals, with Scagnetti overseeing their transfer. Warden Dwight McClusky tells the detective that he should kill the Knoxes during their transfer and claim they had tried to escape.
Meanwhile, Gale has persuaded Mickey to submit to a live interview that will air after theSuper Bowl. During the interview, Mickey declares himself a "natural born killer", inspiring the other inmates to start aprison riot. After McClusky terminates the interview, Mickey is left alone with Gale, the film crew and several guards. He manages to overpower a guard and kill most of the people in the room, taking Gale and several others hostage. Gale and his crew give a live television report that profiles the riot. Meanwhile, when Scagnetti attempts to seduce Mallory in her cell, she beats him viciously before another guard subdues her withtear gas. Mickey and Gale reach Mallory's cell, where Mickey kills the guards and engages in aMexican standoff with Scagnetti before Mallory kills him.
Gale's entire television crew is killed trying to escape the riot, while Gale himself begins indulging in violence, shooting at prison guards. Mickey and Mallory steal a van and escape into the woods with Gale, to whom they give a final interview before declaring that he must die. He attempts various arguments to change their minds, appealing to their trademark practice of leaving one survivor. Mickey informs him that they are leaving a witness to tell the tale: his camera. Gale accepts his fate and is shot to death. Unbeknownst to the three, the entire exchange is transmitted to a horrified news anchor through Gale's in-ear microphone.
Several years later, Mickey and Mallory, still fugitives, travel in anRV, as a pregnant Mallory watches their two children play.
One of the central themes ofNatural Born Killers is the relationship between real-life violence and the mass media's coverage of it.[5] This thematic preoccupation was declared in the film's promotional materials, with its theatrical poster advertising it as a "bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime, and consumed by the media."[5]
The character of Wayne Gale, the television host ofAmerican Maniacs, functions in the film as a figurehead of luridtrue crime television documentaries, which recycle real-life incidents of violence and criminal activity into entertainment for the general public.[6] On several occasions, expressionistic edits featuring Gale as a blood-soakedSatan are interspersed into the film, which Muir suggests emphasizes the film's assertion that mass media and crime mutually reinforce one another.[6]
Media representation of thenuclear family has been identified as another theme in the film, particularly with the depiction of Mallory's dysfunctional family life, which includes a neglectful mother and a sexually abusive father.[5] Muir notes that the sequence depicting Mallory's home life—presented as a television sitcom with the titleI Love Mallory (a parody ofI Love Lucy)—charts "the colossal gulf between the imagery sold to America regarding family life and the truth, for many Americans, of such family life in the 1990s."[5] The "sitcom" representation of Mallory's household results in a visual dichotomy between her "life as she imagined it should be (replete with an oppressivelaugh track eradicating any scary sense of ambiguity)" and the "grim truth of it."[6]
Ian Cooper wrote that Mickey Knox's prison interview "parodiesGeraldo Rivera's jailhouse interview with[Charles] Manson."[7]
Natural Born Killers was based on ascreenplay written byQuentin Tarantino, in which a married couple suddenly decide to go on akilling spree.[8] Tarantino had sold an option for his script to producersJane Hamsher andDon Murphy for $10,000 after he had tried, and failed, to direct it himself for $500,000.[9] Hamsher and Murphy subsequently sold the screenplay toWarner Bros. Around the same time,Oliver Stone was made aware of the script. He was keen to find something more straightforward than his previous production,Heaven & Earth (1993), a difficult shoot which had left him exhausted.
David Veloz, associate producer Richard Rutowski, and Stone rewrote Tarantino's script, keeping much of the dialogue but changing the focus of the film from journalist Wayne Gale to Mickey and Mallory. The script was revised so drastically that Tarantino was credited for the story only.[10] In a 1993 interview, Tarantino stated that he did not hold any animosity towards Stone, and that he wished the film well.[11]
Initially, when producers Hamsher and Murphy had first brought the script to Stone's attention, he had envisioned it as an action film; "somethingArnold Schwarzenegger would be proud of."[12] As the project developed however, incidents such as theO. J. Simpson case, theMenendez brothers case, theTonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident, theRodney King incident, and theWaco siege all took place. Stone came to feel that the media was heavily involved in the outcome of all of these cases, and that the media had become an all-pervasive entity which marketed violence and suffering for the good of ratings. As such, he changed the tone of the film from one of purely action to a "vicious, coldheartedfarce" on the media.[13] Coloring Stone's approach to the material, and contributing to the violent nature of the film, were the anger and sadness he felt at the breakdown of his second marriage.[14] He also said in an interview that the film was influenced by the "vitality" ofIndian cinema.[15]
Stone cast Woody Harrelson partly because, "frankly, he had that American, trashy look. There's something about Woody that evokes Kentucky orwhite trash."[16] At the time, Harrelson was primarily known for his comedic performances, namely his role on the sitcomCheers, and Stone was compelled to cast him against type.[17] Stone cast Lewis for a similar reason, noting that, despite her success as portraying a defiled teenage daughter inCape Fear (1991), he felt she could "pull off white trash, too. Juliette has malice in her eyes. She's got adorable eyes, but they jump and they gleam. I just felt they [were both] right. They didn't feel like they were upper-class people."[16] Stone tried to convince Lewis to gain muscle mass for her role as Mallory so that she looked tougher, but she refused, saying she wanted the character to look like a pushover, not a bodybuilder.[18]
Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Wayne Gale, the reporter chronicling the Knoxes;[19] Downey prepared for his role as reporter Wayne Gale by spending time with Australian TV shock-kingSteve Dunleavy, and later convinced Stone to allow him to portray Gale with an Australian accent.[17] Tom Sizemore was cast as Detective Jack Scagnetti, the psychotic police officer with murderous impulses himself,[20] while Tommy Lee Jones was cast as Dwight McClusky, a prison warden who appears in the last act of the film.[20] Rodney Dangerfield, primarily known as a stand-up comedian, portrayed Mallory's rapist father and was allowed by Stone to rewrite all of his own character's lines.[21]
Principal photography took 56 days to shoot.[18] Filming locations included theRio Grande Gorge Bridge just west ofTaos, New Mexico, where the wedding scene was filmed, andStateville Correctional Center inJoliet, Illinois, where the prison riot was filmed. In Stateville, 80% of the prisoners are incarcerated for violent crimes. For the first two weeks on location at the prison, the extras were actual inmates with rubber weapons. For the subsequent two weeks, 200 extras were needed because the Stateville inmates were onlockdown. According toTom Sizemore, during filming on the prison set, Stone would play African tribal music at full blast between takes to keep the frantic energy up.[12] While shooting thePOV scene wherein Mallory runs into the wire mesh, director of photographyRobert Richardson broke his finger and the replacement cameraman cut his eye. According to Oliver Stone, he was not popular with the camera department on set that day.[18] For the scenes involving rear projection, the projected footage was shot prior to principal photography, then edited together, and projected onto the stage, behind the live actors. For example, when Mallory drives past a building and flames are projected onto the wall, this was shot live using footage projected onto the facade of a real building.[18] An alternate ending was filmed but not used, in which Mickey and Mallory are shot dead byArliss Howard's character.[22] Stone decided against using this ending because he believed "the 1990s were a time when the bad guys got away with it".[23]
The famousCoca-Cola polar bear ad[24] is seen twice during the film. According to Stone, Coca-Cola approved the use of the ad without having a full idea of what the film was about. When they saw the completed film, they were furious.[18]
Natural Born Killers was filmed and edited in a frenzied andpsychedelic style and features both color and black and white cinematography, as well as animation (directed by Mike Smith),[25][26][27] and other unusual color schemes and visual compositions.[17] Editing of the film lasted approximately 11 months, with the final film containing almost 3,000 cuts (most films have 600–700).[18] The film also employs a wide range of camera angles, featuringDutch tilts prominently throughout, with the camera rarely angling along a horizontal field of vision.[28] Film scholarRobert Kolker notes that the Dutch angle's employment in the film is "the visual equivalent of a profound dislocation, a loss of object constancy, the slipperiness of subjectivity itself."[29] Kolker comments that, unlike such films asBonnie and Clyde from whichNatural Born Killers draws influence, "from the very beginning... the viewer is forced into a dual situation, neither one of which allows easy access to the main characters. One situation, continued throughout the film, is a kind of rhythmic attention created by a startling flow of images. Stone builds his visuals on unexpected linkages and disorienting juxtapositions within the shots and edits."[8]
Because the film is thematically preoccupied with media, Stone sought to implement visual elements of popular television into the film's visual tableau:[30] "It had never quite been done before – a mixture of stocks and styles. I was influenced, I have to say, byMTV and some of the styles I saw in the early '80s and '90s on television. But no one had tried that style over the course of 90, 100 minutes."[17] Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances as well.[31]
Concurrent with Stone's preoccupation with television as both a visual and thematic reference point, portions of the film are narrated through parodies of popular television series, including a sequence presented in the style of a sitcom about Mallory'sdysfunctional family (titledI Love Mallory), a parody ofI Love Lucy.[32] In the film's final montage, splices of real-life television news coverage of various criminal cases of the time are included, such as theO. J. Simpson case, theMenendez brothers, and theTonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident.[5] Film scholarJohn Kenneth Muir notes this inclusion as an "exclamation point" concluding the film's thesis: "It seems to say, 'Welcome to the tabloid-TV culture of America in the 1990s, where crime pays and pays well.'"[5]
The film's soundtrack was produced by Stone andTrent Reznor ofNine Inch Nails, who reportedly watched the film over 50 times to "get in the mood".[18] Reznor reportedly produced the soundtrack while on tour.[33] On his approach to compiling the soundtrack, Reznor toldMTV:
I suggested toOliver [Stone] to try to turn the soundtrack into a collage-of-sound, kind of the way the movie used music: make edits, add dialog, and make it something interesting, rather than a bunch of previously released music.[34]
Some songs were written especially for the film or soundtrack, such as "Burn" by Nine Inch Nails.
In its opening weekend,Natural Born Killers grossed a total of $11.2 million in 1,510 theaters, finishingfirst at the US box office. It finished its theatrical run in the United States and Canada with a total gross of $50.3 million.[35] It grossed an estimated $60 million internationally for a worldwide total of $110 million[3] against its $34 million budget.[36]
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes,Natural Born Killers has an approval rating of 50% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Natural Born Killers explodes off the screen with style, but its satire is too blunt to offer any fresh insight into celebrity or crime – pummeling the audience with depravity until the effect becomes deadening."[37] OnMetacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 74 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[38]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "Seeing this movie once is not enough. The first time is for the visceral experience, the second time is for the meaning."[39] On his television show, his partnerGene Siskel agreed with him, adding extra praise to the scene featuring Rodney Dangerfield.[40]
Other critics found the film unsuccessful in its aims. Much of the criticism centered around the perception that the film was not effective as a satire and its message was muddled.Janet Maslin of theNew York Times wrote, "While 'Natural Born Killers' affects occasional disgust at the lurid world of Mickey and Mallory, it more often seems enamored of their exhilarating freedom. If there is a juncture at which these caricatures start looking like nihilist heroes, then the film passes that point many times."[41]Hal Hinson ofThe Washington Post voiced a similar concern, saying "'Killers' is intended as agonzo critique of the mass media and, by extension, of the bloodthirsty legions of couch potatoes whose prurient taste guarantees that the garbage rises to the top of the charts. But the film doesn't make it as a piece of social criticism. Primarily this is because the movie's jittery, psychedelic style is so obviously a kick for Stone to orchestrate. Bloody, pulpy excess is his thing; it's what he does best."[42] Hinson noted the film also loses its "symbolic footing" when it transitions into aprison film.[42]
Some critics felt the film's focus on the mass media as the main culprit of society's ills rang hollow or that the film did not adequately hold the characters of Mickey and Mallory accountable for their actions. Maslin continued, "for all its surface passions,Natural Born Killers never digs deep enough to touch the madness of such events, or even to send them up in any surprising way. Mr. Stone's vision is impassioned, alarming, visually inventive, characteristically overpowering. But it's no match for the awful truth."[41]
James Berardinelli gave the film a negative review but his criticism was different from many other such pans, which generally said that Oliver Stone was a hypocrite for making an ultra-violent film in the guise of a critique of American attitudes. Berardinelli noted that the movie "hits the bullseye" as a satire of America's lust for bloodshed, but repeated Stone's main point so often and so loudly that it became unbearable.[43]
Stone got in trouble with theNative American community for the use ofRussell Means.[44]
In 2015, Taste of Cinema ranked the film 22nd among the "30 GreatPsychopath Movies That Are Worth Your Time", andGamesRadar+ named the two lead characters among the "50 Creepiest Movie Psychopaths.[45][46]
At the 1994Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, Harrelson was nominated for Worst Actor but lost toBruce Willis forColor of Night andNorth. The film was nominated for Worst Picture but lost toNorth.[47]
For the film's 25th anniversary in 2019, critics wrote about the film's impact in popular culture and its relevance today. Writing forThe Guardian, Charles Bramesco argued the film's rebuke of the media as responsible for violence does not hold up to current times. Bramesco wrote, "With every public bloodbath [in the news today], discourse inches closer to accepting their root cause as a combination of laxgun laws and an undercurrent of psychosis endemic to those feeling marginalized from society. Stone’s inquest may have been a shock to the system at the time, but his tracing of that psychosis back to the evils of television scans as borderline reactionary to present-day sensibilities."[32] Bramesco also noted the film's inclusion of Native American mysticism into its plot felt like a "white understanding of native culture."[32]
CriticOwen Gleiberman said the film still "captures how our parasitical relationship to pop culture can magnify the cycle of violence...'Natural Born Killers' was the movie that glimpsed the looking glass we were passing through, the new psycho-metaphysical space we were living inside — the roller-coaster of images and advertisements, of entertainment and illusion, of demons that come up through fantasy and morph into daydreams, of vicarious violence that bleeds into real violence.”[10]
In recent retrospective critiques,Natural Born Killers has been reexamined for its provocativeness and its media satire edge.[65]
Natural Born Killers was released onVHS in 1995 byWarner Home Video.[66] A director's cut version of the film was released the following year on VHS byVidmark/Lionsgate, who also released a non-anamorphic DVD of the director's cut in 2000.[67] Distribution rights to Stone's director's cut reverted from Lionsgate to Warner Bros. in 2009, after which Warner issued an anamorphic DVD edition[67] as well as aBlu-ray.[68] Shout Factory licensed the title for a 4K UHD release and released it on September 26, 2023.[69]
After Quentin Tarantino attempted to publish his original screenplay toNatural Born Killers as a paperback book, as he had done with his scripts forTrue Romance and his own directorial efforts,Reservoir Dogs andPulp Fiction, the producers ofNatural Born Killers filed a lawsuit against Tarantino, claiming that when he sold the script to them, he had forfeited the publishing rights; eventually, Tarantino was allowed to publish his original script.[70] Tarantino disowned the film, saying, "I hated that fucking movie. If you like my stuff, don't watch that movie." He also claimed to have never watched the film from beginning to end.[71][72]
When the film was first submitted to theMotion Picture Association of America (MPAA), employees told Stone they would give it anNC-17 unless he edited it. As such, Stone removed some violence by cutting approximately four minutes of footage and the MPAA re-rated the film as an R. In 1996, a Director's Cut was released on home video byVidmark Entertainment andPioneer Entertainment.[73]Warner Home Video later released this cut on Blu-ray.[74]
The film was banned in Ireland, including – controversially – fromcinema clubs. The ban was later lifted.[75][76] In the UK, though the cinema release was delayed while theBBFC investigated reports that the film caused copycat murders in the US and France, it was finally shown in cinemas in February 1995. The BBFC classified the film uncut at18, citing strong bloody violence and sexual violence.[77][78] The film was also banned in the Philippines by theMovie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), a government agency.[79]
The original intended UK home video release in March 1996 was cancelled due to theDunblane massacre in Scotland. In the meantime,Channel Five showed the film in November 1997. It was finally released on video in July 2001.[80]Entertainment Weekly ranked the film as the eighth most controversial film ever.[81]
From almost the moment of its release, the film has been accused of encouraging and inspiring numerous murderers in North America, including the perpetrators of the1997 Heath High School shooting and theColumbine High School massacre. The Columbine killers even code-named their attack "NBK", an initialism forNatural Born Killers.[82]
stone natural born killers farce.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |