Natural Born Killers - Oliver Stone Collection
by Oliver Stone
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Everett Quinton, Juliette Lewis, Rodney Dangerfield, Tom Sizemore, Woody HarrelsonDirector: Oliver Stone
Writer: Oliver Stone
Producer: Arnon Milchan
Producer: Clayton Townsend
Producer: Don Murphy
Writer: David Veloz
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Richard Rutowski
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-01-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Natural Born Killers - Oliver Stone Collection
Movie Review: Wickedly Brutal Parody with Disturbing Imagery & Violence...
Summary: 5 Stars
The saying that a picture says more than a thousand words only appears as a mirage for many in our contemporary society where a constant feed of information waters down the message of a single picture. Through voices over the radio, myriads of images flash from TV and the easily accessible Internet that can even generate any desired interactive multimedia. The bombardment of information makes it difficult for many viewers to focus their attention on one single source, as an overload of sensory stimuli enter the brain through vision and hearing. Soon can the spectators of a media source probably also smell and touch what they see. It becomes an impossible task for many viewers to process the abundance of incoming information, which never allows enough time for reflection and contemplation. Instead, today's youth are overmedicated for a vast number of cognitive disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and personality disorders due to problems with skills such as thinking and mood swings. Oliver Stone addresses this issue through his controversial Natural Born Killers where two young people drive down a highway on a murderous rampage.
In the opening, Stone displays a number of shots that have been edited together in order to create a threatening sensation, as a shot of the desert supercedes the image of a wolf. A quick cut to a close-up of a rattle snake is followed by someone pouring a cup of coffee that quickly changes to a blood red scene of a train that is running through the desert. A sequence of an eagle, which is a symbolic image for the United States, leads the viewer eventually to a dinner where the waitress quickly jumps through a number of television channels. The different TV channels have an iconic lead up from the 1950s when the television become prominent in every home to present time where a demon is grinning on the screen. A titled pan, suggests that something is not right with situation, and displays the waitress taking the order of Mickey (Woody Harrelson) who orders a slice of key-lime pie. The waitress comes on to Mickey and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) insultingly brushes off her attempt while strutting up to the jukebox. Shortly after hell breaks loose in the small diner along the desert highway where Mickey and Mallory, also known as M & M, ruthlessly kill all, but one who will spread the word of their act at the diner.
The question is why Mickey and Mallory did what they did at the highway diner. Instead of dealing with their identity, the Natural Born Killers try to answer the question through a lengthy dissection of their lives that stretch from the time they met until the very final scene. Empirically the story stirs up several issues including sensationalism, i.e., the basic notion of limiting experience to sensations from the senses as a source of knowledge, as filtering consistent facts or extensive contemplation requires cerebral effort to achieving knowledge. Instead people have been taught through the media to rely on feelings, as the ultimate truth, and the images of the TV most often pleads to the instant emotional senses. Consequently, the viewer learns that they do not have to think, which requires cerebral effort, as they merely have to lay down in their La-Z-Boy and be spoon fed the images of the TV screen.
A paradox rests within the image, as every image consists of both an instant emotional sensation and a deeper meaning. However, in order for the audience to achieve some understanding of the deeper meaning in an image the audience's attention has to maintain on the image for enough time for the viewer to begin contemplation. Education, of sorts, is also necessary in regards to reading images and to begin pondering, as the image has some links with society and to find this link individuals might need some acquired knowledge to find the cue that leads to a deeper meaning. Parents are the foundation for a child's educational development, and Stone ironically depicts this family in a dysfunctional Cosby manner where the unemployed father, performed by Rodney Dangerfield, only cares for Mallory in a selfish, physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive manner. Both Mallory and Mickey know that something is wrong with the situation, and the approach they choose to end this terrible family lifestyle is with murder. Mallory appears as a mirror image of her father after she has drowned her father in the fish tank by displaying her instant gratification of her deed by jumping up and down. It is clear that her father did not care about any consequences, as she continues in his footsteps without regard for others except Mickey.
Natural Born Killers depicts a brutal satire of our contemporary society where instant gratification seems to be the need in the public and media gladly provide it through their network stations, as commercials keep the dollars flowing. Oliver Stone points out that the problem does not rest within the TV stations, parents, or the children, but in the society as a whole. There is no magic silver bullet that could cure this cerebral apathy, as only individual endeavors to strive for deeper reflection and contemplation could raise the society beyond the need for instant emotional gratification. On occasion, people demonize, maybe due to a sensation such as anger or their personal desire for their own 15 minutes of glory. It could also be due to small aspects of society where they might not have gained full understanding of the issue through contemplation of consistent information. Amidst the frenzy generated by the media, the media tries to maximize their revenue, as they provide more fuel to the sensational experience. Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.) does exactly this by pleading to people's feelings as he tries to get the ratings to soar through an interview with Mickey.
Technically Natural Born Killers offers a cinematically stunning experience, as it mockingly uses tilted camera pans and vertical cuts to induce more emotional turmoil. This enhances the message that Stone tries to send to the audience through Quentin Tarantino's adapted story. In order to provide a film that does not confuse the audience about his intentions to display a mockery of the media's sensationalistic abuse and the viewer's perception of media he uses a heavy load of satire backed by wacky cinematography and short animation sequences. The cast also displays intentionally exaggerated performances that support the use of satire, which in the end comes together into a wickedly brutal parody with disturbing imagery presented through excessive violence and symbolic imagery.
Summary of Natural Born Killers - Oliver Stone Collection
The story of a husband and wife who are serial killers involved in a cross country killing spree that elevates them from fugitives into media celebrities.DVD Features:
Alternate endings:(4:42)
Audio Commentary:Director's Commentary
Deleted Scenes:(22:44)
Other:"Chaos Rising" (36:36)
Oliver Stone would like to have the last word on America's media culture of voyeurism and violence, but whatever he's trying to say in this grisly, unconventional movie comes across terribly garbled. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play traveling serial killers who become television celebrities when a Geraldo-like personality (Robert Downey Jr.) turns their madness into the biggest story in the country. Stone extensively rewrote an original script by Quentin Tarantino, and he employs a mosaic of different film stocks, video, and pop pastiches to create a sense of blurred lines between visual phenomena. (The background on Lewis's character's life as an abused child, for instance, is presented as a sitcom starring Rodney Dangerfield.) But the result of these experiments is a pompous, even amateurish effort at grasping the reins of a real-life national debate. One almost wants to tell Stone to sit down and raise his hand next time if he thinks he has something to say. The controversial director would like Natural Born Killers to be nothing less than a monumental achievement, but it's one of the emptier entries in his filmography. --Tom Keogh
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