Even though “W.” got beat out at the box office this past weekend by talking Chihuahuas, the film is actually a return to form for director Oliver Stone – dealing with some of the controversial filmmaker’s favorite themes (e.g. politics, media, conspiracy, legacy). With Stone back in theaters, now’s a good a time to revisit what I believe is the director’s most innovative film: “Natural Born Killers”.
When “Natural Born Killers” was released in North America as the summer of 1994 was winding down, the movie both excited and divided audiences (the best ones always do). Protesters decried the film (many without ever seeing it), Siskel and Ebert pointed their thumbs decidedly upward, and a New York Times review said of Stone: “as a satirist, he’s an elephant ballerina”. Certainly not intended for family viewing (unless it’s the Manson family), most negative reviews made a point of mentioning (not without validity) that the film serves up the same kind of sensationalism it rallies against. Much of the controversy stemmed from the fact that, even with the raised levels of violence and ingenuity in early-90s American films, no one had really seen anything quite like “Killers”. Not since Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” in 1977 (the film that beat out “Star Wars” for the best picture Oscar) had a filmmaker pulled out such a deep bag of cinematic tricks to entertain and – in this case – provoke viewers. The wildly original result is a movie that defies cinematic convention at every turn and defines Oliver Stone better than any other film in his oeuvre. Its influence permanently ingrained in pop culture fourteen years after its release (try watching the opening sequence of the HBO series “True Blood” without thinking of the film), “Natural Born Killers” remains the quintessential Oliver Stone flick.
Stone, the filmmaker, has always been a two-headed beast. On one side, there’s the high-minded director of meaningful, epic pictures (often with political themes); the director of “Platoon”, “Wall Street” and “Nixon”. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Stone the B-movie director – the guy who values style over substance, who’s films exploit as much as they entertain; this is the director who showed up to work on “U-Turn” and “Any Given Sunday”. Somewhere in between are “JFK” (a three-hour movie about conspiracy theories), “The Doors” (a film Jim Morrison would’ve loved) and “Born of the Fourth of July” (a very good, almost great, picture). But “Natural Born Killers” is the film where the two Stone personas not only collide, but crash violently against one another over and over again. High-minded Stone uses over-the-top satire to indict everyone: criminals, the law, the media – even viewers themselves. Meanwhile, B-movie Stone gives us grindhouse-style violence and a lovers-on-the-lam story with enough sincerity that many people missed the satire element altogether (including the handful of murderers “inspired” by the film since its release). Still, what makes the film a knockout is the way Stone merges his sensibilities through his innovative direction.
With “Killers”, Stone used every technique in his arsenal to tell the story of a media-age Bonnie and Clyde (here Mickey and Mallory). The frenzied editing seamlessly pastes together overdone colors, black-and-white, stock footage, handheld shots, strange special effects and much, much more. At one point, Stone projects words like “demon and “too much T.V.” right onto his characters. In other scenes, horror movies play on hotel-room walls or seemingly random images flash quickly across the screen. But the film’s most inventive sequence is a flashback to Mallory’s disturbing childhood played out as a sitcom. A creepy Rodney Dangerfield is her deranged father and his off-putting, profanity-laced comments are followed by a laugh track – Stone’s way of calling us out as a bunch of gawkers who laugh on cue. I could go on naming fascinating aspects of “Natural Born Killers” – the all-over-the-map soundtrack (produced by Trent Reznor), the film’s inserted cartoon sequences, the dead-on casting (including a pre-“Iron Man” Robert Downey Jr. as an Australian Geraldo) – but it’s really a movie that has to be seen to be appreciated. Frame after frame, “Natural Born Killers” bursts from the seams with intelligence, creativity and invention. Even in its lesser moments, it’s still a movie unlike any other – the result of a director flying off the rails in a defiant attempt to create a true cinematic original.
