Natural Born Killers
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Natural Born Killers is a 1994 American film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson. It features appearances by Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Sizemore, and Tommy Lee Jones.
The original screenplay was written by Quentin Tarantino and revised by Stone, Richard Rutowski, and David Veloz. While much of the dialogue is word for word, the revisions change the focus of the film from journalist Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.) to Mickey and Mallory. The two went from being a normal married couple who suddenly decide to go on a killing spree to unwed social outcasts who were molested and beaten by their parents. Tarantino—unhappy with the rewritten version—publicly disowned the script and asked that his name be removed from the screenwriting credits. He subsequently received a "story by" credit.
Natural Born Killers is a uniquely directed feature, because of the wide range of camera angles, filters, lenses and special effects used during its production. Much of the movie seems to be told from a "television-perspective," in fact, some scenes are satirical of television shows of the time, including a serious scene which is told in the farce of a situational comedy about a dysfunctional family. Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances.
The film intends to highlight the sensationalized way crimes are depicted in the media and the manner in which some killers have been glamorized by the media. The film was criticized for its excessively graphic and violent content.
