Natural Born Killers

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Movie
German title Natural Born Killers
Original title Natural Born Killers
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1994
length Theatrical Version: 114 minutes
Director’s Cut : 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 18 (Theatrical Version)
SPIO / JK ( Director's Cut )
Rod
Director Oliver Stone
script David Veloz ,
Richard Rutowski ,
Oliver Stone,
Quentin Tarantino (Story)
production Jane Hamsher ,
Don Murphy ,
Clayton Townsend
music Brent Lewis , Trent Reznor (a few pieces and production)
camera Robert Richardson
cut Brian Berdan ,
Hank Corwin
occupation
synchronization

Natural Born Killers is a feature film by director Oliver Stone from the year 1994 , whose script on a story by Quentin Tarantino is based. The main roles are played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis .

action

A young couple, Mickey and Mallory Knox, are in a New Mexico pub . Mallory dances at the jukebox while Mickey eats a piece of cake at the counter. When a new guest molests Mallory, she kills the man. Those present who want to intervene are killed by Mickey without further ado. The camera partly takes Mickey's perspective and shows his pistol at the bottom of the picture, so that the scene resembles a first-person shooter computer game . In the end, a guest is left alive so that he can tell the story of their deed.

In a sitcom- style flashback, Mallory lives with her parents and brother in a single family home. Mallory's father abuses his daughter frequently, and her mother, out of fear, does nothing about it. The family receives a delivery of goods from the butcher's journeyman Mickey; an affair begins between him and Mallory. Both go for a spin in the father's car, who sends the police after them. Jump in time: Mickey is in jail for stealing a car, but manages to escape. Back in freedom, he and Mallory kill their parents.

The present: on their escape through the USA, the couple have already murdered 47 people within three weeks (most of the murders mentioned cannot be seen in the film). The sadistic police officer Jack Scagnetti has made it his mission to stop the two serial perpetrators. The media turn the events into a top story, the two killers become stars, their deeds are glorified by parts of the public. After the young couple was stranded in the desert because their car ran out of gas, they found accommodation with an old Navaho Indian. Mickey accidentally shoots the Indian in a high, presumably caused by hallucinogenic cacti , in which memories of abuse by his parents and of his father's suicide rise. When leaving the hut, Mickey and Mallory are bitten by rattlesnakes. To get an antidote, they raid a drugstore. The clerk triggers the silent alarm, whereupon the police arrive, including Scagnetti. This brings Mallory into his power and injures her with a knife, which causes Mickey to give up. Mallory is led away by Scagnetti and Mickey is abused by the police with kicks, blows and taser shocks .

A year later: Mickey and Mallory are in jail where they killed more people. The director of the institution, Dwight McClusky, is planning the murder of the two: He has arranged a transfer to a mental hospital in order to have Mickey and Mallory shot during the transfer, during an alleged attempt to escape. Scagnetti is also involved in this plan. Before that, Mickey gets a visit from the television presenter Wayne Gale, who wants to conduct a live interview with him. Mickey agrees and after Gale has promised to make McClusky famous, McClusky also agrees. While the interview is taking place, Scagnetti visits Mallory in her cell in another wing of the prison. He sends the guards out and begins to approach her. A revolt breaks out in prison as a result of the television broadcast . Mickey can grab a guard's rifle and shoots most of the guards and television people. Gale has to accompany him with the rest of the team to Mallory and continue to broadcast live. When Scagnetti begins to kiss Mallory, she hits his head against the cell wall and breaks his nose. The guards intervene and can catch Mallory. Scagnetti wants to shoot her immediately, but is stopped by the guards. Instead, he sprays them with pepper spray until Mickey and the TV crew suddenly join them. Under Gale's comments, Mickey kills the guards and Mallory slits Scagnetti's throat. While Mickey and Mallory escaped from prison with the camera, almost the entire television team was killed in an exchange of fire. Gale now feels like the couple's accomplice, shoots security guards himself and thinks of a new life. McClusky orders his guards to stop the two serial killers in particular, instead of getting the revolt under control, and is killed by insurgents. In a forest, Mallory and Mickey decide to shoot Gale. They justify this with the fact that they don't have to leave anyone alive who can tell the story, as the camera records everything.

In the credits , Mickey and Mallory travel across the United States in a motor home. They now have a son and a daughter and Mallory is pregnant again.

script

The original script was written by Quentin Tarantino, who originally wanted to film it himself as his first work. But when the funding initially failed, he turned Reservoir Dogs instead , making his directorial debut. Due to the success of Reservoir Dogs , he received an offer to direct a film from the film company that owned the rights to his script. He refused this, however, because he had other interests in the meantime and was preparing Pulp Fiction . Thereupon Oliver Stone acquired the rights to the script and completely revised it for his film, whereby the story remained in all its essential points, however, especially the dialogues were heavily changed. The extensive revision led to a dispute with Tarantino, who disagreed with these changes, as he saw them lead to a completely different film that did not meet his expectations. Tarantino therefore initially requested that he should not be mentioned in the credits and no longer wanted to be associated with the film. But then he revised this attitude again. In the credits of the film itself he is listed as a story , but not as a screenwriter.

Film and visual language

Natural Born Killers impresses with the unusual narrative style of the director Oliver Stone and the visually sophisticated implementation by the multiple Oscar- winning cameraman and picture designer Robert Richardson . Stone / Richardson uses the formats VHS , 8mm , Super-8 , 16mm , Super 16 (in b / w as well as in color) 35mm and 70mm film as well as special camera filters and camera lenses in the film. These formats are mainly characterized by a completely different grain size . The unusual thing about the film is the connection between the excessive depiction of violence and the extremely artificial narrative. For example, there is often a sudden change from color to black and white and back. Individual sequences are shot in the style of a genre that does not match the actual story, such as the flashbacks to Mallory's parents' house in the style of a sitcom with faded in laughs or the argument in the desert with the grainy material and the color scheme of a 1970s film. Often images from other films or contexts are projected, either onto parts of the equipment or even the actors themselves or onto (deliberately visible) projection film. Occasionally the plot is cut with associative cartoon images. The narrative also jumps suddenly between the time levels.

Film music

The score was compiled by Trent Reznor and includes the following songs:

  1. Waiting for the Miracle (Edit) - Leonard Cohen
  2. Shitlist - L7
  3. Moon Over Greene County (Edit) - Dan Zanes
  4. Rock 'N' Roll Nigger ( Flood Remix) - Patti Smith
  5. Sweet Jane (Edit) - Cowboy Junkies
  6. You Belong to Me - Bob Dylan
  7. The Trembler (Edit) - Duane Eddy
  8. Burn - Nine Inch Nails
  9. Route 666 - no artist information ( BB Tone Brian Berdan , Robert Downey junior )
  10. Apple Pie - Dale Cooper
  11. Totally Hot - no artist information
  12. Kipenda Roho (Edit) - Orchester Super Matimila & Remmy Ongala
  13. Back In Baby's Arms - Patsy Cline
  14. Taboo (Edit) - Peter Gabriel & Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
  15. Sex Is Violent - Jane's Addiction
  16. Ted Just Admit You - Jane's Addiction
  17. I Put A Spell On You - Diamanda Galás
  18. History (Repeats Itself) (Edit) - AOS
  19. Something I Can Never Have (Edited and Extended) - Nine Inch Nails
  20. I Will Take You Home - Russell Means
  21. Drums A Go-Go (Edit) - The Hollywood Persuaders
  22. Hungry Ants - no artist information
  23. Checkpoint Charlie - Barry Adamson
  24. Violation of Expectation - Barry Adamson
  25. The Day The Niggaz Took Over - Dr. Dre
  26. Born Bad - no artist information ( Juliette Lewis )
  27. Fall of The Rebel Angels (Edit) - Sergio Cervetti
  28. Forkboy - Lard
  29. Batonga In Batongaville - no artist information
  30. A Night on Bare Mountain - Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra
  31. A Warm Place - Nine Inch Nails
  32. Allah, Mohammed, Char, Yaar - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
  33. Judgment Day - Diamanda Galás
  34. The Future (Edit) - Leonard Cohen
  35. What Would U Do? - Tha Dogg Pound

In addition, the titles The Heat and In Doubt by Peter Gabriel (originally produced for the film Birdy ), Anthem by Leonard Cohen, Ghost Town from the Specials, Spread Eagle Beagle from the Melvins and music by Klaus Buhlert appear in the film are not present on the soundtrack. Various pieces of classical music are also used: Carmina Burana by Carl Orff , A Little Night Music (2nd movement) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Night on the Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgski and The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky .

Remarks

  • The film transposes the story of Bonnie and Clyde, interpreted more or less freely, into the present.
  • The motif of sensational journalism, which turns murderers into media stars and journalists into co-perpetrators, appears in the Belgian film Man Bites Dog , which was released two years earlier .
  • The film cites a violent scene from the Rabid by Sergio Grieco .
  • A mysterious element in the film is fellow prisoner Owen Traft, who Stone calls a guardian angel and who also helps Mickey and Mallory to escape. Owen previously appeared in the film. He was most clearly seen at the beginning of the film in the restaurant, where he is sitting on a bench reading a newspaper and slowly disappearing. In an alternate ending, Mickey and Mallory are shot dead by Owen.
  • The film contains references to Stanley Kubrick's films. Mallory's brother painted large lashes on one eye - like Alex in a clockwork orange ; Furthermore, the scene in which Mickey shakes his head is reminiscent of the opening scene of Full Metal Jacket .
  • In the hotel scene, in which Mickey wonders who is making such films, Scarface and 12 o'clock at night - Midnight Express can be seen on the TV screen . Oliver Stone wrote the script for both films.
  • The second half of the film, which takes place almost entirely in prison, can also be seen as a criticism of the conditions in US prisons.
  • The film also served as a model for the two students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who ran amok in the so-called school massacre of Littleton . Both saw the film frequently. Even Sarah Edmondson and Ben Darras have given the movie as inspiration for the murder of a farmer and the attempted murder of a cashier.
  • Adrien Brody plays one of his first film roles in the film as Gale's camera assistant.

synchronization

role actor Cinema version Director's Cut 1 Director's Cut 2
Mickey Knox Woody Harrelson Thomas Petruo Konstantin Graudus Thomas Petruo
Mallory Knox Juliette Lewis Bettina White Bianca Krahl
Det. Jack Scagnetti Tom Sizemore Helmut Gauss Hans-Jürgen Wolf
Ed Wilson Rodney Dangerfield Wolfgang Völz Klaus Dittmann Wolfgang Völz
Deputy Warden Wurlitzer Everett Quinton Klaus Jepsen Eberhard Prüter
London boy Jared Harris Oliver Field
Dwight McClusky Tommy Lee Jones Ronald Nitschke Bernd Stephan Ronald Nitschke
Wayne Gale Robert Downey Junior Tobias Master Christian Rudolf Charles Rettinghaus

reception

publication

Natural Born Killers premiered in the United States on August 26, 1994. On August 29, 1994, the film was presented at the Venice International Film Festival . In September 1994 it was shown in France, Italy and Australia, in October 1994 in the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Brazil (at the São Paulo International Film Festival ), in Spain, Portugal, Norway and Sweden and on October 27th 1994 in Germany.

In November 1994 the film was released in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, in January 1995 in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, in February 1995 in Japan, Poland, Greece and the United Kingdom. In April 1995 he was seen for the first time in South Korea. In Sweden it was presented in November 2004 at the Stockholm International Film Festival , in the USA it was shown in a director's cut version on October 12 at the Chicago International Film Festival . In Peru it was seen in a limited re-release on April 14, 2016 and in France it was screened at the Deauville Film Festival on September 4, 2017.

The film was also released in Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Croatia, Iran, Lithuania, Mexico, Romania, Serbia, Russia and Slovenia.

Reactions

After the release of the film, there were a number of criminal cases in the USA and France that seemed to be directly inspired by the film and whose perpetrators cited the main characters of the film as direct models.

The creators of Natural Born Killers , especially Oliver Stone and the Time Warner Society, were faced with legal proceedings. Oliver Stone had to answer in court because crime writer John Grisham accused him of being responsible for two young people killing an acquaintance of his after seeing the film. Stone and Time Warner were acquitted on the grounds of a lack of legal basis and freedom of expression.

In addition to the extreme depiction of violence, a combination of different reasons is held responsible for this effect of the film :

  • The characterization of the two main characters, who, with their tragic history, their stormy infatuation, their attractive looks and their media fame, have too much potential for identification.
  • The link suggested by the film between extreme acts of violence and media fame in general - at the end of the film, the fictional media career of the serial killers is underpinned by a collage of perpetrators and victims who became media stars of the 1990s through crimes . You can see OJ Simpson , who was accused of the murder , as well as Tonya Harding , the parental killers Lyle and Erik Menendez , Lorena Bobbitt and Rodney King, who was beaten up by police officers .
  • The stroboscopic fast cutting sequence , which is typical for Stone and derived from the video clip aesthetics, with incessantly changing camera settings and disturbing subliminal intermediate images as well as the psychedelic and strongly disorienting appearing complex superimposition of image and sound levels contribute to an emotional uncertainty of the viewer, in which the extremely acting Main characters represent the only reliable constant.

The film is indexed in some countries .

Reviews

“[...] Stone's imagery is extremely impressive. It's one of Hollywood's most stylistically daring films ever. It is a pity, however, that all these brilliant ideas are applied to a failed satire that is hardly able to convey anything except anger. "

“Oliver Stone's 'Natural Born Killers' would have looked more like a confused nightmare had it not been for the OJ Simpson case . Perhaps Stone's film was intended as a warning about the direction our society might be headed, but because of the OJ Simpson case, it is now becoming an indictment of its current state. We are becoming a society that is more interested in crime and scandals than anything else - certainly more than politics, art and maybe even sports. […] Natural Born Killers is not so much about the killers themselves, but about the (media) madness ('feeding frenzy') they trigger. [...] To see the film once is not enough. The first time is for the gut feeling, the second time for the meaning. As we move through autumn, the news of which is dominated by the OJ Simpson case, 'Natural Born Killers' seems like a slap in the face, a warning that keeps us real. "

“Stone calls his film a bitter satire. But satire aims carefully; (Natural Born) Killers, on the other hand, is a dazzling scatterbulb. By using virtuoso technique at the service of laziness, Stone turns his film into the demon he actually wants to ridicule: cruelty as entertainment. "

"Oliver Stone's killer ballad was the most controversial film of 1994. A violent stroke of genius, a psychedelic nightmare scenario that, thanks to its radical visual design, triggers the dulling effect in the audience that makes such acts possible."

“With 'Natural Born Killers' [Oliver Stone] delivers an incomparable and unprecedented masterpiece of the special class: Subversive Pop Art and downright abnormal breaks in conventions, mixing of black and white photos, cartoons, photo collages, overdrawn color photos and psychological background motifs make a real trip out of the film that is difficult for you. The excessive depictions of violence and sex, mixed with biblical motifs and acrid media satire, offer the right tools to hold up the mirror to society in an unprecedented audacity. The viewer is exposed as a voyeur and sent into the depths of his own soul. And after he has climbed up again, he retains a self-image of nudity and inadequacy that he would like to spit on. "

“Oliver Stone's ultra-violent, bitterly angry media satire is Hollywood's most radical studio film since 'Clockwork Orange'. How the controversial director Quentin Tarantino's script turned into a surreal frenzy of images, filmmaking is absolutely perfect. Woody Harrelson (' An Immoral Offer ') , Juliette Lewis (' Cape Fear ') and Tommy Lee Jones (' On the Run ') star in this blood-soaked ballad on the Highway to Hell. A thriller sensation that will delight the audience. "

"In Stone's new film, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, all of his themes come together, violence as a human guilt, the omnipresent power of the media, the shamanic powers of pop, the search for truth that can only be found in an 'untouched' America, may lie in the presence of the Indian in the desert (where Jim Morrison learned his moment of truth in THE DOORS is also the point of fate for the heroes of this film). But he does not try to master the traumatic experience again in a movement of myth and enlightenment, but in a desolate, satirical, styleless and tasteless flood of images that breaks with all the conventions of narrative film and all reliability of psychological realism. A liberation that will change Hollywood, regardless of whether it is successful: In NATURAL BORN KILLERS Stone not only blew up the genre of romantic outlaw and road movies, but also questioned the mythical integration of violence into narrative cinema . "

- EPD film / film headquarters

“A young murderer couple, who can only be stopped after 52 murders, is the focus of a critical, extremely violent film, which tells its stories without distance and succumbs to the fascination of violence itself. The irritating and uncomfortable film denounces the media's thirst for sensation without abstaining from speculation, whereby it offers a whole range of staging possibilities in a breathtaking fireworks display. Its dynamic flood of images captivates, but the film overshoots the goal of a bitter satire. "

Prices (selection)

  • 1994: Oliver Stone winner of the special jury prize and nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival
  • 1994: Juliette Lewis Winner of the Pasinetti Award and "Special Mention" at the Venice International Film Festival
  • 1994: Producers Jane Hamsher, Don Murphy and Clayton Townsend nominated for the Stinker Award for Worst Picture and Woody Harrelson for Worst Actor at the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards
  • 1994: Cinematographer Robert Richardson nominated for the "Golden Frog" at the Polish film festival Camerimage
  • 1995: Film nomination for the SEFCA Award in the category "Best Picture" at the Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
  • 1995: Oliver Stone Winner in the Special Recognition Category at the Circuit Community Awards Awards and nomination for Juliette Lewis
  • 1995: Oliver Stone winner of the Yoga Award for the worst foreign film at the Yoga Awards
  • 1995: Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson nominated for the MTV Movie Awards in the categories "Best Duo" and "Best Kiss"
  • 1995: Oliver Stone nominated for the Golden Globe Award in the category "Best Director"

literature

  • Jane Hamsher: Killer Instinct. The True Story of Natural Born Killers or How to Make a Movie Without Money . Structure publisher, 1998.
  • Inge Golde: The view into the psychopath: Structure and change in the Hollywood psychological thriller . Verlag Ludwig, 2002, ISBN 3-933598-49-4 , pp. 96-103 (originally a dissertation at the University of Kiel) ( restricted online version (Google Books) ).
  • Christopher Tripp: Natural Born Killers . In: Thomas Hoeren, Lena Meyer (Hrsg.): Verbotene Films . LIT-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-8258-0143-8 , Chapter 8, pp. 303-348 ( restricted online version (Google Books) ).
  • J. David Slocum: Violence and American Cinema . Routledge 2001, ISBN 0-415-92810-9 , p. 77 ff.
  • Do you want a blood bath? In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1994, pp. 96-99 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Natural Born Killers . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2012 (PDF; test number: 71 812-c V).
  2. Gerald Peary: Quentin Tarantino: Interviews . University Press of Mississippi 1998, ISBN 978-1-57806-051-1 , pp. 55ff ( restricted online version (Google Books) ).
  3. Christopher Tripp: Natural Born Killers . In Thomas Hoeren, Lena Meyer (Ed.): Forbidden films . LIT-Verlag 2005, ISBN 3-8258-0143-8 , Chapter 8, p. 305.
  4. Natural Born Killers see focus.de
  5. Frank Robertz, Ruben Wickenhauser: The crack in the blackboard: rampage and severe violence in the school . Springer 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-71630-3 , p. 80.
  6. Natural Born Killers Dismissed on abcnews.go.com
  7. Still on rottentomatoes.com - accessed September 1, 2013
  8. German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Natural Born Killers. Retrieved March 27, 2018 .
  9. German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Natural Born Killers (Director's Cut). Retrieved March 27, 2018 .
  10. German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Natural Born Killers (Director's Cut). Retrieved March 27, 2018 .
  11. Natural Born Killers ( Memento from February 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  12. "Natural Born Killers" and the Media Violence Debate ( Memento of the original from August 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. sS mediaknowall.com, accessed December 20, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mediaknowall.com
  13. Review of August 26, 1994 Natural Born Killers on metacritics.com
  14. Roger Ebert: Natural Born Killers (4 out of 4 stars) sSsuntimes.com
  15. Natural Born Killers ( October 13, 2009 memento in the Internet Archive ) review on rollingstone.com
  16. (editorial rating: 100%) Natural Born Killers sS cinema.de
  17. Natural Born Killers see filmstarts.de
  18. Natural Born Killers sS kino.de
  19. Georg Seeßlen: Natural Born Killers sS Filmzentrale - epd film
  20. Natural Born Killers. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used