The first film in this series was Martin Scorsese's still controversial masterpiece, The Last Temptation of Christ. Now, I wish to focus on another film which was controversial from the moment it was released, and over the years, has continued to grow in its controversy.
Yet, it was a film of such remarkable skill and style, that it should have been honored with several Academy Award nominations for the honors that were bestowed for 1994's film achievements. It is Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, the film I thought was the best film of the year by far for 1994. It should have been nominated for at least Best Picture, Best Actor-Woody Harrelson, Best Actress-Juliette Lewis, Best Supporting Actor-Robert Downey Jr., Best Director-Oliver Stone, Best Original Screenplay, and definitely nominations for Film Editing, Cinematography, Sound, and Sound Effects Editing. Ultimately though, it was not up for even one Oscar ... this was the year of Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, and they held the spotlight for the 1994 Oscars instead.
As part of my look back on this remarkable film, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity over the next couple of weeks to discuss a couple of related issues which deserve discussion with this film ... in addition to discussing the film itself, I will also look at the controversy the film engendered, ultimately resulting in a ludicrous lawsuit against the film's producers and Oliver Stone! I will also discuss the whole issue of violence in the cinema, and the idea of what freedom of speech truly means. It seems nowadays that whenever violence in the cinema is discussed, Stone's film from seven years ago is still used as the primary example. It's long past time to fully explain this film to people, and help to possibly convince others to rediscover this truly landmark film for the historic achievement that it is.
I think this is Oliver Stone's most misunderstood movie - misunderstood by all those who criticized it as too violent. The brilliance of Natural Born Killers is that the viewer does not actually see all the violence that they think they do - it's the style of the film that delivers the feeling of violence, and it is through this effect that Stone created another film masterpiece. No misunderstanding about it - this film is not about the two serial murderers, Mickey and Mallory Knox. It is about the media and the public, the way that they both work together to elevate these killers to the level of hero, much in the same way as the public is continually fascinated with tragic events such as the O.J. Simpson trial, the Menendez trial, the Manson case, etc. The public has a constant need for seeing violence and blood - it fascinates them. The media, desperate to make a story that it actually is, feeds into that need - and yes, this is a problem - think about the O.J. case - the two innocent victims of that case, Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, were all but completely forgotten - Johnnie Cochran and the O.J. defense team turned the trial into a circus, as did the media. Some people actually cheered that verdict - made O.J. a hero - all Oliver Stone did was amplify this problem into an outrageous example and shined a mirror up to ourselves - maybe that's why everyone went so crazy about the film.
