Oliver Stone uses forceful images and restless cutting to make us uncomfortable. We value his willingness to take risks, though Natural Born Killers shows how tiring he becomes when he keeps explaining himself.
Fi1m perspective
In Natural Born Killers (1994), Mickey and Mallory Knox receive the sort of lavish visual attention that makes notoriety look desirable. Robert Richardson's cinematography makes the killers imposing, while editors Hank Corwin and Brian Berdan give us little time to settle. We were excited by that attention and felt ashamed of ourselves: the speed of the cutting made the killers' fame seductive before we had time to question it. It is a persuasive use of Stone's forcefulness, and a reason to put up with some of the film's excesses.
Stone's directing breakthrough came with Salvador and Platoon (both 1986), after screenwriting work including Scarface (1983). War and its personal cost recur in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), while JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995) take him into historical drama. The widening of his subjects matters: in Natural Born Killers, he applies his forcefulness to media fame and the audience's appetite for violence, making our interest in the people on screen uncomfortable.
The difficulty is how often he tells us what to think once the pictures have done their work. In Natural Born Killers, the screenplay by Stone, Richard Rutowski and David Veloz repeatedly spells out attitudes already clear in the performances. Public disgust can coexist with an appetite for murder; the film establishes that readily, then offers too few further observations. We grow tired of the repetition, even when the images remain inventive.
His taste for excess also sets limits on the actors. Tommy Lee Jones gives Warden Dwight McClusky enough vigour to make the broadness entertaining, and Stone deserves credit for making room for that commitment. But when everyone becomes equally outrageous, a performance has fewer ways to surprise us. Further exaggeration achieves little once we have learned to expect it. Try Natural Born Killers for Richardson's images and the editors' nerve, with fair warning that Stone will explain the point more often than it needs.
Biography
Oliver Stone is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born William Oliver Stone on 15 September 1946 in New York City and studied at New York University.
Stone served in the US Army in Vietnam. He began his screenwriting career in the 1970s and made his directorial debut with Seizure (1974). His early screenplays include Midnight Express (1978), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Scarface (1983).
He is known for directing Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), JFK (1991), Natural Born Killers (1994) and Snowden (2016). Stone has received three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express and Best Director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.
