About the Film

Natural Born Killers is a 1994 satirical film about serial killers and the media directed by Oliver Stone. It stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, and features appearances by Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Sizemore, and Tommy Lee Jones. It is based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino that was heavily revised by Stone with Dave Veloz and Richard Rutowski.

Natural Born Killers employs a wide range of camera angles, filters, lenses and special effects. Much of the movie is told via parodies of television shows of the time, including a scene presented in the style of a sitcom about a dysfunctional family. Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances.

Television frequently appears in the film, including real television sets and television images that play on the sky, windows, or the sides of passing buildings. Furthermore, the story is often told via TV programmes, and the characters think about their own stories through the filter of TV. One example is Mickey's flashback to his first meeting with Mallory, which is presented as an episode of a sitcom called I Love Mallory, in which Mallory's abusive home life is set played out to the canned laughter and "aw shucks" attitude of 1950s sitcoms. When Mickey breaks out of the work camp, the scene is shot as a Western, as Mickey steals a horse and rides out against a coming tornado. Much of the pair's violence is only shown as replayed or recreated on television. During the prison interview, Mickey's head is shown talking on a little television in an idealized 1950s Leave it to Beaver living room and on the prison television. The last scene of the film flicks away from Mickey and Mallory as if the viewer has begun to flip channels. It flicks through a variety of images including recurring images interspersed through the film, the O.J. Simpson trial, and the burning Branch Davidian compound. Intermittent breaks from the film show popular commercials from the 1990s making a direct relation between the diegetic audience and the cinematic audience. By challenging the mass media throughout the entirety of the film, Mickey and Mallory represent the idolized products of the society of the spectacle; by including glimpses of true life angry and violent celebrities, Stone concludes the film as a modern satire on the mass media's exloitation of violence.

The story of Frankenstein is mentioned twice: explaining why he's going to shoot Wayne Gale, Mickey says "Frankenstein had to kill Dr. Frankenstein", implying that his actions were created by the media, and when Warden McClusky is explaining to Jack Scagnetti that they plan to have Mickey and Mallory undergo electroshock therapy, footage of Frankenstein is shown.

Snakes reappear throughout the film. One of the first images in the film is of a rattlesnake. The couple later exchange wedding rings of intertwined snakes, and Mickey has a tattoo of two snakes forming a heart on his chest. There are recurring shots of a seven headed dragon, like the one depicted in the Book of Revelation. In the couple's car, there is a toy snake. Mickey and Mallory first meet a real snake at the Navajo's: a rattlesnake is coiled in the corner, a scene which Mickey recalls with fondness and admiration in his prison interview. The Navajo tells a story in his native Navajo about a woman who was shocked that the very snake she'd rescued had bitten her, to which the snake replies "Look bitch, you knew I was a snake." The pair are bitten by a seeming field of rattlesnakes, which leads them to the drug store (a neon sign of Caduceus of Mercury) where they are captured. Also when Mallory and Mickey cut themselves on the bridge to show their love to each other, their blood becomes animated and changes into a red and green snake, entwined and hissing at each other.

Mickey repeatedly uses nature and evolution to justify his killings, saying that "The wolf don't know why he's a wolf, the deer don't know why he's a deer. God just made 'em that way." He explains that he is the next step in evolution, and that he's a "natural born killer". Shots of nature open the film and occur throughout the film, set both on a television and in nature, with a violent or disturbing undertone. As Mickey and Mallory literally walk out of the media's frame at the end of the film, it suggests that only a teleological advanced being can transcend the created establishments that influence common Americans.

Yin and Yang, an ancient symbol of moral equivalence appear more than once. Mickey and Mallory have Yin and Yang tattoos on opposite arms. Mickey's tattoo is opposite and below another tattoo of the face of Christ. Mallory's tattoo is opposite and above a tattoo of a scorpion. Mickey's left earring is a Yin Yang. During Mickey's television interview he suggests that he and Mallory are "dark and light", compatible with one another they function as a single force intended to destroy the "demons" of mass media, corrupt law enforcement and the commonalty's obsession with violence.

A glowing lime green light is used throughout the film. It first appears in the film's opening sequence, as lights in the diner jukebox. Green is also present in the key lime pie Mickey orders. It appears again predominantly when Mallory kills a gas station attendant, and absorbs almost the entire screen during the drug store sequence. Lime green lights later make a less pronounced appearance during the riot sequence.

The number 666 pops up in certain areas throughout the film - for example Route 666 and a brief glimpse of a newspaper a patron, who will later appear in the prison riot scene as Owen (Arliss Howard), is holding in the first scene.

Wikipedia: Natural Born Killers