Natural Born Killers (1994) with David Hering

Intro: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,

Intro: back again with another film discussion from the left.

Intro: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com and subscribe for bonus content

Intro: and to support the show at patreon.com slash leftoftheprojectorpod.

Intro: This week on the show, we will be discussing the 1994 film Natural Born Killers.

Intro: It was directed by Oliver Stone and stars Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis,

Intro: Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore.

Intro: The story was originally created by Quentin Tarantino, but was sold off and

Intro: picked up by Oliver Stone with help from David Vellos and Richard Rutowski on the screenplay.

Intro: This week on the show, I have Dr. David Herring.

Intro: David is a senior lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool.

Intro: His writing has appeared in publications including the New York Review of Books,

Intro: Guernica, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the London Magazine.

Intro: He is a author of David Foster Wallace, Fiction and Form, which came out in 2016 from Bloomsbury.

Intro: He is currently working on a book about cinema and memory.

Intro: And I guess that is a perfect segue to the bring in David on this conversation

Intro: to talk about the 1994 film Natural Born Killers.

Intro: I hope you enjoyed this week's episode all.

Evan: Right people thanks for joining today it's a pleasure,

Evan: Yes, yes. So I mentioned in the opening, we're talking about the 1994 Oliver

Evan: Stone film Natural Born Killers.

Evan: And, you know, before we get into this kind of crazy movie, it had been quite

Evan: a long time since I saw it.

Evan: I thought as a little quick, you know, thought exercise, if you will,

Evan: I'm usually asking people if there's any, you know, if there's an actor living

Evan: or dead, doesn't have to have anything to do with natural born killers.

Evan: It could be, but if there's someone out there that you would,

Evan: you know, be nice to have a drink, coffee, a dinner with, would you, uh, who would you pick?

David: Can I pick a director? Yeah.

Evan: Oh, please. That counts.

David: I only, I only asked this because I, I was recently having a conversation that was, um,

David: along the, along the lines of, you know, a similar thing

David: who would be kind of a approachable or good

David: company and a name that came up for someone who

David: potentially would be difficult company was um andrei tarkovsky uh for the simple

David: reason that his films are very complex and um poetic and and i you could i have

David: you have a kind i guess a kind of image of what he might be like in real life

David: which would be quite taciturn or quite a complex person.

David: But then I heard a story about how he had screened Solaris for Akira Kurosawa,

David: who was a great hero of his, and took him out to dinner afterwards.

David: And he was so nervous that he drank the best part of a bottle of vodka and turned

David: the music off in the restaurant and started singing the theme to Seven Samurai at the top of his voice.

David: So I thought, actually, I bet he'd be a great dinner party guest.

David: So I'm going to go with Tarkovsky, I think.

Evan: That's certainly a good one. I have an ongoing kind of every quarter,

Evan: I guess, if you will, or every three months, I've been doing a couple of his films.

Evan: I've done Solaris, Stalker, and then I did Ivan's Childhood.

Evan: And he would be interesting. I've read his book, and he seems very humble,

Evan: but also he's very serious about his craft.

Evan: So it would be interesting to talk to him.

Evan: I always have trouble with this one because I feel like I've named all the good

Evan: ones I have in other episodes.

Evan: So the one I was thinking about, not maybe a glamorous one, would be Andy Serkis.

David: Oh, yeah.

Evan: Just because I love Lord of the Rings. I love his portrayal of Gollum,

Evan: and he's going to be doing and directing a new version, a new movie in 2026.

David: I believe so.

Evan: Just to hear him do the voices and all the things and just kind of how he ended

Evan: up being stuck on Lord of the Rings. as if it was, he just did the impression for someone somewhere.

Evan: And then all of a sudden, I'm sure there's a story about this.

Evan: I just don't know what it is, but I'd like to, he's not dead,

Evan: but I would still like to have a chat. Yeah, absolutely.

Evan: I think he's from, I know he's from England. I don't know where in England he's

Evan: from, but perhaps Northern England.

David: I think he's from Southern England. I once walked past Andy Serkis in London.

David: That's my, that's my Andy Serkis story.

Evan: That's it.

David: Literally, I just walked past him on the street. There is no,

David: there's no more or less to this story.

Evan: I okay so apparently he's from middlesex right so southeast england okay you're

Evan: right so that's that's uh much better than my made up uh prediction,

Evan: but yeah i'd love to love to um chat with him i don't know what kind of person

Evan: he is but i guess uh going into the the film natural born killers i guess what

Evan: uh made you choose that one and then maybe also tied to the same thing?

Evan: I don't know if you've seen it until you saw it recently for this.

Evan: Did you have memories of being a movie you liked or is it more just a fascination?

Evan: I guess what got that movie in your head?

David: I have a very long and complex history with this film, which is the reason I picked it.

David: And I watched it again a couple of weeks ago for the first time in a very,

David: very, very long time, probably at least...

David: 10 years, I would imagine. To outline the story of my first viewing of this film,

David: I have to explain the particular situation that around Natural Born Killers

David: release in the UK, because it had a very particular controversy around its release.

David: So basically, the film was due to come out and then was effectively banned by

David: the British censors in 1994.

David: It was due to come out, it had a release state and then

David: there had been a we were in the middle in

David: the 93 94 of a kind of moral panic about

David: screen violence after a series of um murder

David: cases in which there had been

David: kind of mixed into the case that had been the suggestion

David: of um the the exposure to

David: kind of violent content this is all pre-internet of course but

David: the violent videos had yeah had had a kind of um

David: you know manchurian candidate style kind of

David: activation of some something kind of murderous in

David: people now obviously we we know that that's not true you know

David: we know that i mean maybe if someone is living in a home where they're

David: exposed to incredibly violent films all the time that speaks more

David: to the level of care in the home than it does to the actual quality of

David: the video itself but anyway the bbfc which is the british censorship board which

David: was at that point was kind of a fiefdom that was run by this guy called james

David: firman who kind of really controlled what people saw and what people didn't

David: see and had a lot of quite peculiar ideas about what should and shouldn't be seen.

David: So, for example, you couldn't see The Exorcist on home video in the UK until

David: 2000, I think it was, which is when he left, because Furman had the idea that it made...

David: It had a kind of effectively magical effect on teenage girls.

David: And he was convinced that it would make them kind of hysterical.

David: This gives you an idea of the kind of idea of the person you're dealing with.

David: Anyway, they were very, very sensitive about violent movies in about 93, 94.

David: And this is when Tarantino, for example, first comes through.

David: And so Reservoir Dogs got a cinema release, but not a video release.

David: And True Romance got a cinema release and not a video release.

David: And effectively, it got to the point where anything that was even vaguely Tarantino-related

David: was seen with great kind of suspicion.

David: And it was a year or two before Reservoir Dogs appeared on home video.

David: And as a result, I had to wear three overcoats and sneak into a cinema to see it.

David: That was the first time I saw it. It was like a midnight screening because you

David: couldn't see it at home. And it's pre-internet, so you couldn't download it or look it up.

David: And then Natural Born Killers was due to come out. And then,

David: I don't know if you recall, but there were a couple of specific murder cases,

David: I think one in France and one in the US, where the murderers actually said that

David: they were specifically influenced by the film.

David: And it was like, in both cases, it was young couples, a young man, a young woman.

David: And basically, the BBFC got absolute, took total fright over this and did not

David: issue a film certificate, a cinema certificate for the film.

David: So the film was effectively banned in the UK. So my first viewing of Natural

David: Born Killers was not at the cinema. It was not rented from Blockbuster or whatever.

David: It was on a bootleg VHS tape.

David: That I had bought it from someone in the school playground for,

David: I think it was the sum of two pounds.

David: I'd heard that this guy was selling VHSs. This makes the school system in the

David: UK in the 90s sound quite insalubrious.

David: But yeah, I got this VHS tape, which was a very poor, but watchable bootleg copy of the film.

David: And so the first time I watched it was as a bootleg at home.

David: And, of course, when you see something as a bootleg, it's the same as I saw

David: Clockwork Orange around the same age. Clockwork Orange you couldn't see in the UK either.

David: And these films have these – if

David: you can't see them, they have this kind of tantalizing aura around them.

David: I mean, you know, I was probably one of the first people generally in the UK to see that film.

David: Weirdly, um or one of an early number because it

David: was nearly a year before it was released at the

David: cinema so everything i had was on this very scrappy vhs

David: and it was so scrappy in places that the picture was i mean

David: it wasn't it wasn't terrible i could see what was going on i could hear what

David: was going on um but it was not you know

David: it was not the greatest quality and certain images were

David: hard to see um and you know i watched this

David: and this tape was passed around me and my friends

David: and and we were very excited about it because

David: it was it was a an illicit film

David: you know it was not supposed to be seen um and

David: you know it was like a violent crime movie and as for a

David: bunch of like 13 14 year old boys you

David: know violent crime movies played rather

David: a large part and also tarantino we were all into tarantino at

David: that time as well so we were really cool but also

David: to be fair we were all being quite movie-headed people

David: we were all also like into oliver stone and we'd seen jfk and

David: we'd seen platoon and wall street and all that so we were curious

David: and we also knew that tarantino didn't like it

David: either or that tarantino had been elbowed out of

David: the process so we were very curious to see it and

David: i we'd read all this stuff about it's on you know five different film stocks

David: and there's animation and there's canned laughter and and so you know that we

David: were really kind of jazzed to see it so when we all kind of first saw it we

David: were kind of quite dazzled by it which is.

David: I mean, I think there still are elements of the film that are quite dazzling.

David: And we probably weren't thinking too hard about the kind of politics of it or

David: about its internal consistency or anything like that.

David: And, of course, the other thing as well at the time was that it was an early

David: example of stunt casting,

David: because Woody Harrelson, I mean, was Cheers and then you know white men can't

David: jump they were like the things that Woody Harrelson was famous for he was famous

David: for playing a kind of goofy character and then he had they had him as this kind

David: of skinheaded serial killer so that was you know,

David: that was a big, that was an unusual thing as well. So it was very,

David: it felt very illicit and it felt very new and different.

David: And so, and as a, you know, 14 year old boy, that's all you,

David: that's all you want, you know? So I wasn't critical at all.

Evan: Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. I saw it, I don't have quite as a,

Evan: you know, um, I didn't know about it being banned there.

Evan: I do remember reading once going down a rabbit hole of all the different,

Evan: I guess they were called like copycat crimes.

Evan: I even think that the Columbine killers, Columbine shootings in the United States

Evan: in 1999 had some connection where they had put the NBK killer,

Evan: natural born killer code in their journal and things.

Evan: So there's lots of violence that they've claimed from this and I guess that's

Evan: another conversation we can get to of what to take from it, like what should

Evan: one take from it and does Oliver Stone,

Evan: do people who make movies like this have any, is there culpability in that But

Evan: one thing you mentioned as having a bootleg, I sort of imagine it almost at

Evan: times feels like you're watching something that is like a bootleg.

Evan: Every – like the imagery and the way the camera changes and the color grains

Evan: and all these different things, it feels almost – it's like chaos at times.

Evan: Especially the first third of the movie, I think, is probably the most crazy.

Evan: You posted it on Twitter, like the Rodney Dangerfield and Flames and all these crazy things.

Evan: It is a very incredible movie. And it's very much unlike Oliver Stone's other films. I love JFK.

Evan: It's nothing like this. Or even all of his other films are very different.

Evan: And so I don't know, as far as like the Oliver Stone kind of thing,

Evan: and also them being part of the Quentin Tarantino universe, is I think this movie and also –,

Evan: Kill Bill were supposed to be part of like the same universe.

Evan: Not Kill Bill. You mentioned the movie just a minute ago.

David: True Romance.

Evan: True Romance. True Romance and this like part of the same kind of universe.

Evan: And so he sold both scripts to make Reservoir Dogs, which is the story or what I've read.

Evan: And I guess that's not really a question, but I don't know. Like,

Evan: what do you think about this, the imagery in the movie?

Evan: And is it like, does it hold up?

Evan: Do you think having your memory of it being so much like I, as a youth watching

Evan: this and And now watching it as an adult, you know, does all that craziness,

Evan: maybe even forgetting the plot, just the imagery and the visuals like hold up to you?

David: I mean, I think that my opinion on this film has changed so much.

David: I've kind of flip-flopped a lot.

David: The most recent time I saw it a couple of weeks ago, I was left with a very

David: strong feeling that it was really not a very sophisticated film in terms of

David: what it was trying to do or say.

David: I mean, maybe we'll get to this. it it it came across

David: as much more kind of simplistic than i'd remembered

David: it um and and quite glib

David: in some ways as well although we can maybe talk about

David: that more in a minute but um conversely the

David: the the the look of the film and the kind of the the way that it's effectively

David: a kind of two hour montage um is even more striking i think 30 years on because

David: it's 30 years old isn't it this year, 30 years on.

David: It's really remarkable that, I mean, there's several remarkable things about it.

David: One is that, you know, Oliver Stone, really, at the time, he,

David: to a certain extent, his reputation, if not his reputation, but his presence

David: has faded quite a lot in the last few years. But I mean, in 94,

David: you know, he was coming off...

David: You know, Platoon had won Best Picture, and then he'd got Best Director for

David: Born on the Fourth of July. He'd done Wall Street.

David: He'd done The Doors. You know, like, he was really, really famous.

David: And, you know, he was about as famous

David: as a director, certainly an American director, could get at that point.

David: And then he'd chosen to do this, and that it was considerably wilder than anything

David: that he'd done before was really interesting.

David: That the it's also interesting that it's one of his collaborations with um uh

David: the cinematographer robert richardson and it was clearly a very kind of fruitful

David: partnership you can see it in a few films at that time in fact the film that

David: followed this uh nixon um still there's a little hangover.

David: Stylistically from natural born killers and they

David: do change the color and they change the stocks occasionally and

David: there's little bits and pieces even there might even be a little bit of that happening

David: in jfk i can't remember but um you

David: know the the hugely celebrated director would be able to do this and would do

David: something this wild was quite was quite extraordinary it's also extraordinary

David: now to see it that it was distributed by warner brothers i mean you know i mean

David: you know one of the idea that warner brother well i mean warner brothers is a you know,

David: Not as a total basket case at the moment, right?

David: I mean, the idea that Warner Brothers would... The idea, frankly,

David: that any major studio would distribute this film now is completely out of the question.

David: I mean, there's just absolutely no way that this film would get...

David: A film on this budget with that director, with those actors, would get funded.

David: I just simply don't believe it would happen. So in that sense,

David: it's really interesting as a kind of piece of film history and as a kind of timepiece.

David: The way that the film looks is,

David: I mean, I've always taken it to be, and actually now, with the benefit of hindsight,

David: I feel like I can actually see the film more clearly than I could at the time,

David: because it's very, very much a film of its time.

David: It's very, very much a film of the Clinton era of the mid-90s in America,

David: of that era of television, of that era of MTV.

David: And I think, you know, what Stoner is trying to do is to effectively kind of

David: mimic that kind of cross-channel cutting, that kind of switching around from one thing to another.

David: I mean, the film literally ends with channels being changed.

David: I mean, it's not a film that is subtle or politically kind of evasive.

David: It's always a film that says what it's saying to you at the absolute top of its voice all the time.

David: So it's not like you have to kind of hunt around for the meaning or anything

David: like that. But it is very clear.

David: On the other hand, like as a sheer work of montage, it is spectacular.

David: And I mean, there are moments that still are really, really stunning and effective.

David: I mean, the opening credits, for example, over which you have...

David: Overlaid spoken word poetry. You have Patti Smith, you have Leader of the Pack,

David: you have stock footage, you have footage of Vietnam, you have them driving in

David: front of rear projection.

David: It's a really thrilling bit of montage.

David: This might be one of the main issues of the film, is that the film is in love

David: with the effect that it's creating.

David: But of course, it's also trying to distance itself from that kind of narcotic

David: effect at the same time you know it's it's it's you know it's trying to have

David: its cake and eat it it's it's it's you know it is a really exceptional worker

David: montage but at the same time it's also trying to kind of say the opposite.

Evan: Yeah i almost wonder this is this slightly leads me to just a curiosity i have

Evan: if quentin tarantino maybe didn't have to sell this script and he directed it

Evan: himself i mean i think you have a much i don't know what his original screenplay

Evan: looked like what it would have been like i know that he said he doesn't like

Evan: this movie at all. He really hates what happened to it.

Evan: But I think Oliver Stone almost seemed to do too much.

Evan: He went too far over that line. I feel like if he'd used the montage style more

Evan: on a limited nature basis and struck more towards, I don't know.

Evan: I don't really know what you would do differently.

Evan: We don't need to be here saying, oh, I would have done this.

Evan: I would have done that. I'm not a filmmaker.

Evan: But I think it's just too much. And this time, I couldn't actually believe as

Evan: I was watching it aside from just the message and used to thinking this movie

Evan: was like really cool when I was 17 to now thinking like,

Evan: wow, this is, this is kind of, I don't know what's going on here.

Evan: Like I lost my, you know, you, I don't know.

Evan: It's, um, it, my perception of it all changed. So I don't know if,

Evan: uh, if he had toned it down more, maybe they could make it, you know,

Evan: would have been more effective. I just think that you're visually blinded.

Evan: Getting just like punched across the face with all the different changes.

Evan: And then you have the very violent, you know, nature of the movie,

Evan: plus the actual violence in the movie.

Evan: It's just, uh, it's, it's too much for me. And even though the media at that

Evan: time had this very big obsession with, you know, OJ trial in America and all

Evan: these different, I can think of countless different trials that were on TV.

Evan: This is when like court TV in America became a thing and, you know,

Evan: true crime was in its probably its height. Although I guess it's kind of coming back.

Evan: All the MTV, all of all that stuff.

Evan: I could see what he was trying to do, but it just doesn't work for me.

Evan: It's fine, but it's not – I hate to call it a good movie, but it's not a bad

Evan: movie. It's an okay movie.

David: I think the interesting thing is that one of the points that – one of the kind

David: of legs that the film seems to be supposedly supported by is that rather than

David: – one of the kind of main elements of the satire is rather than them being kind

David: of castigated for what they did, they become elevated to celebrities.

David: The weird thing is that the film doesn't really spend any time dealing with that.

David: Like the the film you know you have the you

David: have the interview and you hear that they're famous and you

David: get this little montage of people saying that they're famous but it

David: doesn't really drill down into into

David: why people want this you know or kind

David: of it doesn't ever turn the lens really on the audience

David: either you know there is a very there is a kind of lightning rod

David: for this media hypocrisy which

David: is the the Wayne Gale character um but

David: really who is you know literally a devil

David: in one of the scenes you know he's literally like dressed as the

David: devil again you know it's about the most on-the-nose film you can

David: imagine but like one of the things that's interesting

David: is that they you know they they allude to the kind of media celebrity but really

David: most of that occurs most of what occurs is stuff that kind of occurs around

David: them so the punches don't really land when we're talking about the kind of hypocrisy

David: of not just the media, but of the audience too.

David: Because it's like, one of the things about this kind of phenomenon is,

David: well, if you didn't want it, you wouldn't watch.

David: And then so the idea that the audience is also complicit is kind of,

David: it's almost kind of passed over here, effectively.

Evan: Yeah, for some reason, the movie is not at

Evan: all anything like this but i was thinking it would

Evan: be an interesting kind of like double feature with the movie uh

Evan: nightcrawler have you seen that with um jake which

Evan: also talks about like the glorification of violence and crime and you know essentially

Evan: the media you know crafting narratives as what they want i think that is a much

Evan: to me is a lot it's a very smart film whereas this is kind of banging you over

Evan: the head with the message of you know the violence but you're right they only

Evan: they interview a few like

Evan: people like young kids in front of the courthouse being

Evan: like oh yeah i love them like oh but you know they kill people it's like oh you

Evan: know whatever and it's i don't know it

Evan: um it doesn't in some ways one of

Evan: the things one of the notes i have i'm kind of jumping around a little bit but one of the

Evan: things i wrote was is that it doesn't really grapple the

Evan: message of the movie doesn't really grapple with it glorifying their

Evan: violence but it never kind of shows you the other way it

Evan: doesn't it kind of just glorifies it almost too much it

Evan: doesn't ever say okay well yes i really we realize is bad like you know he could

Evan: they kill at the end as a spoiler they kill uh gail you know the actor played

Evan: by or the character played by robert downey jr who did a phenomenal job i have

Evan: to say in in the movie but there's never really any reckoning unless do you

Evan: think that's the case in the in the kind of i.

David: Was i was thinking about this a lot actually when i

David: when i saw it and i mean there's there's a

David: very very very very generous reading of

David: the film which i'm not sure i really share which

David: is that you know the fact that they are just effectively

David: at the end of the film they're simply seemingly kind

David: of absorbed back into the fabric of american society seemingly

David: without any consequence is um is itself a kind of indictment is it you know

David: well well this is effectively you know this this level of violence uh and this

David: degree of violence is so naturalized at all levels of American culture that effectively, you know,

David: these people pass almost unnoticed or they pass kind of without judgment.

David: I mean, the problem with that for me is that.

David: I don't necessarily see how that squares with what the rest of the film is kind of projecting.

David: I mean, I think that there's what is clearly an attempt to create a kind of dialogic moment.

David: It's just literally a long dialogue in the second half of the film with Woody

David: Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr.,

David: where it becomes pretty clear that the film is supposed to be outlining the

David: philosophy of what it means to be or to not be a hypocrite.

David: The problem is that the Wayne Gale character, Robert Downey Jr.,

David: is a kind of, instead of thinking about the concept of violence,

David: there's a distinction made between two types of violence,

David: one of which is the violence propagated by the media, and the other which is

David: this kind of very nebulously described primal or pure violence that Woody Harrelson,

David: Mickey Knox is talking about.

David: And the problem is that neither of these characters in any sense have the high ground on each other.

David: So what happens is there's a lot of heat, but there's not a lot of light that

David: comes out of this discussion.

David: There's no question of reflection for any character.

David: I mean, I think this leads maybe to a broader question about,

David: you know, what are the nature of the characters in this film?

David: And I think, you know, it's probably easiest and most satisfying to see the

David: characters in this film as kind of larger than life, grotesques, basically.

David: I mean, you know, they are physically grotesque.

David: You know, Tommy Lee Jones is very, like, physically grotesque.

David: I think he's really good in the film, actually. So I think Tommy Lee Jones really

David: kind of anchors that second half.

David: It's not a subtle performance. I mean, there's not a subtle performance in this film.

David: And then, you know, Tom Sizemore, this almost kind of cartoon character looking

David: kind of murdering policeman.

David: And then, you know, Mickey and Mallory Knox wearing an increasingly kind of

David: cartoonish series of outfits and stuff.

David: So it almost seems like he's kind of put this bunch of kind of grotesques in the mix.

David: And just kind of thrown them together and is seeing what happens.

David: Unfortunately, what it seems to end up suggesting is that this kind of primal

David: instinct to murder is somehow kind of holy or kind of – there's almost a kind

David: of Buddhist quality to it.

David: You know, there's again – this is why this is also a very, very 90s film.

David: There's a lot of kind of semi-elusive kind of references to Buddhism, kind of pop Buddhism.

David: And the idea that, you know, to see oneself truly is to see how murderous the world is.

David: Whereas, in fact, you know, the guy is an indiscriminate murderer.

David: Like, there's no real sense of kind of grappling with him saying that.

David: Which is why I say the most generous reading, which I don't really have,

David: is that the film is kind of taking a long look and saying, well,

David: none of this will have judgment passed on it because America is such an inherently

David: violent culture and nation that everything just passes.

David: The problem with that is that the film is then just effectively completely flat.

David: It doesn't have any internal movement.

Evan: The problem with reading the movie like that, it also kind of, it also absolves.

Evan: So yes, I mean, America is a violent place and there is these things and you

Evan: could, there's lots of things you can blame.

Evan: You could say, oh, well, it's the media or it's video games or it's rap music.

Evan: There's all these things that people want to point to when they don't want to

Evan: point to just the foundation of America is on violence.

Evan: And I think the thing that very briefly is mentioned when I think Woody Harrelson

Evan: is talking with – in the interview with Robert Downey Jr., at some point they

Evan: talk about how, you know.

Evan: Does he say like we call this industry and not murder?

Evan: Like they realize that there is a problem with America.

Evan: But it's not simply America. It's simply just the foundations of a system that's

Evan: built on violence, built on police brutality.

Evan: I mean, when I think of Tom Slidesworth's character as a police officer who's

Evan: killing people, that is a very over-the-top perception of American police that's

Evan: actually not that inaccurate.

Evan: I mean, the amount of police in America that commit violent acts in domestic

Evan: sense and then also on the job is very, very high.

Evan: And so it kind of ignores the systemic problem and kind of just throws it at

Evan: saying it's TV, it's media, and kind of ignores, I think,

Evan: the real root of the problem, which kind of to me then is why as I watched it,

Evan: I'm thinking like, this movie, it's fine visually, it has some good set pieces,

Evan: the acting is really good, but it doesn't really give me the message I want.

David: I think one of the things that's interesting about this is that,

David: okay, so there's two parts here.

David: One is the context of Oliver Stone himself, which is that, you know,

David: he is really the kind of the last of a generation of American filmmakers who,

David: firstly, who saw conflict.

David: So he was in Vietnam and I

David: mean I'm thinking of people like you know Sam Fuller

David: um or Sam Peckinpah there's

David: like or um I can't remember if John Milius saw combat but there's a certain

David: type of very macho very masculine American director who um who makes very macho

David: and very masculine films and who was involved in actually in combat themselves.

David: And Stone is a bit of an anomaly because he comes later than those guys.

David: Those guys were like World War I vets, World War II vets, sorry. And he's a Vietnam vet.

David: But as well as making these films about Vietnam and about, you know,

David: and I suppose, I mean, if you think about a film like Platoon,

David: it's really, you know, one of the first times the kind of mainstream cinema-going public,

David: saw, you know, saw in very large numbers.

David: Oh, no, I guess, well, I guess you've got The Deer Hunter as well,

David: which is earlier, but at the same time, you know, like from a vet,

David: you know, you hadn't had that kind of perspective before.

David: And he does have a tendency to,

David: You know, his films are always very violent, whether it's emotionally violent or physically violent.

David: And there's, I think, often a kind of, it's like the same with Peckinpah.

David: You know, there's often, in Peckinpah's weakest films, there's a real lack of

David: distinction between the violence that's on screen and the kind of relish with

David: which it's being directed.

David: Whereas the best stuff that Peckinpah did, you know, there is this really,

David: like something like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,

David: there is a real kind of serious awareness of the context of where the violence

David: comes from and what the violence means and what the violence leads to.

David: I think that the other point I was going to make was about the scene in which

David: Mickey and Mallory meet the character played by Russell Means as a Native American character.

David: This should be the kind of heart of the film, right?

David: So this is the scene where they basically decide to stop murdering.

David: It's the only accidental killing that they do.

David: And we're supposed to get the impression that this is the kind of eye of the

David: storm of the film, basically.

David: And also that it is hinting at something like what you just said before,

David: you know, the fact that America is based on a foundation of kind of genocide

David: and a genocide of its native peoples.

David: And the problem here for me is that it relegates the Native American character

David: to this kind of magical figure,

David: you know, an all-wise, all-knowing figure who exists kind of to be murdered

David: as a reminder of the kind of genocide that was carried out,

David: the colonial genocide that was carried out in America. The problem is, I mean, this is the same.

David: Stone has got form with this. I don't know if you remember with the doors.

David: There's a whole bit in the door. The doors opens with the young people

David: boy jim morrison seeing a native american guy

David: killed in a car accident like a shaman and the

David: suggestion is that like some of this guy's spirit kind

David: of passes on to him and then he goes into the desert and

David: there's there's this native american guy on a horse like maybe he's real maybe

David: he isn't and he goes into this cave i mean this was being parodied in in wayne's

David: world like this was so ridiculous you know and and it carries over into natural

David: born killers i think and i it's one of those things where you can see the point

David: that it's trying to be made,

David: but it's being made with such a lack of subtlety.

Evan: Do you think, well, I don't know if this is what you're getting at,

Evan: but do you think that the scene with the Native American in this movie,

Evan: in Natural Born Killers,

Evan: so he decides he's going to quit killing, they're going to change their ways,

Evan: and then he accidentally kills him, and they're kind of running out,

Evan: and then they go on kind of another murder spree.

Evan: Do you think that in some sense, are we meant to think that there continue to

Evan: go on a murder spree as almost like a revenge for the white man having killed

Evan: all these native people?

Evan: Now he's going to take his spirit.

Evan: Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I don't know.

Evan: The before and after of that scene doesn't make a whole lot of sense in sense

Evan: of that as this moment in the movie that feels uh feels off i don't know.

David: Uh yeah i mean i think the the the scene would

David: i mean he says later on you know that was the kind of moment

David: at which you know he wished that he hadn't killed um

David: but the scene is the scene is immediately followed by

David: murdering a bunch of people when they get so and needlessly

David: murdering the the the clerk at

David: the at the pharmacy and stuff like so there's there's

David: very little rhyme or reason to the

David: to the kind of uh this this

David: is the i mean i think at heart this is part of the film's problem which is that

David: it's kind of intoxicated with its own rhythm and its own style and and and the

David: film becomes kind of a hostage to it effectively because it's almost that thing

David: if we if we stop you know we can't stop moving because if we stop moving,

David: you know, people are going to start to see the kind of strings that are holding this set together.

David: So we have to keep, keep going, you know, effectively.

David: I mean, I, I sometimes feel a little bit like this when I see,

David: um, in a very, in a very, very different way,

David: when i see uh christopher nolan movies which which i i feel that i felt with

David: something like oppenheimer every scene a very every scene has music under every

David: scene is cut like a trailer every scene is kind of montage montage montage montage

David: and it's almost like there's a slight.

David: Fear underneath of of stopping for too long now i know that's kind of part of his style,

David: um but i sometimes you know i found i find myself just wanting a bit of silence

David: or a bit of quiet or a bit of thinking time um and i felt the same about this

David: you know that there's a kind of,

David: there's such a commitment to

David: montage because that's really all all there is in the film you know it's.

Evan: It's it's funny you that funny you had mentioned the beginning you'd want to

Evan: have you know dinner with andre tarkovsky it's like this is like the.

David: Anti-tarkovsky movie the opposite where he.

Evan: Has a two-minute set piece where you his his goal in movies is to show things

Evan: like almost as they're happening, like real time.

Evan: And that is not what Oliver Stone was going for in this, where it's just constant moving.

Evan: And maybe that's what he wanted to do in that it's this overindulgence or this

Evan: just you're getting hit with.

Evan: I mean, I remember TV at that time and you didn't have the ability to go onto

Evan: a channel that would show you all the different things were on TV.

Evan: You're just literally like we're flipping through. So I understand that.

David: That's one of the things is really interesting about it

David: it's the last big pre-internet movie

David: about the media really like it's it's

David: it's so fossilized now

David: you know it's 30 years old but it's you know

David: it's got it it's pre-internet there's no concept of

David: the internet in that film at all it's like really just three or

David: four years out and it's it's really

David: interesting for that reason you know it's all the problem

David: is is tv you know and it's it's also

David: interesting i suppose think about it's a film about gen x made

David: by boomer as well you know and and boomers have

David: a particular relationship to tv which is they were they were born without it

David: you know and i think boomers never you can see it in fiction as well in you

David: know thomas pension or don de lillo or so that the tv arrived in the living

David: room and it was it was a it was an arrival whereas you know everyone else had just always had it yeah.

Evan: I'm I was trying to think of other, the only movies that I can think of,

Evan: I can think of movies that came out, you know, after this talking about,

Evan: this is not at all the same kind of movie, but I think of the movie and maybe

Evan: it's like five years after this,

Evan: Pleasantville, which is about, you know, the old time TV, which is not in the

Evan: same way, the same look at media, but, you know, all of those really good ones,

Evan: like Network, all were in the 50s, 60s, 70s. And then you had this one.

Evan: Yeah, you couldn't, like, I think you said at the beginning,

Evan: like, this could not be made now not just they wouldn't make it it just i don't

Evan: think it could be made it's uh just a.

Evan: It's not the same thing. One of the things that I just, so I just released an episode.

Evan: This is before this, before the recording of this on true romance.

Evan: And in that movie, I was talking about kind of like the, you know,

Evan: seeing people as, maybe was it that movie?

Evan: Maybe it wasn't that conversation, but kind of about like antiheroes.

Evan: And, you know, you're maybe meant to look at some of the people in this as antiheroes.

Evan: And I guess the thing that brings me back to is talking about all the copycat

Evan: murders, the Columbine shootings and all these people that use this movie as

Evan: a code for evil, where that isn't really what Oliver Stone was going for.

Evan: I think of another movie like American Psycho, where people identify on the

Evan: right with, you know, Patrick Bateman when it's a satire and it's a similar,

Evan: I mean, the satire and this is not nearly, I think is as good as that is.

Evan: But does Oliver Stone – did he fail then if he's – do these – I don't know.

Evan: Maybe it's just the way that people watch these movies. They're going to read

Evan: in it what they want. They're going to identify with the character and they're

Evan: going to do it whether it's satire or not.

Evan: But does Oliver Stone deserve some criticism for not making it more – making

Evan: it less obvious and more interesting or more subtle?

Evan: Because it really glorifies violence to an extreme.

David: It's weird because, I mean, you can't, like, I'm personally always reluctant

David: to say, you know, that the direct, I mean, I've seen so many egregious cases of things.

David: I mean, so like, I mean, if you're going to stay on the 90s,

David: like a classic example is the Matrix, right?

David: You know, I mean, that's, you know, it's, which has been claimed as both a trans

David: allegory and also, you know, an alt-right allegory, right?

David: So there's no way that the creator can necessarily take the blame for the different

David: interpretations of how that works.

David: I mean, I think if there's failures in the film, for me, they're structural, really.

David: The point that's being made is being made again and again and again and again

David: and again. Like, I mean, effectively, you could boil the entire film pretty much down to the.

David: Uh the rodney dangerfield scene actually the

David: the the uh one that is played as like a kind of 50s sitcom

David: um and it's actually a genuinely effective

David: moment of satire in the film it's one

David: where the kind of form and the uh and

David: the structure kind of they work together we get a sense of

David: of what's of of the kind of

David: um the media image of of the american family

David: and then the kind of reality of the american family and and it's

David: and actually casting rodney dangerfield in it is

David: a genuinely brilliant thing to do like i mean it's

David: really because he you know he's an absolute like

David: monster and but he's also playing against type you know

David: very very heavily against type uh so in

David: that sense it's you know that's one of the more successful moments

David: of it but i just think that there's it's hard to kind of

David: identify i mean okay so some people would say

David: well if the film is able to be interpreted in those

David: in those ways it's failed i don't necessarily

David: agree with that but i do think that like the

David: the film is not necessarily successful

David: what it's trying to do or maybe you know if what it's simply trying to say is

David: too much tv which is it which is literally projected onto the body of a character

David: at one point the words too much tv well i mean it's succeeded but it's but then

David: it what it's saying is too much tv again and again and again and again and again And I mean.

David: Yeah, I mean, it's so if it's a failure, it's a failure of, I don't think it's

David: a failure of filmmaking. I think it's very interesting.

David: The filmmaking is often very interesting, but I think as a kind of.

David: Polemic or an indictment it's just not.

Evan: Consistent i don't yeah i don't i don't either think you

Evan: can blame the directors for the way that

Evan: they're interpreted uh you know and sometimes there even

Evan: filmmakers will say like oh i wasn't trying to make a political film and

Evan: i always like have to laugh at the like well even if you're going to say that

Evan: like it's just not true you know like things are political whether you meant

Evan: to do them or not but one thing i was thinking about is you know that you said

Evan: they kind of hammered the message over and over like one way that i think they

Evan: could have actually maybe told this story in a more effective way that would have maybe,

Evan: this is just if I were, I'm not a filmmaker.

Evan: This is just would be interesting if the movie was actually the interview between

Evan: Gale and Mickey Knox. What's his name?

Evan: And Mickey Knox. It would have just been the interview. That's kind of like

Evan: the setup for the movie. And then they kind of then go from that to having different,

Evan: you know, him telling stories.

Evan: And then maybe it becomes a scene where they, something they had done.

Evan: And then it goes back to the interview where you could have,

Evan: you know, driven more into his character and talked more about it.

Evan: And then still had some of those interesting set pieces with Rodney Dangerfield,

Evan: which again, I agree was a really good scene and some other ones in there.

Evan: And then maybe, I don't know, because there are some good moments where they

Evan: talk about, you know, how the media is,

Evan: I think he says the media is like the weather, except it's man-made and the

Evan: media by themselves feel like all these things are true and very over the top

Evan: in terms of them telling you what it is.

Evan: But I think they could have been more effective at showing that they also allude

Evan: to their childhood, but maybe they could have done more about their childhood.

Evan: They also try to say, if your parents were violent towards you,

Evan: you're going to be inherently violent.

Evan: There's other questionable things in there about

Evan: And that's maybe indictment of our own, again, the system not giving people

Evan: the proper care when they're in school to identify people who might need support and all these things.

Evan: So, I don't know. Those are kind of two separate thoughts. One,

Evan: maybe this has been my idea for the movie, my uneducated, unsophisticated take on it.

Evan: And then the other is just, I think, they could have been more subtle.

Evan: Again like i think of american psycho like the the satire is more subtle where

Evan: it's easier i think to take the wrong message from it because it's less obvious

Evan: but you know it's there if you look under the.

David: Layers yeah i i think so and i think the the risk is that much of the film can

David: risk ending ending up kind of looking either kind of glib or or just in poor

David: taste i mean that that's that's the other thing as well you know i mean i i

David: don't think i'd noticed it maybe until recently maybe because I hadn't seen

David: a decent quality copy for a long time,

David: but there's a sex scene in a hotel room in which there are images of the Holocaust in the window.

David: And it's like, well, at that point, it's like this has no connection to what

David: you're talking about in this film.

David: It's like if you're going to display images of such gravity,

David: then then there really has to

David: be a kind of systemic connection here to

David: to the broader point that you're talking about otherwise it just

David: looks it's just an empty provocation and

David: you know extremely poor taste so it it

David: really does depend on on the

David: on the way in which it is uh the way

David: in which a particular thing is is deployed i guess

David: so so cross-cutting as they do earlier on

David: with images of american westerns and

David: images of of things like that and then having the

David: kind of native americans from villainous native

David: americans from the old westerns and then the um the

David: war and american war movies and stuff that's more

David: kind of logically and internally consistent because it's talking about the image

David: that america made of itself um so yeah i mean i think it's yeah it's it's it's

David: too scattershot and it it leaves it open to you know accusate credible accusations

David: of really being very glib.

Evan: Yeah i think the the thing with like using the holocaust it seems like he was

Evan: really pushing heavy down on you know things being like the devil and evil and

Evan: all these things like in a very black and white kind of way you know he had

Evan: you know the rodney dangerfield with the fire and devil and i think they called you know um They called,

Evan: I think at some point, numerous characters were referred to as devil,

Evan: like Mickey Knox was the devil and Wayne Gale was the devil.

Evan: And the, you know, what was the time of the Jones, like the warden McCluskey,

Evan: you know, he's the, you know, they're all these devils and it just kind of.

Evan: Again, it's one of those things where they just pile on too much and it becomes kind of flat.

Evan: But one part of the movie that I actually thought was also interesting and maybe

Evan: worth talking about, it's the ending scene before the moment where I think you

Evan: mentioned where they kind of just ride off into the sunset and just become travelers,

Evan: have kids, and everything is fine. and they just fold back into the fabric of society.

Evan: But the moment when they're leaving, there's a riot in the prison,

Evan: and they have what basically amounts to a war scene, which we know Oliver Stone

Evan: has successfully filmed numerous times in other movies.

Evan: So it's, you know, it's very, you know, you could say it's shot pretty well.

Evan: But the message that I took from those was the America has now become this uncivilized

Evan: place, which is what we as Americans or the media or the, you know,

Evan: leaders like to call other places.

Evan: Like, oh, well, we have to colonize Africa and do things there because they're uncivilized.

Evan: They need our rule to be better or Latin America or whatever it might be.

Evan: And it seemed like America had become the thing that we were claiming other

Evan: places were like all the time.

Evan: And it's, you know, maybe to show that, you know, America always was like this.

Evan: I think I mentioned before how, you know, the formation of the United States

Evan: being on the genocide of a people that were living here already.

Evan: So, I did find it effective. I don't know if that's what Oliver Stone was going

Evan: for, but I did think it was interesting.

Evan: And they also referred to – the prison was called Beckinsville.

Evan: I can't remember now. I had it written down.

Evan: For some reason, it sounded – the name of the prison almost sounded very,

Evan: I don't know, So, like a foreign sounding name to almost evoke that same kind of message imagery.

Evan: But I don't know. I don't know if you thought the same thing when you saw the

Evan: kind of the prison riot and all that.

David: I think that one of the things that's interesting about the prison stuff is

David: it's actually, I mean, it's remarkable for a number of reasons.

David: One is that it's a real prison and that he's using real prisoners in the riot.

David: I mean, again, literally, like I cannot imagine a studio allowing that to happen

David: now. I mean, genuinely, you know, I mean, it's extraordinary that it even happened then.

David: I do think he's actually, weirdly, the film is a bit ahead of its time in terms

David: of the stuff in the prison.

David: In that, I don't think we were seeing in mainstream movies.

David: Anywhere near mainstream American cinema at that time, any kind of serious reckoning

David: or depiction of the, you know, mass incarceration,

David: the squalor of and injustice of mass incarceration in the US.

David: Really, that's, you know, in terms of public perception, that's really come

David: more to the surface of public perception, really maybe more in the last 10 years.

David: But prison movies, you know, So they didn't perhaps, you know,

David: you could have like grim prison movies, but they didn't project that image.

David: I mean, there's obviously a certain verisimilitude to this because it's a real

David: prison and real prison and, you know, real prisoners are acting the roles.

David: There's a certain edge that this film has in regard to those scenes in the prison

David: that I've not really seen in any.

David: There's not really present in anything else around that time.

David: And for that reason, it is very interesting.

David: It's also interesting because I was thinking when I was watching it about how

David: there was this focus in the scenes of the Native American guy and a lot of kind

David: of implicit or explicit mentions of the genocide of Native Americans.

David: But there's virtually not a single mention of slavery in the entire film.

David: Um which i thought was interesting you

David: know um on the other hand i mean

David: i wondered if what was happening was the the incarceration sequences which and

David: of course the rate of uh of african americans incarcerated is vastly vastly

David: disproportionate um and you know many many people have written about disproportionate

David: incarceration of black americans and of course.

David: There are, you know, a lot of black prisoners in the prison who are kind of featured characters.

David: And I wondered if, you know, there was a, you know, there was a way that what

David: Stone, again, this is probably a generous reading, but what Stone was saying

David: about, you know, here's the land outside, used to belong to the Native Americans, then we took it.

David: And here inside, locked in, are all the people, you know, the descendants of

David: the people that we kidnapped and enslaved.

David: You know, so there's a sense that, you know, outside is this and inside is this.

David: But it is interesting that there is virtually no discussion of race in the film at all.

David: And actually, in a film about American violence, that is actually pretty interesting.

David: And then while it addresses it, I think, again, you know, it speaks to a particular

David: era, perhaps, more than anything else.

Evan: Yeah. And especially, I mean, you think about, I think you mentioned earlier,

Evan: it's like the Clinton administration at this time, you know,

Evan: you have the crime bill that was literally putting people behind bars,

Evan: you know, as this movie is being filmed or, you know, released and all of that.

Evan: And I didn't realize that it was, I knew that it was an actual correction.

Evan: I did not know that many of the people were actually inmates,

Evan: which is quite shocking, honestly.

Evan: I mean, Oliver Stone always seems to do these crazy things. Like with Platoon,

Evan: they didn't get military support. So they had to buy used machine guns,

Evan: military gear from the Russians and other places.

Evan: So it seems like the kind of thing that he tends to do. But one thing I did

Evan: see just as a funny note in the Wikipedia just now was that

Evan: There's that Coca-Cola polar bear ad, which because again, they used it as an

Evan: interview after the Super Bowl, which is totally the way this would actually

Evan: go if they were going to do something like this, you know, exclusive with OJ

Evan: Simpson after the football game.

Evan: And they apparently approved them to use the ads before they knew what the film

Evan: was about. And when they saw the film, they were just absolutely – they wanted

Evan: to pull it from the movie.

Evan: But they said, oh, well, you already agreed to it. So, you know, tough shit.

Evan: Which I think is just kind of

Evan: funny in a way to use Coca-Cola in a way that's, you know, angered them.

Evan: Because, you know, we know what

Evan: they've done in South America and in general. But, yeah, I don't know.

David: I think this is part of Stone's persona, right? I think this idea of the kind

David: of rebel filmmaker is very kind of integral.

David: And it doesn't always necessarily have to be that consistent in the way that

David: it's applied across the films.

David: I mean, the idea, I think, I remember in contemporaneous interviews with Stone,

David: where he made a big deal of the fact that, you know, he shot in a real prison,

David: he shot with real prisoners, that everything was just on the verge of flying

David: out of control at all times, almost as a kind of point of pride,

David: you know, that in order to get to the kind of chaos and violence,

David: you really had to kind of whip it up, you know.

David: And again, it's in that lineage of someone like Peckinpah.

David: In that sense, he's slightly out of time in that way.

David: And maybe that's one reason why Stone hasn't quite carried across to the contemporary

David: era in the same way that other directors have. I don't know.

David: I don't know whether it's the case that he's now seen as being a kind of iconic

David: director of the 80s and 90s, because his films are so tied to that era in so

David: many ways. I mean, Wall Street kind of is the 80s.

Evan: What would he have to say now, right? What would his message be now?

Evan: I feel like it's almost like he's, I don't want to say he's like old fashioned,

Evan: but it's almost like he doesn't have a, I don't know what his message would

Evan: be about kind of modern. His politics are a little interesting.

David: Yeah, well, here's something interesting. I actually saw Oliver Stone in person

David: doing a talk a few years ago at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

David: They screened Wall Street,

David: And, and it said, and afterwards will be a Q&A with Oliver Stone.

David: Um, and he spent most of that Q&A talking about what a wonderful and misunderstood

David: man Vladimir Putin was because he just shot those eight hours of interviews with Putin.

David: Um, which was, I think it went out on TV. I think they were at TV interviews.

David: Um, and he was surrounded by bodyguards as well.

David: This was something I'd never seen. So it was a kind of interesting little kind

David: of glimpse into, well, this was probably 2018, maybe something like that.

David: So this is a kind of interesting glimpse into kind of the most recent version,

David: as far as I'm aware of where he is.

David: I mean, this is pre-Ukraine, but it's still interesting that,

David: you know, this is, I don't know, you know, I don't know what his position was

David: on, for example, like WikiLeaks or Snowden.

David: You know, I imagine he's someone who's very invested in that kind of,

David: I think, that particular kind of anti-American free speech element. And I think.

Evan: It's… Especially given his JFK movie, right? Because he got a lot of shit for

Evan: talking about things related to whether true or not, just, you know,

Evan: kind of breaking that out.

Evan: And he also, there's another thing he's done recently. He was interviewed during

Evan: a documentary about the usage of military –.

Evan: Uh funding for for films i'm blanking i

Evan: think it's called i'm blanking on the name of the documentary it's

Evan: he may he might have produced it it's um and it's

Evan: uh it's a it's a pretty good documentary it's a little bit repetitive there's

Evan: also a book about this by the same person who made the about the documentary

Evan: um starts with an a i'm blanking on i have to look it up and i can add it in

Evan: the notes but he he definitely likes to talk about that too you know where the

Evan: influence of the government.

Evan: So it seems like he's anti, he's like anti-government, but he has kind of like

Evan: a weird streak about how he views it.

Evan: So I think he would view Snowden and those in a very positive light in the sense

Evan: of, you know, bringing to light the crimes of America.

Evan: Like he, you know, he did that in Platoon and JFK and, you know, Salvador, other films.

Evan: But yeah, I don't know. he um he's an interesting uh he's interesting i had

Evan: someone on actually when we did the true romance where they actually don't actually

Evan: don't like a lot of his films they kind of find that he's,

Evan: maybe overrated with some of them i think some of his films are quite good but

Evan: it's interesting he's kind of kind of a very good 80s a very good 90 or i guess

Evan: a very very good 80s uh early good 90s and then kind of yeah i mean he's swept away i.

David: Think he's a very very much of a particular time. I mean, I think that's why...

David: And that ends up, I think, being what's interesting about him.

David: I mean, I still think JFK is a really interesting movie and often a very successful movie.

David: I don't find myself going back to,

David: his stuff very much, frankly. Although I watched most of them when I was young,

David: because he was such a big name at that time.

David: But I wonder if he maybe is, as you say, a figure of the 80s and 90s really

David: more than... It's like seeing Coppola reappear now.

David: It feels really strange and a bit anachronistic because he feels like so much

David: a figure of the 70s and a little bit of the 80s you know it doesn't it especially.

Evan: The movie that he's done it's it's almost like it like it's almost seems not.

David: Not real uh.

Evan: I mean i wouldn't mind if oliver stone came back and made i'd be curious to

Evan: see if he would make something but something tells me he's not going to make

Evan: a any movies like this and i don't know if even a studio would touch him at

Evan: this point like you'd have to probably make something with a smaller uh a studio you know but uh.

David: Yeah and i think that's that that's one of the things that is

David: interesting i think that really remained with me after

David: seeing this which is that this i mean this really is

David: a kind of filmmaking that american studios aren't aren't making anymore i mean

David: they're just not and i think also very specifically this kind of film which

David: is a film with with movie stars um with a not insignificant kind of budget and

David: you know uh and locations and technical specs.

David: I mean, this film, even now, to make a film like this is just not accessible

David: to someone working on a smaller budget, I don't think. It needs the big money.

David: And so it is something that we're just not now, maybe not for the foreseeable

David: future that we're going to see, not just this kind of film, which feels very

David: singular, but this particular film.

David: That kind of free hand for filmmaking there's usually kind of a small number

David: of directors who have a reasonably free hand with a studio like nolan is an

David: example or paul thomas anderson or someone like that but but really or tarantino

David: actually to come back to tarantino um.

Evan: But yeah but.

David: But really something like this really does feel like a bit of an artifact now.

Evan: Yeah it really does feel like that there are a lot of i mean i've done a

Evan: lot of 90s movies on this podcast primarily that's

Evan: the you know arab movies that i grew up watching and

Evan: there really are a lot of them that feel that way and

Evan: actually i don't know if we've talked about this in the true romance episode

Evan: but even though that's a very of its time a

Evan: movie i feel like it actually holds up better than

Evan: this does as far as a you know modern you

Evan: know kind of looking at it's a much different movie so

Evan: it's hard to say but given that they're kind of like two babies

Evan: in the same womb almost like twins and then they kind of separated to

Evan: being very much different kinds of you know different directors one tony scott

Evan: and then oliver stone so it's interesting um how those kind of movies hold up

Evan: but um but david any uh any do you have any i guess final thoughts on on the

Evan: movie that we maybe we didn't uh that you didn't touch on i'm.

David: Trying to think i don't necessarily think so

David: i think that um no i think it's it's it's more that you know yeah i just you

David: know as in summation it's it's really a case that i think actually from a technical

David: perspective there are still elements of this film that are really interesting

David: and and often actually quite dazzling um,

David: in terms of just kind of in and of themselves but as

David: a whole um you know when i was when i was in my teens I was you know this felt

David: very new and interesting and and now it's interesting really because of because

David: of what it is because it because of the age it is and because it's become almost this kind of timepiece.

Evan: Yeah I kind of feel the same way whereas there was a moment where this was you

Evan: know I really I loved Oliver Stone movies when I was in college watch platoon

Evan: all the time and in those in this one maybe not as much but now I just think

Evan: they they just hit differently and I think we can appreciate it again as a,

Evan: as a pretty incredible piece of filmmaking, you know,

Evan: visually, but maybe it just doesn't, uh, just doesn't quite hit in,

Evan: uh, 2024 as it did in 1994.

Evan: But, um, but yeah, David, uh, again, thank you for coming on to talk about natural born killers.

David: Thanks for having me.

Evan: Of course. And you can, uh, of course, follow this show on, uh,

Evan: on all platforms at left of the projector.com and we will catch you next time.