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Subject:

Re: Violence as . . .

From:

keyman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Email discussion salon for the journal and portal Film-Philosophy." <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:34:11 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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text/plain (408 lines)

in regard to this discussion and the ref.s to NBK. the following essay,
which I have some sympathy for, was part of the Z-cluster newsletrter a few
years ago (the z-cluster is a group of chaos magicians).  not quite
audience, not quite reviewers, not quite academic, it has its own peculiar
take.  any comments on the essay to the author at the bottom not to me
please...

matt lee


_Natural Born Killers, The Demonology of Oliver Stone_

Rumor has it that Quentin Tarentino, author of the original screenplay of
the cinematographic tour de force "Natural Born Killers",and the director,
Oliver  Stone, quarrelled over changes Stone made in the script.  At a
guess,
and knowing Tarentino's wildly popular "Pulp Fiction", I would imagine that
Tarentino,  fundamentally interested in the possibility of redemption from
a life of violence through an act of unnatural intervention, disagreed
with Stone's interest in the relationship between violence and the media.
Readers of this article may remember that Jules, played by Samuel L.Jackson,
the Afro-American assassin in "Pulp Fiction", surviving gunfire that should
have killed him and  his partner, regarded the event as an act of divine
intervention and gave up killing.  His partner, Vince, played by John
Travolta,
ignored the message, and was soon shot to death.  Fans of Stone will admit
to his continual interest in the effects of popular culture on the human
psyche.
However, Stone is also interested in the problem of good and evil, an
interest
that is neither theological (as is the case with Scorsese in "The Last
Temptation of Christ") nor  philosophical (for example Coppolla in
"Apocalypse
Now"), but socio-psychological. His films focus on the origin of evil and
whether  it is a conditioned response or a natural inclination.  Stone seems
to believe that it may be both, but leans towards the nurture side of the
argument.  In addition, his films deal with deterministic issues, the extent
to which freedom is possible in a person's life, the extent to which the
path
of the life of an individual is predestined.

The film "Natural Born Killers" was generally misinterpreted as a satire on
public  fascination with mass murderers or an attack on the alleged
encouragement of acts of violence by the entertainment industry. Neither
view
bears close analysis, despite disinformative press conferences by Stone.  As
Jon Katz noted, Stone encouraged the perception of "Natural Born Killers" as
anattack on the media:

>"My point was to show the American landscape in the l990s as reflected in
the
>media," Stone told his admiring America Online audience. He then added that
he
>hoped Natural Born Killers would "make my audience think about the
>consequences of this social and cultural violence."

Katz evidently swallowed this tidbit of disinformation whole, forgetting
that
he was discussing a movie director whose manipulation of the organs of the
entertainment industry has allowed him to make very popular films about
issues
that American society as a whole would usually rather forget.  Thus Stone
directed public attention to the continuing psychic wound of the Vietnam War
in "Platoon", the vicious treatment of Vietnam Vets in "Born on the Fourth
of
July", the habitual governmental rewriting of history in JFK, the treatment
of
Vietnamese immigrants in "Heaven and Earth" and the toxic effect  of
hierarchy
in "Nixon".  None of these films dealt with populartopics, but  Stone not
only
managed to get them made, he also made them commercial successes, albeit in
many
cases, from video sales rather than theatrical release. This is strong
sorcery
indeed!

My partner and I saw the film in Key West during a rare holiday and were
quite
surprised by the clear analysis of demonology outlined throughout the movie.
For readers who have not seen the film, or for those of you whose memories
of
it have faded, I encourage you to rent or buy the video, and watch it with
your finger poised on the pause button.  The film is filled with very rapid,
perhaps only 5 to 15 frames, shots of the faces of demons.  References to
demons recur throughout,and the movie can be analyzed as an essay on
demonology.
However, the demonology presented is not the familiar grimoire of
traditional
ceremonial magick, but the black magick of the chaos practitioner. That is
to
say Stone is interested in modern, or even postmodern approaches to the
existence of demons.  He tends to view them as psychological artefacts, but
entities of such power that they may as well be real life horned and bloody
creatures on an equal footing with human beings.  To what extent the
references
to chaos magick, a form of postmodern ceremonial magick that uses popular
culture as well as traditional methods to perform magickal acts, was
deliberate
is a matter for conjecture.  I have always been of the school of criticism
that
allows a work of art to stand separate from its creator, just as a child may
stand apart from its parent.  It is also a matter of conjecture whether the
frequent images of coyotes refer to Native American shamanism or is an
allusion
to the chaote/coyote pun of the Temple of Psychic Youth.  However, the
general
theme of the film is concerned with the origin, development, and exorcism
or assimilation of personal demons.

The plot of the movie concerns a three week killing spree by Mickey and
Mallory
Knotts, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, the events leading up
to
this spree, their capture, and, after the passage of a year, their
successful
escape from prison.  Stone uses a variety of techniques to present this nar-
rative, including cartoons, found images, sophisticated matting, alternating
black and white and color, historical footage and as noted above, images
that
are shown on the  screen so rapidly they can almost be characterized as
subliminal.  Stone satirises a number of television formats during the film,
including situation comedies, news programs, and "true crime" dramatizations
of the "America's Most Wanted" genre. Film critics seemed to have been
particularly threatened by Stone's use of satire. Jon Katz wrote:

>Oliver Stone has defected. He has joined the editorial boards, J-school
>deans, religious fanatics, righteous boomers, Janet Renos, and other
>blockheads who hold popular culture responsible for the decline of America.

Read popular film critics for popular culture and Katz' plaint becomes
slightly more comprehensible, although just as wrong. One woders how Katz
reconciles Stone's happy ending with this alleged conservative view.

Tom Keogh, relentlessly following the pack of other film critics who
persisted
in superficial analysis of the film, stated:

>And that's the problem with using the jabber of trash culture against
itself:
>It's still jabber.

While Stone certainly maintained a critique of the relationship between
popular culture and violence throughout the film, the heart of the movie
is concerned with more archetypal issues.

Soon after the opening scene, a prelude that features many of the dominant
motifs of the film (apparently random coloration, stop action photography,
sudden turns into schmalz, horror, and complex visual and social jokes),
Stone uses the form of a sitcom to describe Mallory's childhood and her
first meeting with Mickey.  In an extremely brave parody of himself, Rodney
Dangerfield,in the role of Mallory's sexually abusive father, sets the scene
for a dramatic denunciation of the modern late Neolithic nuclear family.
Hakim Bey has ascribed many of the problems of contemporary society to the
decision of paleolithic society to forsake hunter-gathering in favor of
neolithic agriculture, a choice that necessitated the development of urban
civilization and ultimately the nuclear family. It is to be noted that
Mickey
and Mallory, during their killing spree, return to a paleolithic, hunter
gatherer lifestyle.  Mickey, in his pivotal speech during his interview in
prison by Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.), defines himself as a hunter, a
kind of a feral rabbit, and as a "natural born killer". The elements that
awaken the demon in Mallory are rapidly outlined as sexual abuse, the
refusal
of a parent to protect a child from an abuser, the need to develop violence
as a means of self defense, and a sense of powerlessness.  These are, of
course,
circumstances that are repeated again and again in the histories of the
child-
hoods of serial killers.

Stone reinforces this point with flashbacks to Mickey's childhood also.Both
of
Mickey's parents are shown to be abusive, physically and mentally.  In
addition Mickey witnesses the violent suicide of his father, and has
recurrent
visions of his father's body, its head blown off, rising from an armchair in
front of a television. Stone also points out that neither Mickey nor Mallory
associate their traumatic childhoods with their adult violence.  Both refuse
to deal with childhood issuesthrough conventional therapy (Mallory strangles
the psychiatrist who asks her about her father).  Mickey explicitly denies
that his environment made him into a killer, terming himself a "natural born
killer."   But this approach leads him to a position that cites evil as
inborn.  "We all  knew we're just a piece of shit from the time we could
breathe," he tells Wayne  Gale, and Mallory is filmed in her high security
cell singing "Born bad,  naturally born bad".  Stone's flashbacks to their
respective childhoods, however, suggests that he ascribes their
violence as much to nurture as to nature.

Mickey states that he understands the nature of his violence.  He tells
Wayne
Gale "Everyone got the demon within you.  The demon lives in here.  It feeds
on your hate, your cuts, kills, rapes.  It uses your weakness, your fears.
Only the vicious survive."  However, by this time Mickey has had a year in
prison to consider the effect of the exorcism that the rattlesnake shaman
per-
forms before Mickey accidentally kills him.  Prior to this he exclaimed to
Mallory "I'm no demon."  His self understanding has been bought at a price.

Mickey and Mallory begin their killing spree by first murdering Mallory's
mother and father.  Mickey has been jailed for grand theft auto and is freed
from a prison ranch by an act of divine or demonic intervention that creates
a tornado and allows him to flee.  Spiral symbolism recurs throughout the
film in snakes and tornados.  Spirals, in symbology,  refer not only to the
cyclical nature of the natural universe, but also to discursive, dualistic,
or
discriminatory thinking.  Spirals are used to trap demons in English folk
magick, and there is a sense in most mystical traditions that the fall from
paradise is a result of dualistic thinking.  Thus Adam and Eve eat of the
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (dualism), encouraged by the
demon
snake (dualistic thought).  The murder of Mallory's parents can be seen as
justified and cathartic, but their deaths do nothing but strengthen the
demons within Mickey and Mallory.  Standing on a high bridge, Mickey and
Mallory bind themselves in marriage with their own blood, and as their blood
falls, it turns into writhing cartoon snakes.  In most Eastern metaphysics,
and to an extent in western, paired snakes are a frequent metaphor for the
lifeforce (the caduceus, the ida and pingali of Yoga).  The Knotts' wedding
rings are paired snakes, and Mickey, at one point later chides Mallory for
removing her ring, directly ascribing magickal powers to their rings and
stating
that their whole venture is worthless if she loses hers.  The suggestion is
that the paired snakes are a symbol for psychic integration, in this case,
Mickey hopes, through violence. Paired snakes, or a snake eating its own
tail
are archetypal symbols for integration, or the defeat of dualistic thinking.
Thus the killing spree, in the terms of the metaphysics indicated in the
imagery
of the film, is an attempt by the Knotts to integrate their demons, to
assimi-
late them, to unify their personalities, fractured by the abuse of their
childhood.

But violence is no solution, even violence that takes the form of magickal
sacrifice, for Mickey's bloodletting can certainly be seen in these terms,
and as the spree continues the relationship between Mickey and Mallory
begins to
deteriorate, and the demons within them become so powerful that they begin
to
destroy their unifying love for one another.  Lost in the badlands, the pair
discover the hut of a Native American shaman and his grandson.  The shaman
is
played by Russell Banks, a leader of AIM, and a figure of great power in his
community.  Stone's choice of Banks to play the role suggests he considers
a shamanist or magickal approach to violence in society both politically and
psychologically appropriate.

The shaman tells his grandson that the demons whom he had seen in a vision
years before havecome to their home.  Lest  there be any doubt, Stone
projects
the word "demon" onto Mickey and Mallory.

The grandfather states Mallory has the "sad sickness", that she is "lost in
a world of ghosts." This is an apt metaphor for the psychic damage that is
caused by child abuse.  It may also be a reference to one of the six worlds
on the Wheel of Samsara in Buddhist symbolism, a world of craving that
cannot
be satisfied.  In Mallory's case the craving is a desire to be loved.
The boy asks his grandfather whether he can help them, and in reply the
medicine man recounts a story of an old woman who nursed a poisonous snake
back to health, only to be bitten by it.  When the old woman asks the snake
why he did it, he replies she knew he was a snake and he acted only out of
his nature.  Knowing this, the shaman chooses to help the Knotts, and,
lulling them into a trance, performs an act of sorcery that changes Mickey
and Mallory at a fundamental level, beginning the process of their healing.
Unfortunately, the price for their redemption is not only their capture but
his death.  Mickey, waking from a nightmare of his childhood, shoots the
shaman, an act that he later tells Wayne Gale is the only murder for which
he feels remorse.  He exclaims to Mallory that he shot the shaman by
accident,
but Mallory screams "There ain't no accidents", and then, in a
critically important statement says "You are death.  You killed life."  The
precarious balance that allowed the Knotts to remain free has ended.  The
two
run from the hut, are bitten by rattlers, and after a shoot out in a drug
store,
are captured by, in the words of Tom Keogh,"another celebrity wannabe -- an
obsessed, sexually-deviant detective named Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore)."

Scagnetti is far more than this.  As is clarified in a series of flashbacks
and actual footage of the Texas Clock Tower massacre, Scagnetti has never
been
able to resolve his mother's death at the hands of the Texas sniper.  His
attempt to deal with the fracture in his personality caused by this
childhood
violenceleads him to become a detective specializing in tracking down serial
killers,but this path does not work and Scagnetti becomes that which he
hunts,
a killerhimself, strangling, in one scene, a prostitute, and in another
attempting to strangle Mallory.  Scagnetti's abject failure at either
resolving
his own violence or possessing Mallory underscores the main theme, that
overcoming the demons created by child abuse cannot be achieved through
more violence. In fact Scagnetti and the Knotts are variations on a theme.

Stone suggests appears to suggest that "love is the answer".  This retro and
superficial argument might seem plausible from a director as obsessed with
the sixties and seventies as Stone, and Mickey does tell Wayne Gale that
"the only thing that kills a demon is love."  However, this statement is in
the context of a speech that triggers a riot that eventually leads to Mickey
and Mallory's escape, and so it may be viewed with some suspicion.  More
pertinent is Mickey's response as to whether he feels any remorse for the
half
a hundred people he has killed.  "Was it worth it?", Wayne asks, in a piece
of magnificent insincerity for which Robert Downey Jr. should have at least
been nominated for an Oscar.  Mickey's reply is the pivotal statement of the
movie.  He responds with a question of his own:"Was an instant of my
purity,"
Mickey asks, "Worth a lifetime of your lies, Wayne?"

Purity of intention, purity of action, this concept is at the base of
bushido,
a Japanese reformulation of Buddhist metaphysics that allowed the
development
of the samurai class.  Sakyamuni Buddha strictly forbids killing, but the
samurai considered themselves to be good Buddhists, even though their feudal
obligation might require the taking of human life.  To understand this is
to understand the basis of buddha mind, of yoga, or of the process by which
a magickal intention is actualized.  Bushido maintains that pure action,
freed of consequence (and thus of karma) is possible to one who sees
clearly,
whose mind has been freed from dualistic thinking, who is no longer in a
battle between good and evil, but understands the interdependence of all
phenomena.  The magickal act that the Native American shaman accomplished
was
to free Mickey and Mallory from this type of dualistic thinking.  Mickey
voices
this when he talks about his "instant of purity".

As the riot breaks out in the prison, Mickey is allowed another "instant of
purity".  He breaks free from his captors, killing all but two of the guards
in the interview room, takes Gale, his cameraman, and two guards hostage,
and goes to find Mallory.  He discovers her about to be murdered by
Scagnetti,
who is shortly killed, and the strange entourage of Mallory, Mickey, Wayne
Gayle, and the others run through the rioting prison, apparently without
a plan of escape.

It is at this point that Stone introduces a strange character.  A prisoner
named Owen, in clean and pressed clothes appears out of the carnage and
leads
them first to  a tiled room that looks like a cross between a bathroom and
an
abattoir, andthen out of the prison.  When Mickey asks him what he wants for
helping them, he says he only wants to go with them.  Yet, after they leave
the prison Owen is neither mentioned nor seen again.  Moreover, Owen is not
mentioned in the credits at the end of the movie.  Owen is, in fact, "deus
ex
machina".  He is Mickey's guardian angel, which until now Mickey has not
known.
After their escape he is reassimilated, or returns to the realms whence he
came.
In any event, his purpose is clear.  He is there to show that the psychic
reintegration of Mickey and Mallory has been achieved, that the magick of
the
shaman continues, and that redemption requires only purity, the clear
mindedness
of the arhat, the one pointedness of the magus.

Certainly, Mickey and Mallory do kill Wayne Gale, but as Mickey says, it's
not personal.  He likes Wayne.  He kills him because the lies that Wayne
propagates are of a piece with the lies that feed the demons of popular
culture, the lies that discourage self-analysis, that feed ignorance, that
prevent self-knowledge, that sap the realization that the current of magick
in the world is continuous and always accessible.  Demons continue to infest
the world, but the last scene shows Mickey and Mallory years later, with
two children and Mallory pregnant with a third, travelling the country in a
mobile home. Stone has driven home his point.  It is possible to kill the
demons created by childhood abuse, but only through an act of divine or
unnatural intervention willed by a sorcerer and accepted by the possessed.
This act can occur when the magickal intention is pure, and undivided.
As Mickey says "A moment of realization is worth a lifetime of prayers."



marik
comments to [log in to unmask]

     000000000000000)))))(((((000000000000000

            INDIFFERENCE PRODUCTIONS
         we are the dreamers of dreams

   KEYMAN     http://www.indifference.demon.co.uk

 MATT LEE   http://www.ukscreen.com/company/mattlee

  MORRIGAN   http://www.indifference.force9.co.uk

      ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

-----Original Message-----
From: Email discussion salon for the journal and portal Film-Philosophy.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Martin Barker
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 12:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Violence as . . .


Anne

If you are working on reviews as a resource for investigating the nature
and criteria for responses to films, then you should definitely look at
janet Staiger's book Interpreting Films - but you probably already knew
that ...

Martin

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