When Movies Attack
By The Vern of The Vern’s Video Vortex
SPOILERS****** Be warned I will be discussing both movies and may give away certain plot elements.
If you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments, and I will write an article based on that first choice in two weeks.
Hello Readers,
It’s the end of another month and that must mean it’s time for another “When Movies Attack” article to post. If you are new to the whole attacking movies idea. I will briefly explain. Each years tons upon thousands of movies are released upon the public. Many of the same stories, concepts, and ideas are recycled into other movies and I’m not just talking about remakes either. The movies that are compared in these articles are fully original yet they share similar traits with their competitors.
Bonnie and Clyde Vs. Natural Born Killers
The Challengers
Bonnie and Clyde [1967]
Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) were two young people who met during the depression era in the 30′s and became would famous bank robbers. Throughout their escapades they have stolen a lot of money and have killed many people too. Yet they have eluded capture over and over again. When Clyde’s brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons) join the gang. Tensions between Bonnie and Clyde escalate as the four try to avoid capture. The two have gone on to become legendary folk-lore.
Natural Born Killers [1994]
Right from the start, Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis) were a match made in hell. Both have come from abusive homes, and life after that wasn’t much better either. Feeling distraught, the two love birds go on a killing rampage, and murder anyone that pisses them off. They soon become instant celebrities by the media and use that connection to help them escape from prison.
Similarities
- Both movies center around a romantic couple who are criminals
- Mickey & Mallory and Bonnie & Clyde both use the media to help them escape.
- Each movie was considered to be very controversial when they were first released.
- Both movies use a heavy amount of violence.
Differences
- Bonnie and Clyde’s main focus was on the two characters and on their criminal behavior. While Natural Born Killers main themes are with the media and why these certain types of people are praised in our culture.
- Bonnie and Clyde won two Academy Awards for best cinematography (Burnett Guffey) and best supporting actress (Blanche Barrow). Natural Born Killers gave Oliver Stone a Golden Globe nomination, but he lost to Robert Zemeckis for best director
- Mickey and Mallory eventually escape have end up having a family. Bonnie and Clyde are not that lucky.
- Natural Born Killers uses a wide range of film formats from super 8 to animation to tell their story. Bonnie and Clyde on the other hand pretty much sticks to just one.
- Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were real people whose lives were turned into a fictional movie. Mickey and Mallory Knox were fictions characters whose lives resembled the reality we were living.
Closing thoughts.
Both movies are classics for completely different reasons. The use of violence in Bonnie and Clyde was very shocking for its time and it was the first movie I can think of that showed criminals in a somewhat positive light. A lot of people lost their homes to the banks during the great depression. Going after them made them into sort of anti-heroes. Oliver Stone took a very basic crime story from Quentin Tarantino and turned Natural Born Killers into a satire on the media and our obsessions with violence and the people who commit them. Mickey and Mallory may be dangerous people, but the people who after them are just as dangerous as they are. These are movies that really should be seen, and then talked about. Both have a lot to say of where we were, where we are and where we are going.