"Natural Born Killers", violence and contemporary culture

Abstract

This article focuses on Oliver Stone's controversial film, "Natural Born Killers", in an attempt to determine the relationship between its use of multiform images and viewers' reception of the film. Specifically, the question is raised whether its concatenation of variegated images and image-types does not, perhaps, contribute to the systematic eradication of the distinction between the realm of cinematic images and everyday social reality, in this way preparing the way for a certain kind of social behaviour on the part of the viewers.Hierdie artikel fokus op Oliver Stone se omstrede film, "Natural Born Killers", in 'n poging om die verhouding tussen Stone se gebruik van uiteenlopende beeldmateriaal en gehore se resepsie van die film te bepaal. Meer spesifiek word die vraag gevra of die aaneenskakeling van hierdie pluriforme beelde en beeldtipes nie moontlik bydra tot die sistematiese uitwissing van die onderskeid tussen die sfeer van filmbeelde en alledaagse sosiale werklikheid nie, om sodoende die weg voor te berei vir 'n sekere soort sosiale gedrag by kykers.