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Articles

Violent Films: Natural Born Killers?

Matthew Kieran wants the censors to make his day.

Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, a film about two serial killers, finally went on general release last March. The British Board of Film Classification delayed awarding its 18 certificate because of reported links to six murders in the States and, in Paris, to a couple who killed four people. The film itself concerns a couple, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, who career through America, littering the country with innumerable corpses. The way the story is told, utilising montage sequences and the best conventions from MTV pop culture, is itself supposed to constitute a satire upon the way the media glorifies the most vicious of crimes and nihilistic of criminals. Ultimately the BBFC issued a release certificate, without demanding cuts, because it presumed that the mere depiction of violence does not turn people into killers.

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