Did Love Beat the Demon? - Forrest Gump vs. Natural Born Killers

Over the years there have been many films made about the American Dream. Some of them present the Dream as an optimistic pursuit of the self-made man as popularized by Horatio Alger, while other films have opted for a darker, more complex treatment of this particular vision. Two films came out in the summer of 1994 that share the same cynical view of the American Dream, but apply completely different approaches to their subject matter. Forrest Gump chronicles the adventures of a man with an I.Q. of 75 who stumbles his way through pivotal events in American history while becoming, through no fault of his own, a successful embodiment of the American Dream. In contrast, Natural Born Killers explores the media's fascination with serial killers and mass murderers, and how they are elevated to the status of folk heroes by media outlets interested only in ratings. An examination of both films in terms of technique, the intended audience, and the underlying message that they propagate illustrates the fact that Gump and Killers are not diametrically opposed visions of America, as the media and most critics have observed, but in fact serve as a critical analysis of the American Dream. Gump opts for a more controlled, classical approach, while Killers uses the tools of popular culture to not only mirror but critique society by using contemporary styles and methods. Despite the different approaches to their subject matter, these two films present similarly opposed visions of American culture; Gump shows a more pessimistic version of recent American history, while Killers offers an often nihilistic view of modern culture.

The cinematic techniques used in Forrest Gump and Natural Born Killers are crucial in understanding the intent of each film. Gump utilizes the Classical Hollywood style of filmmaking (1930-1950) so that the technique is invisible, while the story becomes of paramount importance. Director Robert Zemeckis uses the indiscernible editing and flashback technique reminiscent of this period of American cinema to create a film that harkens back to what many critics consider the golden age of film. Even the often-praised use of computer technology to seamlessly place Gump (Tom Hanks) with famous historical figures contributes to the masking of technique. This state-of-the-art technology performs its job so well that it seems like Gump is really interacting with prominent people from the past. Gump takes a more conservative approach by employing a classic style of filmmaking, but, in doing so, it subtly parodies the films of this period by aping their style. This approach is evident from the opening scenes of Gump’s childhood where Zemeckis uses the Classical Hollywood style to present a dichotomy of the “idyllic and [the] awful.” He juxtaposes postcard images of small-town American life, complete with white picket fences and vast fields of lush, green grass, with the dark flip side that involves Forrest’s mom (Sally Field) having sex with the school board superintendent so that her son may enroll in a regular class; Jenny fleeing from her abusive, drunken father; and young Forrest being attacked by vicious bullies who delight in bouncing rocks off the slow-thinking, handicapped child’s head. It seems, judging from the heaps of praise from critics and the massive box-office receipts of the film, that people have a selective memory, remembering only the good aspects of Gump while failing to understand the real intention of Zemeckis’ film.

While Forrest Gump stresses narrative over style, Natural Born Killers makes it blatantly obvious to the audience that they are watching a film. Director Oliver Stone applies a chaotic style of filmmaking that draws the viewer "into a vortex of the unreal," as one critic put it. By repeatedly mixing various film stocks, and by using front and rear-projection photography as well as animation, Stone is, in a sense, constructing the film "via television and as a homage to television ... like watching two weeks of television in two hours. There's the aggression of the imagery, the channel-surfing philosophy of moving on." Like Gump, Stone’s film also uses the initial opening scenes to introduce the style and technique of the film. Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Knox’s (Juliette Lewis) stopover at a roadside diner is interrupted by a trio of rude rednecks who are systematically butchered (along with everyone else in the diner save one) by the couple in a frenetic, chaotic collage of film techniques. As Stone noted in an interview, this disorienting approach makes Killers “not an easy movie to settle into, you can’t get a point of view, you have to surrender to the movie. If you resist the movie with conventional ethics, you’ll have a problem.” Stone’s film adopts the style of the culture it parodies, and attacks tabloid media and MTV culture by using the hyperkinetic editing tempo of music videos and the constantly changing point-of-views within the film to mirror our channel-surfing, fast food culture.

One of the most interesting aspects of both Forrest Gump and Natural Born Killers is the audience that each film targets. Gump, with its classic-rock soundtrack and Classical Hollywood style of filmmaking, appeals to the Baby-Boomer generation looking for a comforting story in this age of violent action films. Ironically, Gump remains detached from much of the Baby-Boomer culture throughout the film, which tends to either show the negative side of its history or parody it. Zemeckis offsets important historical events with comical scenes that reduce these pivotal affairs to light, insignificant moments. This is true when Forrest inadvertently stumbles on a famous peace rally in Washington, D.C. where legendary sixties icon, Abbie Hoffman asks him to speak to thousands of anti-war protestors. Just as Forrest begins to speak, the sound to his microphone conveniently cuts out and his words are lost forever. It is a comical moment that trivializes this momentous event and only enhances what critic Dave Kehr recognizes as the film’s real intention: a “dark, social satire, fixed in an epic vision of American history as a series of con games and power plays.” Stone's film, on the other hand, attracts the opposite end of the spectrum: the twentysomething generation, which is skeptical about contemporary culture.

To this end, Natural Born Killers contains a soundtrack filled with fashionable, alternative music ranging from Lard to L7 and that has been arranged by Trent Reznor, the creative force behind the popular music group, Nine Inch Nails. By employing a music-video style in Killers, complete with its own rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack, Stone is tapping directly into the youth market by introducing a film that young people can relate to instantly. Television has created short attention spans in the youth of today, and, as a result, they are unwilling to sit still for the long, meandering pace of Forrest Gump, and instead embrace the channel-surfing aesthetic of Killers. The media, to a certain degree, play a role in this generation gap. Many reviews have misread both films – praising Gump for its uplifting message of hope and celebration of the American dream, while criticizing Killers for its cynical, fatalistic outlook. This outlook may speak more to jaded youth than an older generation who still believe that there is a glimmer of hope. It is this glimmer that upon first inspection seems to shine brightly in Gump, but after closer scrutiny is revealed to be a hollow facade.

The underlying message that each film communicates is also indicative of the audience that watches it. Forrest Gump presents the triumphs and tragedies of the Baby-Boomer generation and wraps it up in "an entertaining story that satisfies [their] nostalgic urges ... and reaffirms the uniqueness and importance of their generation." Gump bombards the viewer with cheery pearls of wisdom like, "life is like a box of chocolates," but this nostalgic mood ends when the film moves into the late 1970’s and early 1980’s – a time of the Boomers’ decline. However, this is only a surface reading of the film. By presenting a figure like Forrest Gump who “survives because he isn’t very smart,” and remains “magnificently blank,” Zemeckis’ film suggests that only “by surrendering your will and identity, by refusing to see the horror around you, can you make it in America.” Those characters in the film that try to alter their fate or protest are punished for their trouble: Jenny (Robin Wright) wants to become a famous singer while Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) aspires to be a successful businessman. Both are killed off as a result and Forrest’s best friend, Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) has both his legs amputated. All three tried to make a difference and control their own fates, unlike Forrest who is content to run away from his predicaments. He survives because he refuses to stand up to his problems.

Conversely, Natural Born Killers challenges authority with its satirical attacks on tabloid media and its "trust no one" outlook on life in the United States. Unlike Forrest Gump, in which its protagonist maintains a safe, ironical distance from it all, Killers is "unafraid to implicate itself in the sadism of spectacle." Stone’s film is unafraid to present an amoral world where the protagonists are not instantly likable or endearing. It embraces and confronts the ugly side of the American dream head on. Moreover, the viewer is not safe from this view. By having us look at the action through the eyes of the murderous protagonists themselves, as is evident in the opening diner massacre, Killers implicates us as much as it does them in the spectacle of murder.

As one critic has observed, Natural Born Killers “is a film about film. It is Oliver Stone dueling with the recent history of the movie image. It is an attempt to look at how an ‘image culture’ has taken over from immediate experience.” Stone’s film is like one big collage of images, either sampled directly from or influenced by previous films. This includes a soundtrack that is not a coherent work by one composer, but rather fragments upon fragments of songs from a multitude of sources. Stone has taken to notion of film and distorted it so much that he has created something truly unique – a postmodern pastiche film that attacks the conventions of Hollywood.

Forrest Gump, in its own subtle way does much the same thing. Zemeckis' epic film is a potpourri of many existing genres, including the war film, the melodrama, and the comedy. However, Zemeckis plays with the conventions of each of these genres within his film so that our expectations and knowledge of them is challenged. Gump's tour in Vietnam invokes both The Flying Leathernecks (1951) and Platoon (1986). His tour is at once triumphant (he saves Lt. Dan) and tragic (Bubba dies). Zemeckis is twisting the genre's conventions by giving it a unique spin much as Stone's Natural Born Killers acts as an epitaph on the action film by exploding it to exaggerated and extreme proportions. This film goes one step further by showing how distorted the culture that the Baby-Boomers created has become. It has changed so radically, as reflected in the "deranged visual overload" of the mise-en-scene, that the Boomer generation barely recognizes it – hence their rejection of Stone's film and their embrace of Gump, which, on the surface, seems to conform with their nostalgic memories. However, Gump’s audience is perhaps missing the true intention of the film: to challenge the self-importance, which this generation assumes all too often. Killers achieves the same goal and also warns the younger generation not to repeat the same mistakes of the past.

From Dusk Till Dawn

Bob and Harvey Weinstein must have been salivating at the prospect of teaming up Quentin Tarantino, red hot from Pulp Fiction (1994), and George Clooney, red hot from the television show ER, on a film. What they got wasn’t exactly a mainstream crowd-pleaser but rather a down ‘n’ dirty grindhouse movie called From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) that was several years before Tarantino and his filmmaking brother-in-arms Robert Rodriguez would make it official with the double bill of Planet Terror and Death Proof in 2007. The screenplay for Dusk Till Dawn had been kicking around for years, before Tarantino exploded on the scene with Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Rodriguez with El Mariachi (1993). The two filmmakers used their new found clout to push this pet project through the system: a drive-in movie on a studio-sized budget and with recognizable stars like Clooney, Harvey Keitel, and Juliette Lewis.

From Dusk Till Dawn starts off in familiar Tarantino territory with the Gecko brothers: Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino), stone cold killers on the run from the law. It seems that Richie broke Seth out of prison and to celebrate the two have gone on a crime spree that has resulted in a bank heist and many dead lawmen. They are introduced in an exciting prologue that could be a mini-movie unto itself. A Texas Ranger (the always watchable Michael Parks) enters a liquor store in a tense yet chatty scene where he talks it up with the greasy-haired register jockey (John Hawkes). In Tarantino’s world, having the gift of the gab is essential to one’s survival and when a character runs out of things to say they tend to die. Pretty soon the Gecko brothers are walking out of an exploding store thanks to a well-aimed flaming roll of toilet paper.

They take refuge at a roadside motel with a female bank teller they took hostage from the bank robbery that is never shown (just like the heist we never see in Reservoir Dogs). Ritchie and Seth plan to make a break for Mexico and find safe haven in a place called El Rey (a reference to a similar place of salvation in Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway). All they have to do is cross the border and meet their contact Carlos (Cheech Marin) at a biker bar called the Titty Twister. To escape the ever-increasing manhunt, the Geckos decide to hijack a Winnebago with a preached named Jacob (Harvey Keitel), his daughter (Juliette Lewis), and his adopted son (Ernest Liu).

The Titty Twister turns out to be a really raunchy, biker bar/strip club where if you even look at someone funny you run the risk of dismemberment. But this is the least of their problems. It soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary low life scumpit, but an ancient home to a rather large army of vampires. It is at this point that From Dusk Till Dawn mutates into a full-on, balls-to-the-wall horror film. The Gecko brothers and Jacob and his family are forced to defend themselves against hordes of the undead in a siege situation straight out of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) with a healthy dose of George Romero’s zombie films.

Robert Kurtzman of KNB Effects Group, a special effects company, had a treatment called From Dusk Till Dawn and was looking for someone to turn it into a screenplay. Writer Scott Spiegel (of The Evil Dead fame) had met and befriended a then-unknown Quentin Tarantino through a mutual friend. He recommended Tarantino to Kurtzman based on the strength of his Natural Born Killers screenplay. Kurtzman read and liked it and agreed to pay Tarantino $1,500 to write a draft of Dusk Till Dawn. While filming Desperado (1995) in Acuna, Mexico, Tarantino asked Rodriguez if he would consider directing his Dusk Till Dawn script that he had shown him briefly in 1992. The director agreed to helm the project with the only stipulation being that Tarantino would rewrite the script. He agreed and the project was a go, but only after the two filmmakers finished shooting their respective vignettes for the anthology, Four Rooms (1995), which featured two other up-and-coming indie filmmakers, Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging) and Alexandre Rockwell (In the Soup). Without giving a chance for the buzz surrounding Four Rooms to die down, Rodriguez and Tarantino moved on to Dusk Till Dawn.

From the start, the two men established the agenda that their film would adhere to. As Tarantino stated in an interview, "The thing that's kind of cool is we're basically making this head-banging horror film buff drive-in movie with this really big-budget – and we're not pulling back. We're going for it." It is this kind of take-no-prisoners attitude that propels the hyperactive (and hyperviolent) narrative of From Dusk Till Dawn. The film marked Rodriguez's biggest budget yet at $18 million, but still small potatoes compared to a Sylvester Stallone film where $20 million of the budget goes towards the actor's salary. Like he did with El Mariachi and Desperado, Rodriguez uses all of his resources to make the film look better than it costs and gives the material his own unique spin despite the presence of Tarantino's obsessions which often threaten to overwhelm the film.

Rodriguez's influence lay in the origins of the vampires which were rather vague in nature in the script. The director decided to use his working knowledge of Mexican history and base the creatures' genesis on ancient Aztec and Mayan culture. "There were actual vampire Goddess statues and things during Aztec times ... So the idea is that this den of vampires in an old Aztec temple has, over the years, been turned into a sleazy bar in Mexico to continue to attract victims." It is this playful attitude towards his own heritage and the film's story, coupled with Tarantino’s strong script, which keeps From Dusk Till Dawn from slipping into self-parody.

This was the first film that demonstrated George Clooney’s ability to make the jump from the small screen to the big one. With the character of Seth Gecko, he isn’t afraid to portray an amoral criminal and yet Clooney’s natural charisma makes you like him. The actor is able to turn on the charm and also show a more intense side when someone crosses him, like the opening shoot-out in the liquor store. Unfortunately, this is one of the films that Tarantino acts in and demonstrates why it is better he stay behind the camera. He looks like someone trying to play a twisted criminal instead of becoming the character like everyone else. Tarantino even sports a ridiculous looking Burt Reynolds-circa-Deliverance (1972) haircut. His character’s death doesn’t come soon enough. It’s a credit to Rodriguez’s skill as a filmmaker and the strength of the material that the film isn’t ruined by Tarantino’s lousy acting.

It doesn’t hurt that there are plenty of distractions, like a showstopping scene where a scantily-clad Salma Hayek dances seductively with a rather large snake. Of course, she turns out to be the queen vampire at the Titty Twister. There are all kinds of inside jokes and references for genre fans, like a bit where make-up legends Greg Nicotero (who also worked on the film) and Tom Savini play rival bikers who have a disagreement. That is, until Savini shows off his crotch gun (first seen in Rodriguez’s Desperado). Another genre veteran Fred “The Hammer” Williamson also has a memorable turn as a biker who gets to deliver a monologue about the Vietnam War a la Bill Duke in Predator (1987).

Harvey Keitel gives From Dusk Till Dawn some much-needed gravitas as a preacher who has lost his way after his wife’s death and must find God again if his family and the others are to survive the vampire attacks until dawn. Keitel does a nice job of showing Jacob’s transformation from a faithless preacher to, as Seth puts it, a “mean motherfuckin’ servant of God.” In addition, several Rodriguez regulars show-up in supporting roles, like Danny Trejo as the Titty Twister bartender and Cheech Marin in an impressive three different roles.

Not surprisingly, this film divided critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and described it as “a skillful meat-and-potatoes action extravaganza with some added neat touches.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “The latter part of From Dusk Till Dawn is so relentless that it's as if a spigot has been turned on and then broken. Though some of the tricks are entertainingly staged, the film loses its clever edge when its action heats up so gruesomely and exploitatively that there's no time for talk.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Rodriguez and Tarantino have taken the let-'em-eat-trash cynicism of modern corporate moviemaking and repackaged it as junk-conscious ‘attitude.' In From Dusk Till Dawn, they put on such a show of cooking up popcorn that they make pandering to the audience seem hip.” However, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “The movie, which treats you with contempt for even watching it, is a monument to its own lack of imagination. It's a triumph of vile over content; mindless nihilism posing as hipness.” The San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle called the film, “an ugly, unpleasant criminals-on-the-lam film that midway turns into a boring and completely repellent vampire ‘comedy.’ If it's not one of the worst films of 1996 it will have been one miserable year.” Cinefantastique magazine’s Steve Biodrowski wrote, “Whereas one might reasonably have expected that the combo of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez would yield a critical mass of nuclear proportions, instead of an atomic fireball’s worth of entertainment, we get a long fuse, quite a bit of fizzle, and a rather minor blast.”

At its heart, From Dusk Till Dawn carries on in the proud tradition of other low-budget, gonzo horror films like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy and Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985), while paying homage to classic horror films like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1979). Rodriguez admires these "lower budget, edgier kind of horror films, the ones where you didn't know what the filmmaker would do next. Because they didn't have any money, they would just try and grab you any way they could." Rodriguez and Tarantino now had the money to play with, but still maintained the low-budget aesthetic that they admired so much.

If the first half of From Dusk Till Dawn feels like a Tarantino film reminiscent of True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (1994), which feature amoral outlaws on the run from the law, then the second half is all Rodriguez as he lets his John Carpenter-esque freak flag fly for a blood-drenched finale with all sorts of creative deaths involving balloons filled with holy water, a crossbow and a disco ball. As with most of his films, Dusk Till Dawn is a fun ride with everything you could want from something like this: gun-totting criminals, tough bikers, cool action sequences, memorable dialogue, lots of inventive gore, and half-naked vampire strippers. What more could you ask for?