Editing Natural Born Killers (section)

==== Visual style ====
''Natural Born Killers'' was filmed and edited in a frenzied and [[Psychedelic art|psychedelic]] style and features both color and black and white cinematography, as well as animation (directed by Mike Smith),<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://vimeo.com/89966738 |title="Natural Born Killers" (Animated Scenes Excerpt) posted by ACME Filmworks on Vimeo |date=March 24, 2014 |access-date=January 1, 2021 |archive-date=June 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210629194714/https://vimeo.com/89966738 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://vimeo.com/157490497 |title=Natural Born Killers Animation by FFAKE ANIMATION on Vimeo |date=March 2, 2016 |access-date=January 1, 2021 |archive-date=June 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210629194715/https://vimeo.com/157490497 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.acmefilmworks.com/directors/mike-smith/ |title=Mike Smith{{!}}Acme Filmworks |access-date=January 1, 2021 |archive-date=July 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718084844/http://www.acmefilmworks.com/directors/mike-smith/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and other unusual color schemes and visual compositions.<ref name=qa /> Editing of the film lasted  approximately 11 months, with the final film containing almost 3,000 cuts (most films have 600–700).<ref name="Director" /> The film also employs a wide range of camera angles, featuring [[Dutch angle|Dutch tilts]] prominently throughout, with the camera rarely angling along a horizontal field of vision.<ref name="mayhem">{{Cite news |last=Bell |first=Chris |date=March 14, 2017 |title=Mayhem, murder, and movies: the saga of Natural Born Killers |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/mayhem-murder-movies-making-natural-born-killers/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181126140116/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/mayhem-murder-movies-making-natural-born-killers/ |archive-date=November 26, 2018 |website=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Film scholar [[Robert P. Kolker|Robert Kolker]] notes that the Dutch angle's employment in the film is "the visual equivalent of a profound dislocation, a loss of object constancy, the slipperiness of subjectivity itself."{{sfn|Kolker|2000|p=66}} Kolker comments that, unlike such films as ''Bonnie and Clyde'' from which ''Natural Born Killers'' draws influence, "from the very beginning...&nbsp; the viewer is forced into a dual situation, neither one of which allows easy access to the main characters. One situation, continued throughout the film, is a kind of rhythmic attention created by a startling flow of images. Stone builds his visuals on unexpected linkages and disorienting juxtapositions within the shots and edits."{{sfn|Kolker|2000|p=65}}

Because the film is thematically preoccupied with media, Stone sought to implement visual elements of popular television into the film's visual tableau:<ref name="tv">{{Cite web |last=Rosenberg |first=Howard |date=August 31, 1994 |title=Stone's 'Killers' Shoots Wide as TV Critique |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-31-ca-33276-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190930080304/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-31-ca-33276-story.html |archive-date=September 30, 2019 |access-date=September 30, 2019 |website=[[Los Angeles Times]]}}</ref> "It had never quite been done before&nbsp;– a mixture of stocks and styles. I was influenced, I have to say, by [[MTV]] and some of the styles I saw in the early '80s and '90s on television. But no one had tried that style over the course of 90, 100 minutes."<ref name=qa /> Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances as well.{{sfn|Kolker|2000|p=67}}

Concurrent with Stone's preoccupation with television as both a visual and thematic reference point, portions of the film are narrated through parodies of popular television series, including a sequence presented in the style of a sitcom about Mallory's [[dysfunctional family]] (titled ''I Love Mallory''), a parody of ''[[I Love Lucy]]''.<ref name="problem">{{Cite web |last=Bramesco |first=Charles |date=August 26, 2019 |title=Natural Born Killers at 25: the problem with Oliver Stone's hit film |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/26/natural-born-killers-problem-oliver-stone-hit-film-25-year-anniversary |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190830142942/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/26/natural-born-killers-problem-oliver-stone-hit-film-25-year-anniversary |archive-date=August 30, 2019 |website=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> In the film's final montage, splices of real-life television news coverage of various criminal cases of the time are included, such as the [[O. J. Simpson murder case|O. J. Simpson case]], the [[Lyle and Erik Menendez|Menendez brothers]], and the [[Tonya Harding]]/[[Nancy Kerrigan]] incident.{{sfn|Muir|2011|p=336}} Film scholar [[John Kenneth Muir]] notes this inclusion as an "exclamation point" concluding the film's thesis: "It seems to say, 'Welcome to the tabloid-TV culture of America in the 1990s, where crime pays and pays well.'"{{sfn|Muir|2011|p=336}}