The Plot

The plot follows a character known for most of the story as The Bride, her name withheld. The Bride was an expert international assassin who left her team when she found out she was pregnant and decided to get married. But her team, particularly her boss and lover, Bill, did not accept this. Their attack leaves The Bride in a coma she is never expected to wake up from…but she does. After nearly being killed, losing her child and many other loved ones The Bride seeks revenge on her old team and in particular – Bill

After 20 Years…

The story is very much broken into chapters as The Bride crosses people off her revenge hit-list, there are intense action scenes followed by quiet moments and sections of anime or odd almost comedic sketches of The Bride getting the things she needs. It jumps back and forth in time around each of these showdowns – giving the audience relevant information, showing backstory between characters etc. It crosses off many items on a Tarantino checklist: extreme violence, an interesting and unusual soundtrack, and homages to other films.

Every fight scene is amazing and distinctive and for a revenge film where everyone is an assassin that is important. There are unusual shifts in tone in these fights – for example when The Bride goes to face O-Ren Ishii she must first battle through her samurai gang, killing dozens of people and verges on cartoonish fighting and jarringly over-the-top amounts of blood with a loud pop music soundtrack. But then her encounter with O-Ren, moments later, is a one-on-one sword fight comprised of only a handful of strikes, fought in a peaceful snow-covered garden and sometimes all you can hear is the sound of water and wood of a fountain.

It is perhaps outside these fight scenes – which do contain emotion as well as action – that the film falls down. This is particularly true of Kill Bill Vol.1 where there are large sections of the film that feel like they serve no purpose. Tarantino’s inability to cut down his movies is legendary and perhaps it was better to have two films rather than one very long one, but there is certainly stuff that could be removed. Kill Bill Vol.1 also contains, in my opinion, the most shocking and gratuitous example of violence in the entirety of Tarantino’s work, and that is saying something. I don’t think an actual description of what happens is necessary but suffice to say there is a moment of horrific abuse perpetuated on The Bride (and suggestion that this has happened many times before) that has no reason to be included other than to cause The Bride more suffering.

The final confrontation with Bill is a little overblown, with long monologues and even bringing out the very convenient trope of a truth serum but it ultimately is a very good end to the movie. David Carradine plays Bill, an actor best known for the tv show Kung Fu and very much part of Tarantino’s idiosyncratic casting style and is very good as the older mentor figure, turned lover, turned nemesis.

Music

Like all Tarantino films the soundtrack is a very important part of the film and has been chosen with care and while there are great tracks from The 5,6,7,8s and some old classics that most people won’t know (including me) what is most striking and memorable is the use of Ennio Morricone. Morricone did not compose new work but Tarantino used songs from other films. The work of the genius composer best known for westerns like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly brings tension, pathos and dread to the film, and is used intentionally to evoke the themes of westerns, and one can see the Kill Bill story told through a western – a gang turning their back on a member who then tracks them through the Wild West taking revenge.

For me looking at both Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol.2 and assessing the whole work is difficult as I do not like the first film, but think Vol.2 is great, and it’s hard to reconcile those two ideas. Certainly, the film has a huge legacy with outfits, songs, quotes quickly settling into the cultural understanding of the 2000s but does not belong in Tarantino’s top tier.

Also Read: Quentin Tarantino Directing A Star Trek Film? Here’s What It Would’ve Been Like

The post Twenty Years On: Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2 appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Interesting Dialogue For The Sake Of Interesting Dialogue

Tarantino has a very particular style of dialogue. A lot of filmmakers would say dialogue that doesn’t move the plot on is unnecessary, but many of Tarantino’s films contain long conversations that are just people talking. They aren’t setting up for something later in the film or giving important exposition; they just talk. The best scene in Reservoir Dogs is the discussion between hardened criminals about whether or not they should tip in restaurants. Inglourious Basterds opens with a harrowing but mesmerising scene of a French farmer being interrogated by an apparently very polite Nazi, and while this does set up a lot of the plot, I would argue you could do that in ninety seconds. Later in the film, characters play a version of the Rizla Game, which is equally riveting. Many people have tried to imitate Tarantino’s dialogue and failed, and he is probably one of the most quotable writers working in Hollywood today.

The Actors

Like many auteurs, Tarantino likes to use the same actors again and again. Samuel L Jackson has featured in seven Tarantino films (eight if we include True Romance), and actors like Michael Madsen, Tim Roth and Uma Thurman pop up again and again. Tarantino also has an odd trait of casting actors who perhaps wouldn’t be on most directors’ wish-lists. Who will get a small role in one of his films – someone like Oscar-nominated Christopher Walken, who gave a great performance in Pulp Fiction or someone like Don Johnson, star of Miami Vice, who certainly managed to say his lines in the right order in Django Unchained? These unusual choices are all the more mystifying when Tarantino’s credibility and budget would allow him to hire just about anyone.

Music & Sound

Tarantino soundtracks are usually very, very good. Not only in picking good songs like Misirlou by Dick Dale and Del-Tones or Woo Hoo by The 5.6.7.8’s, but also in picking short bursts of music and sound. Songs that get featured in Tarantino films can lose all other context. Stuck In The Middle With You is a very good song and has a very pleasant sound, but for millions of people, it will bring back one of the most brutal scenes in Tarantino’s work.

It doesn’t even have to be whole songs; it can just be a snippet of music – in Kill Bill: Vol 1, the character Elle Driver whistling as she calmly walks down a corridor to murder someone, and after watching it, the sound will be stuck in my head for days.

Tough Women

Tarantino does have a habit of including tough, strong women in his films. Obviously, four of the five Deadly Viper Assassination Squad in Kill Bill are women (as well as one member’s bodyguard, Go-Go). Shoshanna in Inglourious Basterds is an unstoppable force of nature, Daisy Domergue is as dangerous a villain as anyone, and, of course, Jackie Brown is a much more toned down and realistic portrayal of a strong woman. The shot of Uma Thurman wearing the yellow and black jumpsuit holding a samurai sword is already an iconic image.

However, Tarantino’s sensitivity is not always what it could be, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 has a very distressing rape scene which I don’t think needs to be in the film at all and I have heard people say they were disgusted at the violence meted out against Daisy Domergue in The Hateful Eight; as they felt it was being played for laughs. With all that being said, I do think Tarantino shows women in roles they often don’t get to play.

Adult Themes

Tarantino films are violent, and characters swear a lot. There’s lots of sex and drugs. Sections of Kill Bill are blood-drenched massacres. A YouTube edit of Pulp Fiction in which every word apart from the F-bomb is removed is almost four minutes long. If you make films about gangsters, drug dealers, assassins, slave-owners etc then you’re going to have to include unpleasant things. I’m not complaining about this as such, but it’s something to be aware of. Jackie Brown, a film about drug dealers, is probably the tamest, with the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) only giving it a 15 certificate, practically a family-friendly film in Tarantino’s world.

The Problems

Tarantino is by no means a perfect director and there are many problems with his work. Tarantino makes long films, and I think even the biggest fan of his work would admit he needs an editor, or more accurately, someone to tell him not all of his ideas are brilliant, and you can cut bits out. The Hateful Eight was over three hours long, and bear in mind, nearly all of that film takes place in one building.

Then there is his other notorious problem – he keeps casting himself in his own movies when he can’t act. Sometimes it’s tiny, almost unnoticeable roles, like Answering Machine Voice in Jackie Brown, but in Reservoir Dogs, he was one of the gang, and in Pulp Fiction, he has the utterly bizarre role of one Jules’s friends. Not only did he cast himself in Django Unchained, but he also made the unwise decision to adopt an Australian accent. Tarantino may well be a filmmaking genius, but he’s been told that far too many times.

As I have mentioned, Tarantino is a fan of strong language, and he is very loose with using certain words – racial epithets – that he should think more about whether he really needs to use them.

So there is a brief overview of Tarantino’s work. How will Once Upon A Time In Hollywood fit in with it?

The post What Makes A Tarantino Film? appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.