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3.
Why defend Tarantino's Kill Bill? It's been a while since I wrote
a critique, but when I saw Kill Bill, I felt like I should write something
about it. Why? Because in fact, it is a cinematic event. Every time one
sees a film by Tarantino, for better or for worse, one has the impression
of seeing something really influential cinematically-speaking. Perhaps
I am being biased by the director's auto-generated myth of himself that
he started off his career by working in a video store in the mall and
feeding his ravenous appetite for "pulp fiction" (karate, sci-fi, horror
film, etc.). But I do think, as Laurent mentions, his instinct, his genius
and his gourmandise for these sorts of films gives his images and action
a polish that is uncommon from most directors. How does he pull it off?
Quite simply, he makes fine films technically and symbolically speaking.
(Films that use images to answer what Michael Moore does with rhetoric).
Are images a "lower form of thought" ? Give me a break.
For example, in this film, I would have normally been disgusted by the
contents. Let's focus on the famous massacre scene (not to mention the
Hannibalesque decapitation finale scene): The violence is gratuit; it
seems obvious to say such a thing. It is ridiculous is what it is. It
makes you cringe in your seat. He goes a bit overboard with it. Granted.
But I want to defend the guy because the characters of his film are fantastic.
They are oozing with strength, charisma and sex. They are popular heroes.
Socially correct elitists please ask yourselves why that is here.
Due to the expert mis on scene and his insistence on the quality and natural
allure (Uma, Travolta…the aging sex-symbol experienced a renaissance as
did Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson…he got to be the first black jedi thanks
to Tarantino's casting of him in Pulp) of his actors, you end up charmed
by these quirky, high speed heroes of style and violence. The blood, I
think was supposed to resemble that of a comic book or a horror film.
Why doesn't such blood shock us in a comic strip for example? Perhaps
because we are used to it. Still, usually, there is less of this Pulp
side and more for the cerebral film goer in Tarantino's films. This time
he went all the way. And, as other critics have suggested above, in fact,
his true puerile side is making its debut. But, in his defense, not everything
has to be so socially responsible and politically correct. When we fall
into this trap, we become the moral elitists spraying Lysol on the more
un-nerving aspects of humanity. I, personally, do not believe that all
the propaganda in the world will pacify us into more sheeplike creatures.
Being a sheep is perhaps more dangerous than being tigers. I happen to
believe to only in the sheep, but also in the tiger in man. That's exactly
what Uma Sonny Chiba as Hattori Hanzo Vernita Green, and Daryl Hannah
represent: The tigers. This is purely Bonnie and Clyde type shit. They
are the outlaws. Popular heros. Not heroes according to a social engineer,
genre Huxley, not criminals according to the conventional definition of
the powers that be. I mean how can you people take it so seriously when
they are named A. Fox and Elle Driver. This is not a serious, film except
by its quality, the popularity of its director, and its capacity to shake
you from your comfortably assumed paradigms.
Yes, it is dangerous film. That's why Tarantino made it. Because we the
most dangerous animals on the planet but more for our dormant conformism
than for our taste for the hunt. Tarantino doesn't hide from the hunter
in humankind. He revels in it. I think the question to ask, a perhaps
the one Tarantino is asking in each of his films is: Is it wrong to admire
a gangster? A gunslinger? An outlaw? A renegade? It's the same question
that Michael Moore asks with a very different and equally valid answer.
Andrew
F., Vu en 2004.
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