Post by klep on Sept 9, 2019 6:28:56 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR 8/26: Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2
REVENGE WEEK!
Note: Today's guest essay's are graciously provided by a collaboration of two guest contributors.
KILL BILL VOL. 1
Quentin Tarantino is a wordsmith known for his cooler-than-cool dialogue and elaborate musings on pop culture. His characters won't say anything in a line if they can say it in a paragraph instead. He has the patience to build the casual into the colossal. Pulp Fiction starts with a four minute conversation in a diner about diners. Reservoir Dogs starts with an eight minute conversation in a diner about Madonna. Inglourious Basterds starts with a slow-burn conversation that ratchets up tension for more than fifteen minutes. And even when he doesn't start with talking, he doesn't start fast. Jackie Brown and The Hateful Eight both start with overtures while characters slowly move towards a destination, the former by Bobby Womack and the latter by Ennio Morricone.
At a combined 4 hours and 17 minutes Kill Bill is his longest film, but paradoxically it starts out the fastest and the simplest. A proverb about revenge. The Bride is in her wedding dress, lying on the ground, covered in blood, and struggling to breathe. Bill says something dry and half-eloquent and we know he is Bill because he wipes her face with a monogrammed handkerchief that says Bill on it. The Bride almost manages to say, "Bill, it's your baby," when Bill fires a bullet into her head. In 2 minutes and 38 seconds we know everything that is important. Revenge. The Bride. Bill. Their baby? The title is absolute necessity and dire urgency: Kill Bill.
Just as quickly as Tarantino establishes the simplicity of the premise, he uses formal elements to show the complexity of the plot. The opening credits are set to a slow, gentle Nancy Sinatra ballad and a silhouette of The Bride lying comatose for what we will find out is four long years.
"Chapter 1: 2" skips us straight to the second person on The Bride's death list. The Bride is alive, conscious, driving a Pussy Wagon, and already hunting the second person on a list that somehow has more names than just Bill. Nearly two hours after this point Hattori Hanzo narrates in voiceover that, "Revenge is never a straight line." Tarantino illustrates the haphazardness of the line every step of the way.
One of my favorite things about how straight this line isn't is the way the story keeps slipping into long tangents of mythology. There's three huge sections of mythos - "The Origin of O-Ren," "The cruel tutelage of Pai Mei," and "The Man from Okinawa," (in chronological order of occurrence, but not the order of placement in the narrative tapestry) - and two of those sections are in Volume 1.
"The Origin of O-Ren" is an anime sequence from the animation studio that made Ghost In The Shell and Blood: The Last Vampire. It tells the traumatic origin story of a young girl whose parents are sadistically murdered (she gets drenched in her own mother's blood) and how she rises from that to get revenge and then some. Not only does O-Ren Ishii avenge her parents through murder, she gets a taste and a talent for killing. She rises from trauma to vengeance to hired assassin to queen of the criminal underworld. The whole episode endears us to her; we know she'll be a villain in the The Bride's narrative, but she's a villain we root for in her own narrative.
"The Man from Okinawa" introduces us to Hattori Hanzo. The master swordsmith is in quiet retirement, owning a goofy sushi shop on the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. (I read trivia that Okinawa is known for having the worst sushi in all of Japan. I don't know enough to verify that but if it's true, opening a sushi shop there is a good way to retire and not have people stumble across you.) This section implies an even grander mythology than the movie has time to elaborate on. We learn that Hattori Hanzo is the finest swordmaker who may have ever lived. (As Budd reiterates in Volume 2, "If you're gonna compare a Hanzo sword, you compare it to every other sword ever made... that wasn't made by Hattori Hanzo.") We learn that Bill was once Hanzo's student. We learn that Hanzo and The Bride agree on the sheer magnitude of Bill's awfulness. Hanzo agrees to break his retirement and make one last perfect sword expressly for the purpose of Killing Bill. But the most important thing about this chapter is the near-mystical quality of the Hanzo swords.
These tangents make the story a richer experience. The world of Kill Bill is far larger than a Bride who needs revenge and a Bill who needs to stop being so alive. Side characters have decades of backstory and autonomy. A world familiar with rifles, pistols, handguns, and shotguns will hold its breath in awe of a sword.
The these tangents (particularly "The Origin of O-Ren" in Volume 1 and "The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei" in Volume 2) also structurally underscore the grueling physical intensity of The Bride's quest for revenge. It takes a lifetime of O-Ren's experiences with violence and trauma for The Bride to just regain motor function in one toe. The length of the flashback lends gravity to how long the present is taking.
The tangents also lead to massive payoffs throughout the rest of the narrative. O-Ren's backstory lends so much context to the Boss Tanaka scene that it becomes so much more than a Bond Villain moment. She's got strong reasons for taking any references to her past personally and she's got the murder-prowess to not put up with bullshit. O-Ren's backstory makes us root for her so much that it makes perfect sense that she could command an army of henchmen who would do anything for her. The entire Crazy 88 is rooting for her too, in awe of everything she's done and in fear of everything she's capable of. And the entire rest of Volume 1 and all of Volume 2 is filled with moments that pay off the grandeur of the Hanzo Sword. It's not just a sword with a fancy name that the kung fu people reference a couple times. The amount of time spent setting it up gives it significance that lasts for the rest of the epic.
One thing that struck me this time around was the way women get defined by revenge. O-Ren is defined by the revenge she has done in the past. Hers was connected to the deaths of her parents, particularly the blood of her mother. The Bride is defined by the revenge she is carrying out in the present. Hers is connected to the death(!) of her unborn daughter. And Nikki Bell, the four-year-old daughter of Vernita Green, is defined by the suggestion that she too may seek revenge in the future. Hers is connected to the death of her mother at the hands of The Bride. The path to revenge is not a straight line and for The Bride to get the revenge she needs she has to cut down one woman we feel the urge to cheer for and she she has to inflict trauma on a still-innocent young girl. Even the most necessary revenge is still messy.
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Tarantino films have always been my favorites.
When Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 came out it gave me a charge to see a female protagonist who was not only a powerful women but also a mother.
Up until this point in Tarantino films I was not used to getting an explanation of a major event that the movie is centered around.
In Pulp Fiction, we never get to see what is in the suit case.
In Reservoir Dogs we never see the actual diamond robbery take place.
In the highly anticipated conclusion of Kill Bill, we begin Vol. 2 with a black and white scene. An explanation of the massacre at two pines chapel.
We get a contrast of a sweet and salty exchange between two former lovers. Revenge is born from a man who has been scorned.
How is it that Bill can think he is justified to attempt to kill our protagonist for breaking his heart?
To think by doing this he thinks he is not being sadistic, but masochistic?
B goes on to exact her revenge on Budd and Elle.
Somehow, Budd seems to defeat her.
B recalls her tutelage under her master Pai Mei and she is literally able to crawl her way back to exact her revenge on him with minimal effort.
Her confrontation with Elle Driver is extremely satisfying, almost as satisfying as Budd's death by Black Mamba snake.
B goes on to find Bill's location from his father figure Esteban.
She is shocked and bewildered to be face to face with not only Bill, but also her daughter BB, who survived the trauma of her mother's being shot in the head while carrying her.
This part of the movie of the movie is the most endearing and painful to watch.
A mother meeting her 4 year old daughter for the first time, not knowing whether she will survive to see her, let alone know her, in the next few hours.
After being shot with a truth serum dart and being compared to Superman masquerading as Clark Kent, B goes on to chat with Bill about her assignment she was sent on by him. The day she was intercepted by another female assassin named Karen. She tells him how she begged her to walk away, so she could spare her daughters life.
IN this moment she realizes she is now a mother and her only duty is to protect her unborn child.
Bill seems to have no sympathy for her and she is tearful to realize with him, there is no love lost.
They begin a battle which ends with B perfectly executing the five point palm exploding heart technique and finishes Bill.
The most gut wrenching moment of this film is its end.
I have never been a fan of Uma Thurman or her performances until this movie.
She conveys the heartbreak of an abused women who will stop at nothing to get her revenge on those who wronged her and her child.
She walks away with BB.
The next morning she is locked in her hotel bathroom, lying on the floor, crying with tears of joy and excited sobs.
She has won her revenge and a fruitful life of love with her daughter.
REVENGE WEEK!
Note: Today's guest essay's are graciously provided by a collaboration of two guest contributors.
KILL BILL VOL. 1
Quentin Tarantino is a wordsmith known for his cooler-than-cool dialogue and elaborate musings on pop culture. His characters won't say anything in a line if they can say it in a paragraph instead. He has the patience to build the casual into the colossal. Pulp Fiction starts with a four minute conversation in a diner about diners. Reservoir Dogs starts with an eight minute conversation in a diner about Madonna. Inglourious Basterds starts with a slow-burn conversation that ratchets up tension for more than fifteen minutes. And even when he doesn't start with talking, he doesn't start fast. Jackie Brown and The Hateful Eight both start with overtures while characters slowly move towards a destination, the former by Bobby Womack and the latter by Ennio Morricone.
At a combined 4 hours and 17 minutes Kill Bill is his longest film, but paradoxically it starts out the fastest and the simplest. A proverb about revenge. The Bride is in her wedding dress, lying on the ground, covered in blood, and struggling to breathe. Bill says something dry and half-eloquent and we know he is Bill because he wipes her face with a monogrammed handkerchief that says Bill on it. The Bride almost manages to say, "Bill, it's your baby," when Bill fires a bullet into her head. In 2 minutes and 38 seconds we know everything that is important. Revenge. The Bride. Bill. Their baby? The title is absolute necessity and dire urgency: Kill Bill.
Just as quickly as Tarantino establishes the simplicity of the premise, he uses formal elements to show the complexity of the plot. The opening credits are set to a slow, gentle Nancy Sinatra ballad and a silhouette of The Bride lying comatose for what we will find out is four long years.
"Chapter 1: 2" skips us straight to the second person on The Bride's death list. The Bride is alive, conscious, driving a Pussy Wagon, and already hunting the second person on a list that somehow has more names than just Bill. Nearly two hours after this point Hattori Hanzo narrates in voiceover that, "Revenge is never a straight line." Tarantino illustrates the haphazardness of the line every step of the way.
One of my favorite things about how straight this line isn't is the way the story keeps slipping into long tangents of mythology. There's three huge sections of mythos - "The Origin of O-Ren," "The cruel tutelage of Pai Mei," and "The Man from Okinawa," (in chronological order of occurrence, but not the order of placement in the narrative tapestry) - and two of those sections are in Volume 1.
"The Origin of O-Ren" is an anime sequence from the animation studio that made Ghost In The Shell and Blood: The Last Vampire. It tells the traumatic origin story of a young girl whose parents are sadistically murdered (she gets drenched in her own mother's blood) and how she rises from that to get revenge and then some. Not only does O-Ren Ishii avenge her parents through murder, she gets a taste and a talent for killing. She rises from trauma to vengeance to hired assassin to queen of the criminal underworld. The whole episode endears us to her; we know she'll be a villain in the The Bride's narrative, but she's a villain we root for in her own narrative.
"The Man from Okinawa" introduces us to Hattori Hanzo. The master swordsmith is in quiet retirement, owning a goofy sushi shop on the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. (I read trivia that Okinawa is known for having the worst sushi in all of Japan. I don't know enough to verify that but if it's true, opening a sushi shop there is a good way to retire and not have people stumble across you.) This section implies an even grander mythology than the movie has time to elaborate on. We learn that Hattori Hanzo is the finest swordmaker who may have ever lived. (As Budd reiterates in Volume 2, "If you're gonna compare a Hanzo sword, you compare it to every other sword ever made... that wasn't made by Hattori Hanzo.") We learn that Bill was once Hanzo's student. We learn that Hanzo and The Bride agree on the sheer magnitude of Bill's awfulness. Hanzo agrees to break his retirement and make one last perfect sword expressly for the purpose of Killing Bill. But the most important thing about this chapter is the near-mystical quality of the Hanzo swords.
These tangents make the story a richer experience. The world of Kill Bill is far larger than a Bride who needs revenge and a Bill who needs to stop being so alive. Side characters have decades of backstory and autonomy. A world familiar with rifles, pistols, handguns, and shotguns will hold its breath in awe of a sword.
The these tangents (particularly "The Origin of O-Ren" in Volume 1 and "The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei" in Volume 2) also structurally underscore the grueling physical intensity of The Bride's quest for revenge. It takes a lifetime of O-Ren's experiences with violence and trauma for The Bride to just regain motor function in one toe. The length of the flashback lends gravity to how long the present is taking.
The tangents also lead to massive payoffs throughout the rest of the narrative. O-Ren's backstory lends so much context to the Boss Tanaka scene that it becomes so much more than a Bond Villain moment. She's got strong reasons for taking any references to her past personally and she's got the murder-prowess to not put up with bullshit. O-Ren's backstory makes us root for her so much that it makes perfect sense that she could command an army of henchmen who would do anything for her. The entire Crazy 88 is rooting for her too, in awe of everything she's done and in fear of everything she's capable of. And the entire rest of Volume 1 and all of Volume 2 is filled with moments that pay off the grandeur of the Hanzo Sword. It's not just a sword with a fancy name that the kung fu people reference a couple times. The amount of time spent setting it up gives it significance that lasts for the rest of the epic.
One thing that struck me this time around was the way women get defined by revenge. O-Ren is defined by the revenge she has done in the past. Hers was connected to the deaths of her parents, particularly the blood of her mother. The Bride is defined by the revenge she is carrying out in the present. Hers is connected to the death(!) of her unborn daughter. And Nikki Bell, the four-year-old daughter of Vernita Green, is defined by the suggestion that she too may seek revenge in the future. Hers is connected to the death of her mother at the hands of The Bride. The path to revenge is not a straight line and for The Bride to get the revenge she needs she has to cut down one woman we feel the urge to cheer for and she she has to inflict trauma on a still-innocent young girl. Even the most necessary revenge is still messy.
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Tarantino films have always been my favorites.
When Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 came out it gave me a charge to see a female protagonist who was not only a powerful women but also a mother.
Up until this point in Tarantino films I was not used to getting an explanation of a major event that the movie is centered around.
In Pulp Fiction, we never get to see what is in the suit case.
In Reservoir Dogs we never see the actual diamond robbery take place.
In the highly anticipated conclusion of Kill Bill, we begin Vol. 2 with a black and white scene. An explanation of the massacre at two pines chapel.
We get a contrast of a sweet and salty exchange between two former lovers. Revenge is born from a man who has been scorned.
How is it that Bill can think he is justified to attempt to kill our protagonist for breaking his heart?
To think by doing this he thinks he is not being sadistic, but masochistic?
B goes on to exact her revenge on Budd and Elle.
Somehow, Budd seems to defeat her.
B recalls her tutelage under her master Pai Mei and she is literally able to crawl her way back to exact her revenge on him with minimal effort.
Her confrontation with Elle Driver is extremely satisfying, almost as satisfying as Budd's death by Black Mamba snake.
B goes on to find Bill's location from his father figure Esteban.
She is shocked and bewildered to be face to face with not only Bill, but also her daughter BB, who survived the trauma of her mother's being shot in the head while carrying her.
This part of the movie of the movie is the most endearing and painful to watch.
A mother meeting her 4 year old daughter for the first time, not knowing whether she will survive to see her, let alone know her, in the next few hours.
After being shot with a truth serum dart and being compared to Superman masquerading as Clark Kent, B goes on to chat with Bill about her assignment she was sent on by him. The day she was intercepted by another female assassin named Karen. She tells him how she begged her to walk away, so she could spare her daughters life.
IN this moment she realizes she is now a mother and her only duty is to protect her unborn child.
Bill seems to have no sympathy for her and she is tearful to realize with him, there is no love lost.
They begin a battle which ends with B perfectly executing the five point palm exploding heart technique and finishes Bill.
The most gut wrenching moment of this film is its end.
I have never been a fan of Uma Thurman or her performances until this movie.
She conveys the heartbreak of an abused women who will stop at nothing to get her revenge on those who wronged her and her child.
She walks away with BB.
The next morning she is locked in her hotel bathroom, lying on the floor, crying with tears of joy and excited sobs.
She has won her revenge and a fruitful life of love with her daughter.