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Memo, Oct 25 2003 TO: CSB I wouldn't read this unless you've seen Kill Bill Volume I, as it will probably ruin all possible enjoyment for you. And it is a flick with much to enjoy... or, possibly, nothing to enjoy. It just all depends, don't it? It is a well-known and thoroughly puzzled fact that Bill, who is portrayed in Kill Bill by David Carradine (yeah, those are probably his hands), was a role that was initially to be played by... Warren Beatty. But what many people do NOT know, is that before Warren Beatty was taking meetings to play the Bill in question, the first person it was offered to was... Kevin Costner. Yeah, no shit. Kevin Costner. WTF? Yes, indeed. WTF. Tarantino initially planned to reinvent Kevin Costner with Kill Bill, before planning on reinventing Warren Beatty, before finally getting David Carradine in a continuation of his trend of casting celebs who peaked in the '70s. While most of us are baffled at the evolution of Warren Beatty to David Carradine, I can definitely understand Kevin Costner to Warren Beatty, and then I can see Kevin Costner to David Carradine. Having seen the finished first half of Tarantino's film (Volume I?), David Carradine fits in because much of Kill Bill feels like a Corman-financed flick from the '70s, made for the drive-ins and head-lined by a fella you might recognize from TV. I can't possibly imagine how Kevin Costner or Warren Beatty would affect the movie, but based on the hour-forty I recently saw (in which the character is kept nearly completely off-screen), I can say both of them would have been completely out of place and quite possibly ridiculous and embarassing. I do note that the notoriety of either of those two former A-list aging leading men would have cast the movie in an utterly different light. And the die-hard fans who wish every Tarantino movie would star Fred Williamson and Bo Svenson... would have hated it. If I ever meet Tarantino, I think that's going to be my big question: WTF with Bill? Explain the evolution of this casting idea. (and also explain why first choice and final choice was not ever who it should always have been... you know who I'm talking about... imagine "This is me at my most merciful," spoken by the reedy-yet-gravelly drawl of the one and only PAXTON and SEE if you don't get goose-bumps! Explain THAT "Q!") Cuz it's also the only thing about Kill Bill that requires explanation. Everything else about the movie is so painfully clear, so torn from the collective page... The movie is, ultimately and in only my opinion, the cinematic equivalent of a Lichtenstein blow-up. It's a big honking piece of pop-art, incorporating all that has come before it, every one of Tarantino's influences "squeezed into a duck press" (his words) and turned into a big ole' ass-kick of a flick. And yet it is utterly self-contained. Something tells me Kill Bill is not going to influence a lot of future films. Maybe more mainstream directors will use anime, but... I dunno, man. Remember how people who were around Coppola in the seventies always comment on his lugubrious comments on his own flicks? How a lot of them almost had Apocalypse Now ruined for them by his weird mix of self-promotion and self-criticism, and all they could think during festival screenings were "what the hell was he talking about?" and his weird quotes from the press-conference earlier? Well, Quentin Tarantino, the man and the reputation, ruined the hell out of Kill Bill for me. That, and a couple other things, like pacing and some really awkward uses of music. But my opinion is lost in the thunderclap of all those four-star reviews and people responding to "pure cinema" and what-not. Beyond that, it does succeed. It's the movie he wanted to make. The movie is almost entirely criticism-proof. But it still only did about the same business as Pulp Fiction. There was major drop-off this week (but typical major drop-off, around 40%... let's just say it ain't breaking records). Miramax has thrown its hat into the ring of "movies whose sequels are already complete and ready to cash in on the success of the original while the original is still a hot property oh this is GENIUS," (a trend began by the Salkind producers with their Three Muskateers movies in the late '70s, only to be ended by the Salkind producers when they fired Richard Donner from the Superman series in the late '70s) but the business of Kill Bill might be signaling yet another end of that particular trend (executives will think twice about green-lighting another trilogy to be shot all at once unless all trilogies do Lord of the Rings business, and if Matrix Revolutions does less than Reloaded, kiss the "shot-all-at-once" technique for sequels... goodbye). The fans love Kill Bill, sure, but I was once an unabashed fan of all things Tarantino, and I gotta say: I'm going to see Volume II, but I'm not looking forward to any future Tarantino movies. Kill Bill is no Apocalypse Now. It isn't even Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, even if the similar valentine-to-its-leading-lady-factor applies, but Scorsese doesn't begin Alice with The 4th Martin Scorsese Picture. Only time judged the resonance of his body of work. Tarantino reminding us of his event status is part of the reason Kill Bill flounders for me so hugely and kills my excitement after a few scenes, and then overall. Quentin didn't make this movie for me, I know. Because if he did he would have put less effort into referencing movies I'd never seen and put more into his craft. I read a quote that spoke of how unique the film is, how in command of his craft Tarantino is, how gleeful the cinematic language is rendered... that does describe Pulp Fiction. Kill Bill is much more junk-food movie, the kind of thing that should have been critically panned so we could all consider it a guilty pleasure. I have to assume from Jackie Brown and now Kill Bill I that Tarantino reads into his own work, loves the rhythm of his own shots, and indulges the hell out of himself to go from scene A to scene B. When it creates a unique rhythm and style, a funnelling effect of story events where one things builds upon another in a great ride where the audience completely understands how we got there and what the stakes are like in Dogs (where everything points directly to the conclusion) and most of all in Pulp (where we enjoy the long scenes and wonder where the movie will go and then understand perfectly why Mia snorted the scag and why Vincent Vega is fucked), I love it. When it is applied to stories that are both more conventional and generally told by others more economically (compare Out of Sight to Jackie Brown, compare... shit, compare even Unforgiven to Kill Bill)... it should create something new, but a lot of Kill Bill was just boring to me. This is especially weird, because I love it when movies show the practical application of junk-movie scenes to real-life physics. In theory, I loved the scene that begins with Uma getting into the scrubs and ends with her saying "Wiggle your big toe." But in reality; it dragged. The music started up, played over a few shots. Then the music stopped and the shots kept going. He could have saved the music and cut directly to the end shots from the--ah, nevermind. Quentin, why do so many shots in Kill Bill go on for so long? What am I missing? There are so many shots that are people walking in close-up while you track ahead of them and music plays, and often that music seems to be in there because of some real-world off-screen conotation and you wanted us to hear it, not because it creates any sense of anything in the moment. Lucy Liu's entrance into The House Of Blue Leaves uses the memorable song from the film's trailer. It goes like this: DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Shot of Lucy Liu and company walking in slowmotion towards the camera. DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Slightly closer shot of Lucy Liu and company walking in slowmo towards the camera. DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Shot of motorcycle going down the street. DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Shot of Lucy Lui-- BRASS BRASS BRASS!! Jumpcut to CLOSE-UP of Lucy Liu and song is in full swing! DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Lucy... now walks down the steps from the side. DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Close-up of Lucy Liu's daintly slippers as she walks in slow-mo DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Shot of motorcycle going DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT shot of Lucy Liu walking shot of motorcycle going DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Lucy Liu walking motorcycle moving DUGGA DUNT DUNT DUNT DUNNA DUNNA DUNT Lucy Liu continues to walk in slow motion... And then the song cuts out as Lucy Liu reaches the floor and then we hear what the house band is playing. The emotional effect on me was about the same as on you all reading that description. For half-a-minute of repetitive shots of Lucy walking, cutting in on the brass notes like it's a joke (or a Robert Rodriguez movie) before switching to another song entirely. Entire scenes are scored for one minute at a time with one song, only to suddenly switch to another, then another, when the song no longer fits the mood. The music will pick up, the audience perks up, and then the scene just stops because... oh, right, muscular entropy. This is not the meticulous craftsman who scored Pulp with pop and made every scene hum with a particular energy. Who can imagine the scene in the basement without Apache or whatever it's called, or Vincent Vega picking up Mia Wallace without Son of A Preacher Man, or even the conversation in Jack Rabbit Slim's without Link Ray in the background? I can imagine Daryl Hannah changing into a nurses's outfit and heading on the way to poison Uma without the tune from Twisted Nerve playing over it like some kind of hellish reminder that the scene has already gone on for more than a minute and generated no suspense (because we know the outcome of the scene because it's a flashback, y'dig?). What the fuck's so cool about extreme close-ups of a gal changing into a nurse's uniform, Quentin, that I need it to be dragged out and scored like that? What purpose did that split-screen have? What possible reveal about character or anything does it serve? All I got is that your California Mountain Snake felt she could take her time since her victim is in a coma. An indulgence you two share. And in the theater I was in, the screeching old-movie music was so cringe-inducingly awkward that audience members sighed the way you do when stuck in a witless date-movie. Was there a reference that I missed? Twisted Nerve, right? And when you get down to it, I hadn't seen The Deer Hunter when I laughed so hard I cried at Christopher Walken and the gold watch. But there are long stretches of Kill Bill where I not only didn't understand, I couldn't enjoy. Not being a Shaw Brothers aficianado, I kept wondering if it's because I hadn't done my homework. But who needs to see Poor Cow before digging The Limey? And even if I don't get it, I also don't get why every scene is so endless, and that can't be a movie reference. It's not even endless in a Leone kind of way. It is endless in a way where Tarantino seems afraid to cut-away from Sonny Chiba. Or wants to show all of his unbroken shot. But what is QT showing off with an unbroken Steadicam shot that follows a character through a location we've already established to another location whose relationship to the rest of the building is ultimately not very important? Why'd we waste all that time walking? What was I supposed to be interested in? Unbroken shots in and of themselves are not interesting unless something interesting is happening. It wouldn't matter if these were new shots to be showed off, but Quentin doesn't do one show-off shot throughout the whole flick that really does show-off. The lighting is beautiful, but the camera doesn't do anything to make you drop your jaw (well, maybe when Bill fired his Colt and you see the process from within the gun. That was cool). But remember the bullet enterting the body seen from the inside in Three Kings? Shit, remember the POV shot in Evil Dead 2 that goes up to the car and through the rear-windshield? It felt like no scene in Kill Bill contained a new way to look at anything. It felt like one of those overly-clever movies (like Guy Ritchie makes) but without being clever. Except QT does take chances in terms of narrative, jumping around in time and such, and it works. Except when Michael Parks shows up and (insert Tarantino's voice here) suddenly the movie feels like a different film starring Michael Parks who seems like he could star in his own movie allright, okay, allright (end Tarantino voice), is that short film really interesting in any way except for the fact that it now feels like a different movie starring Michael Parks? This scene is so languid and slow (and does not build interest or gradually reveal the intent, it's clear from the beginning that this is the Ranger arriving on the scene of the massacre we saw in the beginning and that he will somehow discover that the character who we know is not dead, is not dead) and contains dialogue that just feels derivative from From Dusk Til Dawn... it just doesn't do anything. The scene just happens. The whole movie feels laid back in this way. Scenes hum and then die, and then hum back to life only to die again, dip and flow and dip and flow and then finally the scene is just over. The first scene with Vivaca A. Fox is perfectly timed, beautifully executed, and then every other scene just drags like yet another short film in a short-film festival. Every scene has it's own little setup, exposition,action climax and then finally a payoff. It is absolutely insufferable, far more so than if every scene were just static or just expositionary. Why, QT, after you criticized Oliver Stone so much for the way he made Natural Born Killers have you gone to co-op his cinematographer and then repeat SO MANY of that film's tricks? The only thing you didn't do was use different film-stocks, but you did:
1) go to animation ....and created what is essentially the answer to this SAT question; Natural Born Killers is to violent television as ___ is to exploitation films? I would desribe Kill Bill as a fun movie, except then I pause when I remember how brutal it is. I'm not talking about blood spurts and Crazy 88's getting chopped off at the ankles, I mean the violence in front of children, and the rape and pedophilia, and especially the first shot of the movie, which suggested to me a much different film than what was delivered. The first shot of Kill Bill is shocking, brutal, and a jump to the audience. It's amazing. It's the best-film-making in the whole movie. And after the first scene with Vivaca A. Fox (which does rock, from beginning to "I'll be waiting"), and the sleaziness in the hospital, the movie becomes an ultra-violent comedy. I kind of hope volume two goes back to the tone set by the opening scenes. It might prove Kill Bill worth-while overall. Also, aren't Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction funny in their own way? Why is Kill Bill full of "jokes" that fall on their ass? What was up with Lucy Liu's Hillary Clinton speech? The funniest part of the movie was Sonny Chiba and his buddy, and that could have been improvised for all I know. And the punch-line to every other scene is somebody stabbing or slashing somebody. Lucy Liu's supposedly impressive show of power to the yakuza, built up with (what else) endless setup to a punchline as goofus and sloppy as Darth Maul waiting for Obi Wan to fly over him and land and not even put up a defense before getting cut in half. As in... what? I know I'm jumping around a lot and not really focusing on the problem, but here's the problem; Quentin Tarantino has, for YEARS, criticized and slammed many of his fellow contemporary film-makers. He slammed Oliver Stone (probably deserved) Spike Lee (in retaliation) and Ang Lee (for no good reason). He's discussed in great detail what about modern film-making and most films that does not interest him. He's talked at length about film-makers who he no longer feels influenced by and prior inspirations that he has gone on to reject. He has explained (on the basis on two and then three films) what his films represent and their importance in cinema at large. (also, he has downplayed the role of Roger Avary in everything he's done to continue to promote his own auteur brilliance). My friend Cullen, who is a fanatic about samurai swords and all things geek cinema, was looking forward to Kill Bill more than anybody I know. He has probably seen every single movie that Tarantino had-and-was-influenced-by in making Kill Bill. I asked him what he thought, CULLEN: I loved it! ME: I had some problems with it. CULLEN: So did I, but I still loved it. And then, he nailed it. "But let's face it; I could've directed it." And a lot of people say things like that, especially in reference to Kevin Smith movies, but what they're suggesting is that there's no effort involved in the direction of those movies. But they still have to understand how hard it is to make even those movies work. That's a job. But Cullen COULD HAVE directed Kill Bill. He really could have. So could my brother Ted. And Ted's imagining of the Crazy 88 sequence would have been more violent and insane and original. Consider this; is there ANYTHING in Kill Bill that you haven't seen before in another movie? Even the ultra-violence (shooting the guys in the kneecaps and then head from under the bed: Miler's Crossing. A head cut in half with the person alive and brain showing: Hannibal. Eighty-eight attackers get massacred and dismembered by one person in a blood-bath: Dead-Alive). The violence itself grows utterly shockless by the showdown at the House of Blue Leaves arrives, and then it's cool, sure, but the pitch does not deserve the windup. Chopping off the arm to start the fight, the nails in the head, and cutting those guys off at the ankle, neat. Other than that, just a lot of flurries of movement and Raim-style blood fountains. If Ted had made Kill Bill, imagine the scene in Day of the Dead where the zombies peel the guy's face off and tear his eye out while he laughs and screams insanly. Expand to an hour and a half. Kill Bill: volume I represents some of the best production work (cinematography, production design, makeup effects) all applied to a movie where the director basically just wrote out exploitation movie scenes. There's nothing even that innovative about the violence. It's not shocking even the fifth time somebody gets stabbed or chopped, and yet it's still the anticlimatic punchline to scene after scene after scene. Would you believe me if I told you that the final fight scene in the movie, which involves a partial beheading, is just plain boring. Right before they show the aftermath, I said out loud, "don't show it," because I thought the suggestion was so much cooler (and less audience insulting) than a cheap special effect I'd seen in another movie a couple of years ago. And that's one other thing; if you read the script to Kill Bill (I read the first half just now, after seeing it) there are many instances where Quentin describes the predicted audience reaction to the scenes, at one point declaring, "it should be so that by the end of the movie, the audience will be in near orgasmic anticipation when this musical cue is played." Is he giving us too much credit or no credit, I cannot tell. I truly believe that if Ted or Cullen or Chris Doering or any of my other friends who love these genres had the backing of a studio and the same production team as Tarantino, they could have made the same movie. Maybe a better one. And so the next big thing, the new important voice, the fucking end-all be-all of cinema himself Mr. Quentin Tarantino has made a film that;
1) borrows from those he has slammed That's right. I said it. McG did a better job than QT. I'm taking this quite seriously, because Quentin does have enough clout that if he keeps his budget down (he can and does) he could make any movie he wants. He was and still is in the position to absolutely redefine modern cinema. We all keep waiting for him to do it. But the praise heaped upon Kill Bill is congratulating the guy who made two brilliant movies for continuing to make films that are different from all the crap out there. But anyone can do that if few enough people interfere with his process. For the next big thing, when he came along, that's shooting way too low. If Kill Bill was as epic an undertaking as he made it sound, then I have no faith that Tarantino will deliver another great film in his lifetime. He doesn't seem to understand what made him great. It's not the dialogue, or the guns, or the resurrected has-beens... what made Tarantino great was his ability to manipulate the medium with the delirious energy of a guy who finally got to make a film and will make the motherfucking hell out of it! Scenes like music! Shots like well-timed notes! Two and a half-hours gone by and I just didn't want it to end! Passiona and zeal matching mine in the audience as I thought "Finally! A great movie that I saw in the THEATER on opening day instead of having to rent it after reading how great it is in a book!!!" Okay, so anyway... If Pulp Fiction is a great symphony then Kill Bill is like a guy who keeps flipping channels on the radio. I see in the film no real talent for directing scenes. It was like a Tim Burton movie; great ideas, great design, no idea how to make the story move. The best cut in the film is from Uma on the balcony to all the crazy 88s lying and moaning in the House of Blue Leaves. If anyone else had made this movie, critics would be talking about how he needed to cut out half-an-hour of embellishments and then it would be good. People, there has got to be the next Pulp Fiction coming. I don't think I'll be the one to make it. When you think you've seen it, please let me know. By the way, I watched Intolerable Cruelty and loved it. The Coen Brothers are musicians of film. It is not their best movie (which I guess is either Miller's Crossing or Fargo or Barton Fink or Blood Simple or Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski or even The Man Who Wasn't There or Oh Brother Where Art Thou?... depending on who you ask. That's right, nobody likes Hudsucker the best), but watch the shots, feel the rhythm, see how they make the same kind of "every movie we've ever seen of a certain genre" fused together concoction for screwball comedies that Kill Bill did for revenge movies, and tell me who the better film-makers are. QT has made in his entire career fewer great films than frequent-QT-slammed Spike Lee did in the entire time Tarantino has been working, and as formulaic as they've gotten, the Coens have still created more joy for me than Tarantino will in his lifetime. I predict this to always be true. It would help if Quentin would shut the fuck up. But I'll still go see Volume II. MADSEN!!! Don't forget to tell people how to get in touch with us. |