April 21, 2004
There's an altar in the valley to things in themselves as they are
I watched Kill Bill vol. 1 with my old roommates again this past weekend, and was reaffirmed in my decision not to waste any money on the second installment. I also read the Salon review that Ryan linked to, which thankfully avoided the mindless love for Tarantino that a lot of reviewers seem lost in. It properly criticizes Kill Bill and Tarantino for (a) sadism and (b) being a parody, rather than a homage.
(a) Here’s how I define sadism; not as senseless violence (Laurel and Hardy are guilty of that in at least one sense, after all), but as dwelling on the pain inflicted by violence, senseless or otherwise. Otherwise, in this case, appears to be violence inflicted in pursuit of revenge (or, at least, so I think, not having seen the second part), but it hardly matters. Its really sadism, because the emphasis is not on the swiftness of movement, the grace of martial art or the explosive power of a trained master (these are the things that make wire-fu such a joy to watch) as in your average Hong Kong film (which, by the way, I have watched at least a good dozen of and enjoyed thoroughly), but rather on the damage done to the recepient of the violence, the blood spilt, and (rather disgustingly to me) the pain and trauma of the vanquished foe. This is parody (b), not homage. I find it repulsive, frankly, when Tarantino delights in shots of limbless foes or in letting us hear their screams. And a couple of months of martial arts boot camp don’t make [ ] a martial artist worth watching. Life is far too short to waste my time watching another two hours of this bloody mess.
Oh, and Tarantino is a pretentious jerk, like Ryan said.
If you disagree, why? (You can only disagree with a and b. I would prefer to hear disagreement on (a), because I have already heard the converse of (b) proposed, and I still disagree, so I’m more open to changing my mind on (a). If you can convince me why I should watch Kill Bill vol. 2 and I go and actually enjoy it, I’ll buy you (whoever you are) an ice cream treat. Absolutely no disagreement with the statement that Tarantino is a pretentious jerk will be tolerated, as it is obviously true, virtually a tautology. Any comments stating otherwise will be promptly edited to state that Tarantino is a pretentious jerk.)
Link to Ryan not working for some utterly unknown reason. Follow the link on the right (Classification is something or another).
Posted by: rob at April 21, 2004 03:14 PMYeah, it looks like you mangled the html somehow.
I think I can come up with a reason to go see Vol. 2 though. I didn't like it much, as you can probably tell, but I really enjoyed the plot twist towards the end. It was cliched, but somehow it worked for me, don't exactly know why. Also, as my roommate pointed out, even if it isn't a great film, it's still an important film. Tarantino is one of those directors we'll be talking about ten, fifteen, fifty years from now, so seeing his films is worth doing for that reason alone.
Now, do I get the ice cream?
Posted by: yran at April 21, 2004 04:08 PMI'm not sure I'm that interested in battling over your points in particular, but I did just post a review in which I make the argument that Tarantino is both more sadistic than even you've said, and a brilliant, earnest director whose film is completely uncynical. Enjoy.
Posted by: mesh at April 21, 2004 04:15 PMI still don't get what I did wrong with html... there's always quotes after href in the a tag, so what I don't understand is why they're being treated as part of the address now. All I can figure is that I made movabletype angry.
Ryan I think you'll have to split the ice cream treat with Aaron, even though, prior to seeing the film, I think your reason is more likely to be mine than his, I think his is a better reason -- I'm just not convinced (and can't be until I see the film) that his is right.
Posted by: rob at April 21, 2004 06:29 PMDid you forget "http://"?
Posted by: ryan at April 21, 2004 10:41 PMNo, that's what I thought at first, that's what's so odd... you can see that it links to http://www.covblogs.com/eatingbark/"http://www.chattablogs.com/davidson" which is odd, very odd. I won't worry unless it does it again.
Posted by: rob at April 21, 2004 10:54 PMRob, I'd like to take a shot at that ice cream.
While I don't believe that what Tarantino intended was sadism in Kill Bill 1, I do agree that it was disconcertingly violent. I want to recommend it to my wife (who didn't see it with me), but I feel guilty doing so--even though I also think it was aesthetically beautiful.
However, while sadism (a) is a good reason not to see Kill Bill 1, it is not a good reason not to see Kill Bill 2. This is because Kill Bill 2 is not a violent movie. This is initially hard to believe given the nature of KB1, but it really isn’t. The friend I saw KB2 with was angered because he wanted to see more of the same from KB1, but was disappointed. The transition from KB1 to KB2 is like the transition in water skiing from the tense, taught-muscle, white water excitement of being pulled behind the boat, to when you let go of the handle and drop into the warm (if you’re in Florida) still water and relax in your ski-vest.
KB2, dramatically unlike KB1, is a very slow-paced, thoughtfully developed film, mostly driven by detailed character portrayal and dialogue. You learn most of the background info about Black Mamba and Bill in KB2. It’s almost as if (as someone put it—I forget who) Kill Bill was one long movie, and Quentin separated out all of the action sequences and out them in the first movie, and took all the dialogue and character development and put in the second. If you’re still worried about sadism, know that Black Mamba kills less than three people in KB2—none of them violently (no blood). I won’t say exactly how many, because that may give you clues as you watch.
I have no problem recommending KB2 to Beth. It’s just that it would be somewhat less powerful to her without having seen KB1. Since you, for better or worse, have already seen KB1, you would have the proper context for watching KB2.
Therefore, I don’t think your reason (a) is a good reason not to watch Kill Bill 2.
As for the parody claim—I don’t know. I haven’t seen enough Kung-Fu exploitation stuff to say whether or not that’s happening in KB1. However, I can say that if KB2 is a parody, Tarantino is parodying something other than Kung-Fu flicks, because KB2 simply is stylistically nothing like KB1 (come to think of it, he could be parodying spaghetti westerns in KB2, but even if he was, it wasn’t so obvious that I noticed while I was watching.)
So I hope I’ve removed some of your own barriers to seeing KB2. Now I’d like to give a brief reason why should see it, instead of just why you shouldn’t not see it.
Kill Bill 2 is tragically beautiful.
Black Mamba is tangibly steadfast in her determination, Budd is intriguing in his personality and lifestyle decisions since the Lone Pine Chapel incident, and Bill is a visually beautiful man with complex motivations for his actions. None of this is revealed in KB1. In KB1 the characters are more like cartoons; in KB2 they are seen as human beings.
The last 20 minutes is made of the confluence of great emotional tension set to the most appropriately beautiful music I’ve heard in a film. This may only speak of my cinema naïveté, but if so, this bliss is worth the ignorance.
These are my subjective reasons for why I believe you should see Kill Bill 2.
Posted by: paul at April 28, 2004 03:34 PM