Ranting to /dev/null

I might have been somewhat more impressed with Salon's highly pretentious review if it wasn't for two things. One, the author seemed like he was trying way to hard to impress the reader with the knowledge that he actually got every reference that Tarantino put in Kill Bill, and two, our pretentious reviewer clearly doesn't know as much as he acts like he does.

Tarantino isn't anywhere near the first director to rip most, if not all, of their film from various movies they've seen, but other directors don't openly admit what they've copied, and when they copy, it's films they saw in film school that the average movie going public isn't going to recognize. Take George Lucas for example. He's admitted that Akira Kurosawa was a major influence, but he's never admitted just how major an influence. By now, most people know that Lucas cites Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress as an influence on Star Wars, but all he'll admit to copying is the concept of telling the story from the perspective of the two lowest characters, and maybe borrowing a few camera techniques. What he doesn't admit is that he went so far as to do scene by scene (and sometimes even shot by shot) rips of any number of Kurosawa films, and that a rather large portion of the original trilogy is a piecemeal rip from Kurosawa. It takes greater skill to do the kind of copying that Tarantino has done than to do the sort of copying that Lucas, and a myriad of other directors, do all the time. Those other directors don't have to worry that a good chunk of the public has seen the films you're borrowing from. I have a feeling that the Salon reviewer is fully aware of the wholesale copying that other directors do, but it doesn't help his point to acknowlege it.

The thing that our overly pretentious Salon reviewer doesn't seem to be aware of is the massive cross-pollination between Asian martial arts films and American westerns (if Tarantino is really the movie buff he claims to be, I'm sure that he took that into consideration with Kill Bill). As a result, you can't really do what the reviewer did and say, oh, Vol. 1 is QT's nod to the samurai movie, Vol. 2 is his nod to westerns and leave it at that. For one example, Kurosawa, who was an influential Japanese filmmaker, was influenced stylistically by the John Ford's westerns, and Kurosawa's medieval samurai epics in turn influenced later American westerns, including A Fistful Of Dollars, a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, and Fistful of Dollars was the first of the spaghetti westerns, which of course were as big of an influence as martial arts films on Kill Bill. Kill Bill takes the samurai and western movie full circle, reuniting the two seemingly disparite genres.

By the way, just because people in the audience when Charles Taylor saw the movie laughed during the section where Uma is being trained by Pai Mei doesn't say anything other than that those people were too ignorant to realize that those badly dubbed Chinese martial arts movies weren't originally intended to be comical, and it's not the fault of the director when the audience is clueless (I've been to plenty of movies where dumb teenagers laughed at all the wrong times because they were either too young or too ignorant to know what was really going on).

I could go on, but I won't. Main point is that all I saw in that Salon review was a reviewer who was annoyed that people like the movie, and unlike him in his infinite wisdom, they didn't recognize how much was copied, stylistically, from other movies. So he stuck in references to everything from soup to nuts, so what. If that's all you can see, then you're missing the forest for the trees. There was more to the movie than just a bunch of obscure references, and well, if he wanted to borrow from other films, at least he was man enough to admit it, unlike those directors who like to pretend that they are original and ground breaking when they aren't.

Taylor wasn't criticizing Tarantino for simply using homage. And if you think that Taylor is ignorant of the fact that directors borrow heavily from each other, you're more ignorant than you think he is. He was criticizing Tarantino for using homage for no point beyond using homage. "Cross-pollenization" is not the issue, nor is the fact that Hong Kong martial arts flicks aren't supposed to be funny. The point is that all Tarantino has managed to do is string together one massive, pointless homage, and that the Pai Mai scene is damn funny and Tarantino obviously intended it to be such.

What I think is going on here is that you liked the movie and are pissed that Taylor criticized it. Well I didn't like it all that much, and I agree with Taylor. I agree that it is truly an epic work, but kind of a pointless one. Care to offer a suggestion as to what he and I are missing, or are you content to snipe?

No the issue isn't that I liked the movie and am just annoyed at Taylor's criticism, it's because Taylor is one of those pretentious critics who was so busy paying attention to all of the homages to other movies that he completely missed the entire story.

If you think that the Pai Mei sequence was supposed to be funny, than you're way more ignorant than you accuse me of being, and you're definitely more ignorant than Taylor. Have you never seen any Chinese martial arts flicks that weren't dubbed? Dubbing has ruined many a serious asian film, and if you think that the Pai Mei sequence was funny, then you've watched one too many dubbed movies and those dubbed movies have spoiled your appreciation for the entire genre.

Also, you're being just as pretentious as Taylor, and while I don't mind so much if someone has a reason to be pretentious, your reply has shown that all you're doing is mimicking everything you've read about the homages in the movie and haven't much of a clue yourself.

When you step back and look at both volumes as a coherent whole, and ignore the fact that he's paying homage to movies left and right, what you have is a unique interpretation of the classic tale of the conflicted warrior, who's stronger and more powerful than anyone else, but who ends up sensing the ultimate emptiness of that way of life. On the surface, it's just a revenge epic, but in the end, getting that revenge is bittersweet, and it isn't really about how many people you kill and in what cool ways you killed them, it's about turning your back on that old life and embracing another, more meaningful, but less exciting existance. I think that what makes the film really good is that it works on multiple levels. If all you want to do is go and laugh along with the film references (or if that's all you're capable of noticing) than you'll be entertained, but if you want to look beneath the surface and look beyond the jokes, there is more there. I think that you, and the Salon reviewer, got so caught up in Tarantino's homages to other films that you completely missed that there really is a lot more there.

All dubbing aside, you have to admit that the beard swipe was hilarious. I can imagine everything else in that sequence being taken seriously - in fact, I took it seriously longer than anyone else in the theater (most people seemed to view the movie as one long yuk-fest). Yet when the beard swipe is repeated over and over, I'm thinking...undeniable humorous intent.

One long pointless homage? Even as such, it's miles above any of the Hollywood trash that they previewed beforehand.

And if you pay attention to the dialogue, there's actually some serious characterization going on. Stay tuned for my post, after this hellish week of academics.

i saw kill bill Vol. 2 with a big group of people--most of whom, had never seen any of the kung fu flicks or spagetti westerns that Tarrantino was referencing. For the most part, they loved it. they thought the film was incredible in its own right.

this to say, it seems to me, poor and misguied criticism to reduce Kill Bill to nothing but "references and homages". Sure, the homages are all over the place, but the film never seems to suffer from them. Somehow, Tarrantino avoids coming off as gimicky (i.e. austin powers). In fact, i would argue that Kill Bill, even [steven] for all of its glaring throwbacks, has a distinctly tarrantino ethos about it.

Lets back track. damn! So far, so good. resevoir dogs, pulp fiction, jackie brown, kill bill...and six more to come (i do believe). the record is perfect, and i trust, the record will be perfect.

Six more to come? And then what? Does Tarantino know the day of his death or something?

Since I'm not sure how to use trackback... I continue the discussion on mine. Down with Tarantino. Up the Rydog.