KILL BILL AND THE GLORIFICATION OF VIOLENCE IN CINEMA

Originally published in 2003.

I recently saw the highly anticipated release of Kill Bill: Volume 1, Tarantino's 6th directorial effort; and not only was I thoroughly disappointed, I was completely horrified and perturbed. Not so much by the film's content, but mainly because this mess of a movie has been so well received by critics and audiences alike. “Horrified” may be a bit of an overstatement, but I was definitely perturbed. Of all Tarantino's work, this is my least favourite and the only one of his films I cannot recommend for reasons I will outline in the following.

What I usually like about Tarantino is his superb gift for scripting dialogue and the fact that his films, for the most part, are really about nothing except Tarantino's own love of the cinema. Indeed, Tarantino loves to play with the medium of film so much, that all his movies are really about his great affection for the films that have influenced him. His 1994 classic, Pulp Fiction, is really his homage to some of his favourite film influences. Like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill is also an homage, an affectionate homage to one of his favourite movie genres: excessively violent, over the top, Japanese revenge films. Thus Kill Bill is meant to be nothing more than Tarantino paying tribute to that genre by playing with the medium. In most cases, this is fine because Tarantino's play typically results in great fun and entertainment for the audience – but not this time around.

If there’s one thing I despise in certain movies, it’s those occasions when a film masks its true intention. Kill Bill pretends to be a film about nothing more than Tarantino's homage to violent Japanese revenge films. However, Kill Bill is really making a very powerful and dangerous statement in the process: the statement that violence is funny and that violence is entertaining. This is a problem I have with some of Tarantino's previous work, including Pulp Fiction. The danger with Tarantino is that he’s completely irresponsible with his use of violence in cinema. With Tarantino, violence is presented as an end itself because to him violence is intrinsically funny and intrinsically entertaining. Violence is not used to make a point or serve the story – violence is the point and is the story. In Kill Bill even sexual assault and rape are presented as comedy, as entertainment.

And yes, people say ‘well it's not meant to be taken seriously' which is indeed true. The violence in Kill Bill is so over the top and excessive, that it's clearly not meant to be taken seriously. But it's still violence and it's still being presented as entertainment. No matter how exaggerated, we still see people being decapitated and losing limbs all for the sake of a laugh. Now I've seen films that are more violent, but this is the first time I can remember seeing such a mainstream film so completely devoted to violence for violence's sake. True, many Hollywood action films could also be categorized as such, and true, a lot of them present violence as entertainment; but usually there’s no pretense on their part to mask their intention under the guise of high art; and usually there is some attempt, no matter how weak, to subject the violence to some kind of story, or at least some kind of plot. In Kill Bill there’s no such attempt. If Hollywood films are analogous to soft-core porn violence, Kill Bill is definitely hard-core porn violence. Indeed, just like a hard-core porn film, in its depiction of violence, Kill Bill is very graphic, completely ludicrous and completely devoid of any real plot.

And worse, it's all under the pretense of high art – “isn't Tarantino clever in the way he satirizes and makes references to other films in Kill Bill." Whatever. It's more like “Isn't Tarantino clever in the way he automatically elicits rave reviews for films that are nothing more than complete porn violence.” True, Tarantino may be breaking new ground, but it's only new in terms of the film's utter and complete devotion to violence for violence's sake. My rule of thumb when it comes to violence (and sex for that matter) in film is that any use of it is justified if that use (in terms of both form and content) serves the story – if it doesn't, then the violence and sex are completely gratuitous and exploitative. Kill Bill is like two hours of The Simpsons’ own Itchy and Scratchy on steriods, except that with Kill Bill there's absolutely no point but to amuse the filmmaker and to glorify violence. With Itchy and Scratchy the creators of The Simpsons are really commenting on the fact that our culture finds such excessive violence entertaining. With Kill Bill, there’s no such point, no such commentary, except to say that such excessive violence is entertaining.

Some people argue that artists have no moral responsibility. Their art is simply a means of self-expression and should be received as such. I disagree, because that would justify every irresponsible use of violence in cinema. Film is an art form that's meant to be shared with an audience, a community, a culture. If film art is purely for the filmmaker, then only he or she should see it and the rest of us shouldn't be subjected to it.

As I stated earlier, I have seen films which are just as violent or even more violent, but in many of those cases, the violence is used responsibly to serve the story and/or as social commentary. Take Arthur Penn's 1967 classic Bonnie and Clyde, which was initially panned by many critics for its excessive violence. Today it's almost universally hailed as a masterpiece, and looking back, it's clear that the director was making a brilliant and insightful commentary on guns and crime in America. In Bonnie and Clyde, the violence is used responsibly to comment on a culture that makes it all too easy to fall into a life of crime.

There have been many other groundbreaking films in terms of violence, some of them responsible, some of them not so responsible. Take for instance Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Psycho (1960). This is probably one of Hitchcock’s most irresponsible uses of violence, because this was really the start of the modern day slasher film that makes violence a form of entertainment. The violence was shocking and excessive for its time, but with Hitchcock the violence is usually secondary to the story – even if that story is a completely pointless and unnecessary one about a serial killer. And, like most of Hitchock's work, Psycho is laced with some thought provoking, philosophical undercurrents. And, although violence is used to contribute to the film's entertainment value, the violence is not entertaining in and of itself.

Then, there's 1969's The Wild Bunch – a film that injected a heightened sense of realism into that great American film genre/tradition ‘the western.’ Here is a situation where the graphic realism doesn't glorify the violence, but makes it that much more disturbing and so, for the most part, the violence is used responsibly – de-romanticizing westerns by being more truthful with regards to the look and the consequences of violence.

Jump ahead a couple of years and we have Stanley Kubrick's 1971 social thriller A Clock Work Orange. Although I think that Kubrick crosses the line here and delves into “the glorification of violence” territory by showing far more violence than needed to make his point, still, he was at least trying to make a point by exploring some philosophical and social issues, so that the violence in Orange is to some extent, in service of the story. In addition, the violence, in and of itself, is certainly not entertaining, but rather deeply traumatic and disturbing.

A year later, came the debut of one of the most highly acclaimed films of all time, Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of The Godfather. Here, North American audiences were introduced to a more sophisticated representation of mob violence in cinema. Although I do think the mob is glorified in The Godfather, I don't believe the violence of the mob itself is glorified. And I also think that the violence in Godfather is certainly in service to the story and not the other way around.

Then, Martin Scorsese showed us a frightening look at urban violence in his classic 1976 film Taxi Driver. Scorsese’s approach is so completely detached when he represents his subjects on film that you're not sure if he's arguing for or against the behaviour he depicts on screen. This is has some inherent dangers, but with Scorsese, violence is never used as an end in itself, it's always used to serve the story, to reveal character, and to explore social issues.

1979 gave us another Coppola classic with Apocalypse Now, the best war film of all time – a film that some believe glorifies violence in war. But I argue that it's completely the opposite. The entire experience of the film is like a tour through hell, which is exactly what the Vietnam War was. The use of violence here is justified in that it's a disturbing reflection of the horror of war. Here, the medium becomes the message – i.e. the experience of the film is hell, because war is hell.

In 1990, Scorsese gave us his classic mob film Goodfellas, which I like to call the anti-Godfather. For whereas The Godfather glorified the mob, presenting them as sympathetic characters, Scorsese doesn’t glorify them, but presents the characters as they truly are. The violence here surpasses anything in Godfather, but again the violence is always in service to something greater – it is never violence for violence's sake. Here, it is used responsibly to give an accurate and detached depiction of the mob and mob violence.

Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece Schindler's List is one of the most perfect examples of the responsible and effective use of violence in film history. Here Spielberg does justice to the most violent chapter of the twentieth century by accurately representing the horror, the evil and the violence of the Holocaust. With great respect for a subject matter whose immensity is largely un-representable, Spielberg provides one of the most shockingly realistic depictions of violence in movie history. Just like Scorsese and Coppola infused a new level of violence into mob films, Spielberg infused a new level of violence into Holocaust films. Here, the violence is never exploitative, but is truly as horrific, as frightening and as disturbing as it should be.

In the following year, Oliver Stone gave us Natural Born Killers (1994) – one of the most irresponsible uses of violence in cinema history. It should come as no surprise that Tarantino co-wrote the script, because here we have a classic example of a film masking it's complete and utter glorification of violence under the pretense that it's really an anti-violence film – a film commenting on violence in the media. Well, the truth is I got the point after the first twenty minutes. The rest of the film is a pure celebration of violence under the guise of social commentary. So much so, that it is the one of the worst perpetrators in film history of the very thing it claims to be arguing against: the glorification of violence in the media.

Leaping back to the present, apart from my serious concerns about the level and use of violence in Kill Bill, the film simply doesn't work. The movie has a promising start with the Uma Thurman character (The Bride/Black Mamba) exacting revenge on the Vivica A. Fox character for her part in the slaughter that took place at Black Mamba's wedding. This scene is quite funny and effective. But then the rest of the movie doesn’t live up to that promise and the film increasingly gets worse and worse.

To begin with, the movie satirizes genres that pretty much satirize themselves. I think I would've laughed a lot more by actually watching one of those films that Tarantino is labouring so desperately to satirize. Which brings me to my next point – that most of the satire feels forced, awkward, laboured and completely flat. And maybe some of the film references are very clever, but you have to be either a real film geek or a real fan of that genre to appreciate any of them.

Second, the visuals and action sequences are completely overrated. There's nothing here that I haven't seen done better in other movies, including (if you can believe it) Charlie's Angels II: Full Throttle, an extremely underrated film and a much more effective satire. And since the visuals and action sequences in Kill Bill are completely unspectacular and the satire completely unfunny, you're left with very little to sustain your interest since there's absolutely no plot to speak of. There isn't even much of the clever, trademark, Tarantino dialogue to keep you entertained throughout – so that, by the end of the second act, I was completely bored.

Third, Uma Thurman is good, but I'm not sure she's the right choice for this role. Something about her performance lacks the fire and intensity that the role required. I think the gifted Lucy Liu would've been a better choice for the lead character.

The bottom line: Tarantino is an extremely gifted filmmaker with a dangerous habit of turning violence into comedy. Kill Bill is the only film he's directed that I cannot recommend, not only for its excessive and irresponsible use of violence, but for the fact that it simply fails on almost every other level. It fails as an action comedy, it fails as a satire, and it bored me to tears. I think one of the only reasons it's getting such good reviews is simply because Tarantino made it. And if you're a critic, you have to like and respect anything Tarantino does. I'm not saying that's the whole story, but I'm sure that's part of it. As for me, I'm not buying it. But I'm very sorry I paid to see it.

On the Rickter-Scale KILL BILL VOLUME 1 rates a 2.0 out of 10.

Post Script:

I reluctantly saw the second installment recently, Kill Bill: Volume 2 and I absolutely loved it. It’s everything the first one isn’t. In fact I think it’s the best film of 2004. More to follow later in an upcoming blog. Until then, blog on.

THE RICKTER-SCALE:
10 (A+) – extraordinary, a masterpiece
9.5/9.0 (A) – exceptional, a milestone
8.5/8.0 (A-) – excellent, a classic
7.5/7.0 (B+) – very good, a near classic
6.5/6.0 (B) – good
5.5/5.0 (B-) – fair
4.5/4.0 (C+) – poor
3.5/3.0 (C) – very poor, a near disaster
2.5/2.0 (C-) – terrible, a total disaster
1.5/1.0 (D+) – torture, a catastrophe
0.5/0.0 (F) – abysmal, the end of film as an art form