Section1 - Question2
What special technique or special effects made this film different from other films?
Kill bill 1
Kill bill 1 was directed by Quentin Tarantino. In Kill Bill special movie technique can be viewed as the method Tarantino puts completely different genres together. These genres can be viewed as exploitation films, anime, kung fu and samurai films. A common Tarantino trait viewed in his movies is how he mixes these genres together then adds pop culture references, infamous dialogue and violence. This is seen to be different compared to other movies as these genres are usually played by themselves. For example fights scene where special effects of blood gore, blood splatter and violence were presented in a cartoonist manner.
This is different compared to other martial arts or Kung Fu films as most of these will show a more realistic violence. Kill bill cartoonist technique shows flying and spurting of blood obviously fake, so it was really not representing real suffering and death. But interesting how every time Uma swung her sword after killing people you could hear the blood splatter coming off.
A special effect still staying within the cartoonish area and now introducing anime techniques is the method Kill Bill shows flashbacks as an animation comic. These techniques used in the animation showed a different kind of violence. Within animation a more graphic violence can be shown to viewers such as rape, murder and other gruesome violence that cannot show in real life scenes. Therefore within the animation section of the flash back kill bill was able to show the gruesome past of one of the main casts and then relate it to the present for that character.
Another important technique used is the use of black and white filming. The special effect brought from the black and white filming is usually seen in samurai movies where it shows a different kind of gore. Techniques in black and white filming are not commonly used in films today as they cause movies to have a more historical aspect. For kill bill this is the complete opposite. During the movie when scenes turned black and white, this was used to allow fighting scenes that show large amount of gore and blood to be toned down. With the removal of such colors as blood red and blood stains all over the place allowed the movie to stay as a fighting style martial art movie without pushing over into a horror movie genre.
A common technique used in the movie is the use of nonlinear narrative. Nonlinear narrative keeps the events of the story out of chronological order and introduces different aspects of the film. This can be viewed as a technique that is not commonly used due the fact that for most movie viewers when there is no order in the movie they get confused on what is happening in the movie. This technique allowed the viewers to not come with up assumptions on what is going to happen later in the movie. This again is different to other movies as the narration of the movie is ongoing but in Kill Bill the narration is very stop start where certain scenes the narration is more eye of god then changes to first person.
During the movie an interesting special effect of camera angle and view played an important part of the movie. In a lot of the scenes the camera view is upward facing. This effect brought the feeling that the person in the shot is in power or an important character. The upward facing camera view on dieing characters was just as important. This is because when the camera movie showed dieing characters with this style it represented the importance of the character death and allows the viewer to understand the movie in greater detail. This is different to other movies as most movies keep the main characters above lower characters and characters that are killed are usually always kept at a lower importance then those that are alive.
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Section1 - Question2
Provide a detailed analysis of one scene from this movie
Kill bill 1
A detailed analysis will be provided of the fight scene played at the end of Kill Bill1. This scene is the final fight for the movie between the bride played by Uma Thurman and O-Ren Ishii which is played by Lucy Lui. The scene starts off with Uma positioning herself in a fighting stance while lucy shows respect by bowing and slowly draws out her sword. It still follows the general theme of the movie where all genres are played out in the single scene. These genres can be seen as exploitation films, anime, kung fu and samurai films. For example exploitation film is usually films that introduce and feature sensational violence, gore and mayhem and this scene introduces all these expectations. Firstly it’s a sword fight where both characters slash at each other where blood is dripping through clothes. Even though the bride is already covered in blood these attacks are placed in places where there is no blood, the back.
An interesting genre such as anime can also be seen even thought the scene is being played out in first person real life scenario. This can be seen as the random bamboo fountain which knocks every time there is a pause in the battle. This is interesting as it’s a common pause method that occurs in Japanese amines within a fight between warriors or important points.
Kung Fu is an important genre in this scene. This is because this scene plays honor to a movie that inspired Tarantino throughout the movie which comes from Bruce Lee’s final film, Game of Death. The biggest way this can play honor to Bruce Lee’s film is the yellow jump suit that is worn by Uma Thurman as this suit was similar to the one worn by Bruce Lee. Other aspect of this scene that go with common kung fu movies which is how the fight scene was longer then a normal martial art fight scene.
Lastly the main genre of this scene is how it follows an older style samurai film. This can be seen easily as it is a sword fight between two great warriors where fighters will start the showdown showing respect to the other fighter then start crossing swords. Similarly to samurai films each fighter will cause damage to the other character Uma first being slashed in the back then Lucy being slashed in the waist. Especially an interesting aspect is how when the bride was cut O-Ren would gloat about her superiority over the bride. Another interesting point to bring up that is common in samurai films is the method the fighter swing there sword. For example the in many sword movies fighters would show more stabbing movement when they fight are finish the battle with a single stab the body but in this scene fighters stay with the samurai film genre by slashing at each other.
The color and contrast is an important to talk about in this scene. Firstly O-Ren is wearing a completely white kimono which matches the background while the bride is wearing a yellow jump suit that stands out. This can also be represented by how the fighter acts during the scene. White usually tends to represent safety, purity, and cleanliness which are the opposite sensation. O-Ren is showing a more dangerous and overconfident expression whereas yellow usually tends to represent a joyful and again the opposite sensation is being shown. On the bride the feeling of anger and disgust come from the character. The main contrast is the effect the blood has on the white snow and the kimono. As being white it stands out well and emphasizes the gore the movie is trying to stay with.
The scene ends with a single slash done by the bride where O-Ren’s head top is cut off which completes the long battle.
References
- TNMC,2003, Kill Bill, Volume 1, viewed 1/6/2010, <>
- Morethings, 2004, KILL BILL, VOLUMES I&II , viewed 1/6/2010,
- IMDB,2003, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 , viewed 2/6/2010,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266697/
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