I was working on Arrested Development the day Kill Bill Vol. 1 opened in theaters. The 1st Assistant Director prepping the next episode came to stage and found me. With an enormous smile plastered on his face when he told me he just got back from watching Kill Bill. I asked, “and…?”. He simply pointed to that smile.
It had been a long five years since Jackie Brown and one key element that was still missing from the director’s abilities was a visual style that matched the flashy/trashy films he loved to talk about. Kill Bill is the first collaboration with D.P. Robert Richardson and it’s all killer, no filler. A film so packed with cinematic technique; it now comes off as his most shallow feature.
Vol. 1 is the style and Vol. 2 is the substance. There is a definite change of tone and while there’s growth from what came before, Tarantino would get better are smoothing out the cool bits from the moments that deepen his characters. That doesn’t make this double feature “lesser” Tarantino. It’s entertaining to hell and back and an interesting midpoint in his career.
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