Quentin Tarantino on Bill’s Killer Camerawork
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| “The hardest thing was simply capturing the movie I had in my head, which was as good as any action sequence I’ve seen in my life.” |
We didn’t really change the film stocks that much in Vol. 1. We did that in Vol. 2, big time, where the whole opening sequence is in high-contrast black-and-white. The black-and-white that’s in Vol. 1, I wanted to do it on color stock so we could take the color out, as it stays in color for the Asian market and goes to black-and-white for Europe and America. I thought that’d be fun for the DVD later. So we just changed the looks all the time. I wanted the movie to be anamorphic but without using anamorphic lenses, as it’d be hard to hold the focus on stuff. So when Uma does a cool kick right, I don’t want to have to reshoot because it’s soft. I wanted to capture it all, with an anamorphic look, so then you have to shoot Super 35 and do this optical squeeze. I did that on Reservoir Dogs, and I hated the look. Then Bob said, “If we do it with a digital negative and then go to film, then you won’t have any degradation. Everything is an optical when you look at it later.” I can’t believe I’m singing the praises of this crap, as I hated it through the entire process, but now at release time I’m getting the benefit! Because normally you’d have your IP, do your negative, and maybe you strike four prints from that negative, and those are your show prints. After that, everything else is a generation down, and that’s what goes out. But with digital negatives you can make 80 or even 120 show prints from that one negative.
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F&V: You shot this in Japan and China as well as L.A. Wasn’t that difficult?
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| “Even though it’s all fighting, the story continues to be told through the action.” |
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| “I wanted an anamorphic look — shoot Super 35 and do this optical squeeze.” |
Oh yeah, that was so much fun. I’d had a little experience with animation before in that I helped design the animated opening for Four Rooms and what was really cool about that was that I did it with Chuck Jones. Bob Kurtz directed it and did the animation on it, and I still think that that is one of the most effective pieces of the movie. So for this one, I didn’t want to just write a script and hand it to a production guy and say, “Okay, take it and make it.” No, no, this is important to me and I want to have the fun of doing anime and I love anime, but I can’t do storyboards because I can’t really draw and that’s what they live and die on. So, what I did is that I took a script and I wrote it exactly, shot for shot, because it’s all about shots. Every visual connected with this and this and this. So, I wrote a big, long, detailed script broken down into shots like you would do with a storyboard. Then, I got together with the animators at Production IG, one of Japan’s top animation companies, and then proceeded in six hours to act out all of the cartoon. I was like, “Here are all of the shots,” and I acted out each of the shots. “She’s hanging on this, a tear drops down, and the blood,” and so on. Then they went away, did the storyboards, gave them back to me, and I went, “Okay, I like this. I don’t like this. That’s not really what I meant with this.” And so they fixed that, and once the storyboards are done, they go off and do it.
F&V: There are surprisingly few digital effects in the film.
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| “I wasn’t leaving till I had the kung fu version of the ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’ sequence.” |
F&V: The House of Blue Leaves sequence is a pure action tour de force. Can you talk about how you approach a sequence like that?
I’ve always considered action directors to be the most cinematic. When it comes to a great action sequence, that’s pure cinema. That’s cinema in its purest form, although there may be other directors who get more resonance and depth of feeling and behaviour and whatever. So when it comes down to pure cinema for me, it’s a beautifully done action sequence. And I’m arrogant, man! So when I throw my hat in the ring, I want to be right up there with all the big boys. So I wasn’t going to leave till I was satisfied, till I had the kung fu version of the Apocalypse Now “Ride of the Valkyrie” helicopter sequence, alright? So I was rather hard to please. It was also tough to write, as I knew I had to capture it more or less completely on the page. Since I’d never done this before, I didn’t want to bring fight choreographers and everything in and they come up with it all and I’m just left in the dust. I had to figure out and see the fight before I brought other people in. I wanted to be able to go to Yuen Wo-Ping (the film’s martial arts adviser) and say, “This is the fight. I want you to make it better and build on it, but this is what we’re doing.’ And I wanted it to be organic, not just jumping from moment to moment, and what I like about it, even though it’s all fighting, is that the story continues to be told through the action.
F&V: This is the fifth film you’ve done with editor Sally Menke. How does that relationship work?
She does an assembly while we shoot. We began on a Kem on Reservoir Dogs, moved to Lightworks for Pulp Fiction, and then to Avid. She’s my real, truest collaborator, as I’ve always thought of editing as the same as writing. Your final draft of the script is your first cut of the film, and your final cut is the last draft of the script. So it’s like having a writing partner, and the great thing about Sally is that it’s a seamless collaboration. I don’t remember what she did, or if it was her idea or mine — it just all blends together. And she’s so good that I feel obliged to keep her in the dark during shooting, for fear that she’ll just cut the whole fuckin’ movie while I’m still shooting, and I’ll come back and no longer be needed. I’m not being polite! That’s the truth. So I don’t watch dailies with her. In fact, I don’t really watch dailies much at all — maybe just the first few weeks. I’ve gradually been cutting it down, so I didn’t watch dailies on this one at all. So I don’t tell her to look for any specific takes. I give her no guidance. I just give her the footage, and let her soak it in and find her own way.
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