Quentin Tarantino on Bill’s Killer Camerawork
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F&V: Matching Kill Bill’s wild visual style is an equally wild soundtrack. How important is audio to you?
It’s crucial in all my films and I think this is the best mix I’ve ever had. It was done at Todd-AO, Santa Monica, by the great Mike Minkler who won the Oscar for Black Hawk Down. At the same time, I’m not precious about sound as I know it’s the first thing to go in a normal theatre — and that’s just in the U.S. Go and see your movie in Portugal or Brazil, with drive-in speakers. That’s reality.
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F&V: When you had to cut the film into two parts, did that affect the dramatic structure?
I guess that it did because this part is just about the good-time, fun, movie-movie aspect of the movie, and the second one will be the deeper exploration of it. Vol. 2’s still pretty fucking violent, but there’s not a 14-minute sequence there. One of the big differences between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 is that if you remember Sonny Chiba’s little speech that he gives at the very, very end where he goes, “Revenge is never a straight line, it’s a forest. It’s easy to get lost and forget where you came in.” Well, Vol. 1 is the straight line. Vol. 2 is the forest. Now, human stuff starts getting in too. Now, it’s not just killing them all the way down the list and it gets more complicated, it gets complex now. It’s not quite as easy.
F&V: Looking back, do you feel the huge success of Pulp Fiction was a double-edged sword?
Look, I’m really fortunate. Pulp Fiction did so well I don’t have to work for the rest of my life. But that’s interesting, as on the one hand I could say, “I wish Pulp Fiction had done worse so I’d have to work more.” You’d be forced to, and even if you had to take a studio job, it’d be interesting to see how you’d tackle it and twist it and make it yours. I have to tell you, there are definitely directors out there where their stuff I don’t like is the stuff they care about, and the films that are really fun are the ones they were forced to take and tame and make work for them. But I don’t look at it that way for me at all. I want every movie I do to mean everything to me! When I did Reservoir Dogs I would have died for it, to get a shot off, alright? If I was asking someone to risk life and limb, I’d have laid down next to them, so if the car runs over the cameraman it’s going to run over me too. And it was all good as we’re being passionate artists. And I feel that way about Kill Bill. And I want to feel that way about the last film I do. I don’t want to make a film to pay for my pool or the fuckin’ house in Barbados. I don’t want to do that and work for a living. When I’m there I want everyone to know that I’m meant to be there, man, and it’s the most important thing in my life.
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| The 5.6.7.8’s kick off the showcase Steadicam shot |
In the House of Blue Leaves
The scene where The Bride arrives at the House of Blue Leaves includes a tour de force four-minute-long Steadicam shot. “It introduces the audience to the layout of the place in a very visual way,” says Tarantino.
Planning:
Production designer Yohei Tanada began by building a giant model of the set “so I could play around with camera moves,” says Tarantino. “There were no storyboards, just me acting it all out. One of the great things about Bob Richardson is that he's also his own cameraman, and he worked closely with gaffer Ian Kincaid to light it all. Then we got Larry McConkey, probably the greatest Steadicam guy in the world. And I wanted to introduce the House of Blue Leaves in a big way. I didn’t know how to do it, but I worked it all out and explained it to Bob who said, ‘It’s going to be tough' and who then explained it to Larry; ‘You follow Uma across this rice-paper wall, rise up and go above her head....’ And Larry was like, ‘Fine, but how the hell are we going to rise above her head?’”
Logistics:
Key grip Herb Alt designed a rig to execute the shot. “The shot starts off on the back of the girl band, and the girl’s twitching ass takes us to the stairway where we see Uma’s feet coming down,” Tarantino explains. “As Uma walks across and turns the corner, a rig just like a ski lift for one is lowered down and Larry is put in the chair, a belt is wrapped around him and he's lifted up over her and then turned so he’s hanging over her now. Then he lowers down into the bathroom, steps out of the chair and follows Uma into the stall. Cue the light change, a little Coppola scrim action happens, and then an extra takes us through to this other woman who takes us out the door. Then we hear the voice of Charlie Brown, the owner, and follow them back into the restaurant and up a ramp for the close-up of the drummer. While that's happening, a wall’s moved and a crane’s moved into the dance area. So as he lands on the close-up, he’s sitting down into the crane, and on cue swings up to see Sophie walking down, and then just silently floats up to her on the crane. Then he follows her down the stairs and through the dancers. Meanwhile, we have to move the drummer back into her place so that when we pass by the stage, she’s right where she was before. Then we follow Sophie through the hallway and, on cue, Larry steps off the crane and follows her into the bathroom — which ends the whole shot.”
Execution:
”We knew this one shot’d take all day, but we didn’t even get the first half done in rehearsal till 4 p.m. By 6 p.m., we managed to stumble through it once without totally screwing it up. By 9 p.m. we were ready to go for it, and in the end we kept take 13 — that was the winner.”
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