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Originally Posted by Severian
Hmm. Really?
I can't relate. Kill Bill was a whole different kind of movie than any of his previous films, and by comparison it's extremely campy and at times outright dumb. But it's supposed to be, so I can't imagine seeing it as a failure.
Tarantino has always been big into genre-hopping. Making films within certain archetypal molds, and putting his stamp on them — which often means blowing them to hell in one way or another. He's done this with mob films, and westerns and war films and noir films and Blacksploitation films. He was already about this shit before Kill Bill, but Kill Bill sent him into overdrive with it.
I think Kill Bill is Tarantino's superhero epic. But because he's Tarantino, he did it in a really weird ass way, and made sure to accentuate the absurdity at every angle. The polar opposite of Christopher Nolan doing Batman, and elevating the production and experience and acting and everything. Tarantino didn't bring the hero's journey to his "high art" level; he got down and wallowed in the muck with all the corny tropes he could find.
What strikes me most about Kill Bill is a.) how much fucking fun it is! and b.) how it manages to actually achieve some genuine, emotionally powerful moments amid all the insane bullshit.
I just love Kill Bill, and I may be totally out of my mind for feeling this way, but I think it's actually my second favorite Tarantino movie. It's just a blast... until, of course, it gets uncomfortably dark and people start getting buried alive and whatnot.
Also, remember, Jackie Brown was a FLOP. It was and is a great movie, and an excellent follow-up to Pulp Fiction, but most people didn't get that at the time. It was a disappointment to people who thought he was going to be some kind of slacker Scorsese. If you'll remember, after the release of Jackie Brown and in the subsequent years, he was frequently discussed kind of an M. Night Shamalamadingdong (circa... well, everything after Unbreakable) kind of way.
He felt he needed to win back some fans, so he made a big stunner.
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Fair enough. I just think that was the moment where he kind of stopped evolving. Jackie Brown seemed to me like the point where he was really maturing. Able to make a film about actual people, rather than mere quoters of Tarantino-speak. I wouldn't call it a flop, I just think he bottled it because it didn't do as well as expected and he's played it safe (in terms of audience expectation) ever since. Compare the comfort zone
he works in with someone like PT Anderson, who could've just as easily settled on churning out box-office and fan friendly variations on Boogie Nights but has instead chosen to take some real risks. Kill Bill for me is just the start of Tarantino becoming a brand rather than a filmmaker. And an increasingly tired brand, at that.