Nutthapong Tancharoen

Student number: s3339515

Dr Chris Barker

Reflective Practice and Exegesis (COMM2350)

12 June 2014

Finding Tarantino’s Style: Extending the Tropes of Crime Fiction Through “ Pulp Fiction”

and Oriental Martial Art Through “Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2”

Abstract

Quentin Tarantino is the director who created Pulp Fiction (Tarantino 1994), which is

influenced by crime fiction. This research paper will examine some of the crime fiction

references in Pulp Fiction, especially focusing on Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction and

Transgressor Narratives (Messent), and also extending the tropes through his other works,

particularly Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 (Tarantino 2003,2004), which were inspired by oriental

martial arts films from Hong Kong and Japan (Tarantino, Quentin and Gerald Peary). Further

more, this research paper will find and analyse his method. Thus, Crime fiction leads to a

postmodern crime movie (Mason, 160) with glorification of violence in the relation of

postmodern culture (Leitch, 118). I will show ways in which Quentin Tarantino mixed

different specific genres to create a new film style.

Introduction

Quentin Tarantino has incorporated a lot of ideas influenced by crime fiction and oriental

martial art films into Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 respectively. I will examine

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Tarantino’s method for harmonizing these influences, in the invention of his films, in a way

that communicates to modern audiences. Therefore, this research paper will present the tropes

of crime fiction seen to be present in Pulp Fiction and the tropes of oriental martial arts films

in Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2. To sum up, Tarantino’s brand style is one where he reinvents

recognised cinematic languages by the mixing and matching of the cinematic tropes in a way

that reflects popular culture (Leitch, 118) in postmodern film (Mason, 160). This exegesis

will be of interest to those who wish to adapt and use the ideas from their own cinematic

sources of inspiration to create their unique work.

Key words: Pulp fiction, Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill, non-linear storyline, crime fiction,

martial art film, violence

Table of Contents

I. Definition Of Crime Fiction

A. Types Of Crime Fiction as defined by (Messent)

1.Classical Detective Fiction

2.Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction

3.The Police Novel

4.Transgressor Narratives

II. Tropes Of Crime Fiction Seen in Tarantino’s in Pulp Fiction by (Tarantino, Quentin and

Gerald Peary)

A. The inspiration of Charles Willeford’s Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction about real

dimension of characters and sense of humour (Tarantino, Quentin and Gerald Peary)

B. The development of characters in relation between gangster and film noir (Mason, 160)

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C. Tarantino’s strategies of humour in violence by referencing in Miami Blues (Charles

Willeford 1984)

D. Referencing of a group of fictional characters from J.D Salinger’s Nine Stories (J. D.

Salinger 1953) creates Tarantino’s non-linear story line (Tarantino, Quentin and Gerald

Peary)

E. Tarantino’s non-linear story line and philosophy of time (Greene, Richard, Mohammad

and K. Silem)

F. Tarantino’s overlapping between literary noir, Hard-Boiled Detective fiction and

Transgressor Narratives (Tarantino, Quentin and Gerald Peary)

III. Showing How Tarantino Extends The Tropes of Crime Fiction and Oriental Martial Art

Films Through Kill Bill vol.1 and vol.2

A. The oriental martial art inspiration result in Kill Bill vol. 1 and vol. 2

1. The blueprint of Kill Bill is Lady Snowblood (Fujita1973), which featured

swordplay and a female protagonist

2. The influential of oriental former stars of martial arts films that come back to

reprise characters that fans associate them with, in Tarantino films

3.Japanese anime style (Production I.G) is used in the origin of O-Ren Ishii sequence

4.Starting point of bringing martial arts to Western by The Silent Flute (Moore 1978)

5.Analyzing of morality in the protagonist of Kill Bill’s anti-hero (Messent) by

utilitarianism and consideration of moral revenge (Greene, Richard, Mohammad, K. Silem

75)

B. Some of European revenge films’ inspiration also refers in Kill Bill vol. 1 and vol. 2

IV. Conclusions

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A. Crime fiction leads to a modern crime movie with glorification of violence in urban

life

B. Mixing and matching genre leads to postmodern gangster film (Mason, 160) in post

modern culture (Leitch, 118)

C. The motif of Tarantino’s style leads to good archetype for people who wish to adapt

their idea to create their unique work

Background

I will cover Peter Messent’s definitions of the different types of crime fictions in order to

know the general meaning of this kind of novel and narrative, which is used by Quentin

Tarantino in his work. Therefore, According to The Crime Fiction Handbook Peter Messent,

he argues that a lot of detective fictions belong to the main genre of crime fiction, a literary

genre dating back to the19th century in America and England that represents elements of

cultures from past time until the present time, also containing historical, sociological and

psychological contexts; the most well-known is Doyle’s work of Sherlock Holmes (1902). In

terms of the content, tends to be so much blood, sexual abuse and torture, often exhibited

with an unidentified desire for violence in the killers. The important factors that will mostly

inform the themes of crime fiction: urban life, institutional frameworks, economic factors that

impact people’s lives and policing. Social issues of the day are usually conveyed by crime

fiction in a writing style that usually let’s the readers get involved with that situation. There

are types of crime fiction that Classical Detective Fiction, Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction, The

Police Novel and Transgressor Narratives (Messent 3).

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In terms of, Quentin Tarantino: Interviews Quentin Tarantino and Gerald Peary, Tarantino

claims that Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction is close to his work a lot (49). So, According to

The Crime Fiction Handbook Peter Messent, Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction really came from

America and often uses American native language in the novel with less of feeling and

emotion. In the context can be seen apparently about anxious situation of crime, capitalism in

the society and life style in the city. Regarding of detectives that they are more professional

rather than amateur, strong, always carry guns and focus on redemption. They may often say

rude words but it contains with a full of modern metaphor. In addition, because of social

problems, they want to make a better society. In contrast, the readers can feel about

widespread violence, raw human sexual activity, and romantic or homosexual moment in side

this type of crime fiction (36-40).

Transgressor Narratives is the closet to Tarantino’s works that the novels do not focus much

on detective. However, they focus on gangsters, mafias, pimps and prostitutes. There are

good example of gangster and Mafia novels inside Transgressor Narratives such as “W. R.

Burnett’s Little Caesar (1929) through Paul Cain’s Fast One (1933) to Mario Puzo’s The

Godfather (1969) to Pimp: The Story of My Life (1969)” (51). In addition, It can be seen the

relationship between ordinary American African and pimping and drug selling in this kind of

crime fiction as well. They also keep the style of dialogue with native languages in narrative

structure. For example. “Cain’s 1934 novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice” (51) shows

that

“They threw me off the hay truck about noon. . . . [T]hey saw a foot sticking out and threw me

off. I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a dead pan, so that gag was out. They gave me

a cigarette, though, and I hiked down the road to find something to eat.

That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern.” (51).

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the dialogue which is focused on reality and behavior of characters by first person telling

with native language. Similarly, literary noirs have the context about main characters, which

are not detectives, but they might be victims, suspects and so on. It is overlapping between

literary noirs and Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction inside Transgressor Narratives. The areas of

context still contain with social problems and just put more ideological characters. In terms

of, protagonists, they usually have imperfect personalities. For example, raw motivation,

impetuosity, hairbreadth, betrayal, insuperable opportunities and sadness. This crime fiction

is “the most shocking form” and still can be seen a lot of “explicit violence and sexuality” for

example, the character as Hannibal Lecture from Red Dragon 1981 (50-59).

Design of Work

Showing the Tropes of Crime Fiction By Tarantino in Pulp Fiction

This section will show the tropes of crime fiction that occur in readings of Pulp Fiction, in

order to investigate how he adapts crime fiction’s inspiration into his films. Firstly, Quentin

Tarantino, as filmmaker, covered many roles: director, actor, screenwriter and producer. He

used to work at video rental shop during training about acting performance. My Best Friend's

Birthday was the first film directed by Tarantino in 1987. After that he became an

independent filmmaker with Reservoir Dogs in 1992, which received many good critical

reviews. The ‘golden’ time of his work arrived with the release of Pulp Fiction, which is, to

date, the most successful of his work in terms of both awards (Hollywood Network) and

commercial success (RENTAL TITLE EVER).

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In an interview with Gerald Peary, Tarantino said that Pulp Fiction has similarities with

Charles Willeford’s Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction, in terms of the realistic quality of the

characters’ behaviour and dialogue (49), seen, for example, in the scene where the characters

of Vincent and Jules –on two hit man’s obligation- ride along in Jules’ car discussing fast

food stores in Europe. The dialogue shows a colloquial, which feels really natural and real to

the audience:

Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?

Jules: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?

Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.

Jules: Then what do they call it?

Vincent: They call it a Royale with cheese

Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?

Vincent: Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.

Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?

Vincent: I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.

In terms of the dialogues, Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction sometimes shows the inappropriate

words, but it represents about contemporary metaphor. In the same situations, Tarantino used

two hundred and eighty one times of fuck words in Pulp Fiction. For this example, this scene

when Jules and Vincent are in the room with Brett who steal mystery briefcase from Wallace,

When Jules is asking Brett about Wallace like,

Brett: He... he's black...

Jules: Go on...

Brett: He's bald

Jules: Does he look like a bitch?

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Brett: What?

Jules: [Shoots Brett in the shoulder] DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?

Brett: No!

Jules: Then why you try to fuck him like a bitch?

Brett: I didn't...

Jules: Yes you did. Yes you did! You tried to fuck him. And Marcellus Wallace don't like to be fucked by anybody except Mrs. Wallace.

It is shown that Brett does not really fuck Wallace. In contrast, it means that why Brett plays

or dares to steal the mystery briefcase from Wallace. Moreover, Berg mentions that the

Hollywood’s dialogue formula is around two or three minutes, that is a good length for

communicating in the cinematic language by letting the audiences feel appropriately about

the emotional moment. In contrast, Tarantino gave this chance for his characters that talk a

lot more than few minutes, and they often talk about pop culture, which is not related, with

the actual story of that scene. As a result, the audiences can feel about natural and real

dialogues. So, it means that he omits about the classical rule of character’s dialogues for

creating of sensitivity of reality.

Similarly, Tarantino also mentioned about Miami Blues (Willeford 1984) a crime novel book

from Willeford that contains content with criminal activities about pimps, prostitutes and

gangsters, and from this book he adapted by putting sense of humor from characters in novel

into Pulp Fiction by taking from daily life (58). Inside Transgressor Narratives, there are a lot

of gangsters content, according to American Gangster Cinema From "Little Caesar" to "Pulp

Fiction" Fran Mason, he argues that Pulp Fiction can be called the gangster genre within

American popular culture by representing the images from 1970s. One of the obvious

examples is that when Jules and Vincent killed Marvin accidentally and they had to change

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their cloths from iconic black suits to be un-iconic beach wear as ordinary people. It is

different from of the traditional gangster code because it is postmodern gangster; due to they

live in postmodern context on an ordinary basis or have an alternative culture and sub-culture

of everyday American society (161-164).

Again, Miami Blues, there are scenes that Tarantino really like it, which is a man gets into a

pawn shop and stop alarm system. He takes money and valuable stuffs, is putting his hand on

the cashier counter when a woman who is owner the store with a knife and cuts his fingers.

He kills her, and runs out of the store in the street. Then, he thinks about the evidence that is

his fingers with his revealing identity. But, he cannot do that because of the door closing

already. Tarantino also addresses that it is fantastic criminal situation that “suddenly becomes

crazy and operatic, but the very absurdity of the event brings it back to reality”(58) by writing

techniques (Quentin Tarantino and Gerald Peary 58). In terms of the absurdity and crazy, it

can be noticed in Pulp Fiction again. For instant, the scene that also happens in the pawnshop

as well, when Marsellus and Butch are fighting in the shop that the owner of the shop,

Maynard captured them with the gunpoint and tie them up inside the basement and call Zad,

the security of pawnshop. They take Marsellus to another room for rape him. From this point,

it is really ridiculous and absurdity; the big boss of gangster is raped by pawnshop’s

security?. Additionally, another one of example, when Butch untie the rope himself and get

out of the basement, he should ran away but decided to spend time with a selection of the

weapons like hummer, baseball bat, chainsaws or katana to save Marsellus. Further more, the

scene that Butch returns to his home for getting the gold watch, he takes it quickly and

realises that the home safe so he get snack and take rest. Suddenly, he notice that a machine

pistol is on the counter of the sink in the kitchen and hear the sound of the toilet flush, then

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Vincent Vega exits from the bathroom, so he point the gun and kill Vincent Vega. Obviously,

the funny point is that what kind of professional killers forget a gun outside when using a

toilet.

Tarantino argues, “It’s not noir. I don’t do neo-noir. I see Pulp Fiction as closer to modern-

day crime fiction” (49). However, he also mention his references from film noir drama 1950s

like Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich 1955) that he wants the boxer Butch looking like Ralph

Meeker as Mike Hammer, who is so tough, has a lot of dangerous situations, always bully,

corruption as it can be seen when he receive money from Wallace, brutality and bad. But, he

will be sweet guy when he is with his girl friend. It is really the actor from 1950s. That is not

enough, the movie from this period as Nightfall (Tourneur 1957), which remains him about

Aldo Ray in Jacques Tourneur that looks like the boxer Butch because of raucous voice and

bulky neck (50-51).

In terms of story telling, he also mentions that the multi plot technique is inspired by J.D.

Salinger’s Nine Stories [J.D. Salinger 1953], there are a group of fictional characters in Nine

stories. Similarly, Pulp Fiction has three stories in one film, which are the story of Vincent

Vega, Boxer and Jules, in each story has one main hero, they can be appeared, enter or exit

anywhere like Salinger move the characters from one novel into the next novel (Tarantino,

Quentin and Peary 53-54). Berg argues that Tarantino said that in the novel, the writer has the

way to do non-linear storyline easily. Which is different from films. However, that is what he

tries to do both in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, also suggests that in both film and novel

should have the good proportion between non-linear and linear storyline that twenty-five

percent and seventy-five percent respectively. He use non-linear techniques in postmodern

culture (Leitch, 118) to rebel against traditional Hollywood style and this effect impacts to so

many kind of shorten entertainment medias. For example, interactive medias, music videos,

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video games and interactive movies. Berg also shows that the number of alternative plotting

is increasing dramatically from past ten years, they tend to do something different from

Hollywood’s structure such as the role of three acts or “beginning-middle-end”, which is

classical way. In the main stream, Pulp Fiction also affects inside studio system movies that

bases on alternative plotting. For instance, stockpiling and reusing event in Elephant (Van

Sant 2003), the missing of cause and effect in Last Day (Van Sant 2005), the multi-character

story of Magnolia (Anderson 1999). Berg also explains that Tarantino still bases his story on

cause and effect,but it is just not clear about the time and he also emphasises that it is not the

flashback and people should not be confused about flashbacks because flashbacks is the

things that “character thinks back on something”, but, his plot is the novel storytelling

techniques in the films. Even though, he sometimes skips whether some unnecessary cause or

effect. For example, the scene that Wallace wants the boxer that throws the fight away that

Tarantino skips the actual moment away. Differently, in the boxing films will show you the

whole scene that a boxer throws away his fight. So, this is rally creative and distinctive

technique (Berg).

Greene, Richard, Mohammad and K. Silem claim that the French about “poetic art” that is

defined, the good story should be based on “three unities”, unity of time, place and action.

The storyteller should initially tell the audiences, where the character suppose to be, and

present the proper situation in order to people get that details and element of story, and place

and time should be one unity closely to represent one whole action with few situations, and

the French very sticks to the “three unities” idea. On another hand, Tarantino makes a piece

of different art in Pulp Fiction by mimicking with high art form as the French and gives some

space for the audiences to play his game, rearrange the sequences in the new point of view.

He also lets the audiences participate and use their imagination in the story. Tarantino in

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Charlie Rose’s interview in 1994 said that if the audiences pay attention on unlinking

sequences in Pulp Fiction, they will understand and get the massages from him “intuitively

than intellectually”(123-127).

People can understand time in terms of “clock time” and “experienced time.” And they are

total different. For example, when people spend time with something that they really hate it

and feel like why the time too slow, it is “clock time”. By contrast, others do some activities

that is really fun and they think that time runs very fast, it is “experienced time.”. a

philosopher about time, Henry Bergson (1859–1941) addressed that “clock time” was not

really time truly and that was that human created for “tuning the time into space”. For instant,

a clock on the wall, a clock is time and a wall is space. He also mentioned that real time is

that the thing that people experience with. Then, the real movie is the thing that happens to

people when they sit and watch it. As Tarantino knows about this and often mentions that the

important thing to be a good viewer is to pay attention on the thing that they are experiencing,

it is “experienced time.” (Greene, Richard, Mohammad and K. Silem 127-128).

Again, so many movies using out of sequence technique as “an interesting challenge”, but,

Pulp Fiction, Tarantino wants the audiences experience their own understanding on out of

sequence technique in his world, because he feels free to make toying with the classical art

form. In contrast, Memento, which is directed by Christopher Nolan in 2000, he also use out

of sequence technique to make confusion about his character, but he not truly invites us to his

world as Tarantino did. Tarantino just plays with his audiences but “he is toying with three

unities”. It means that Tarantino destroys the wall between director’s art and the audiences

completely to establish new experience by “toying around with three unities”. In Pulp Fiction

the audiences seem slightly to be forced to focus on Tarantino’s characters, but not about

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development and destinies of characters. All characters are as equal as each other in each sub-

story, so he just wants the audiences enjoy his characters and “uses time-twisting” for giving

them new effect. All situations happen in “three different days”. The first situation is Vincent

and Jules going to a “hit” and the last situation is Butch and Fabienne ride the motorcycle

away, Butch just kills Vincent in the toilet, and the rest of others situation happen in between.

Jules’s story happens in first day, Vincent’s story happens in second day and Butch’s story

happens in last day. It is all simple. In terms of story inside Butch’s situation, a watch from

Vietnamese War from his father, it leads him still going to the future, the audiences see the

hint of time inside this film almost everywhere by pieces of “actual temporal sequence” that

they have to joint them together by themselves (Greene, Richard, Mohammad and K. Silem

128-131). To sum up, Tarantino likes the way that character from one novel crossing to

another novel from J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories, he always toys around with high art or

classical rule of three unities as being of contemporary director, to create new way for his

audiences to experience and play around with his film.

Showing How Tarantino Extends Or Re-examines the Tropes of Crime Fiction and

Oriental Martial Art Through Kill Bill vol.1 and vol.2

In this section, I will show how Tarantino extends his idea into Kill Bill vol.1 and vol.2 by

referencing oriental martial arts films in order to stage a reinvention of the cinematic tropes

that give contemporary audiences new access to an established genre. Peter Allan Lorge, in

Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-first Century, explains how martial arts

was founded in China during the Ming Dynasty around 1368-1644, becoming the standard

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practices of the army. In addition to army training, periods of wartime saw every able-bodied

man trained in martial arts, so as to be capable soldiers. Chinese martial arts also have been

taught in many different contexts, such as for hunting in forests, or as being part of education

and also being as free time activity for female (5). Both Chinese and Japanese martial arts is

that they use the human body to defend and fight the enemy. Darrell Max Craig, in Japan's

Ultimate Martial Art explains that, there is an emphasis in “the Japanese art of defending

oneself by grasping or striking an opponent so that his own strength and weight are used

against him”. This ‘artful’ concept is known as ju-jitsu, where jitsu means “art or technique”

and ju means “gentle”. Therefore, it is the techniques of battle (2).

Tarantino still keeps the content that is associated with the crime fiction in Kill Bill and just

extends the ideas of crime fiction by immersing oriental martial art in the modern contexts;

also, in this way, linking the story worlds of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. With regard to the

concept of non-linear storyline and similar ideas of the group of characters between, for

example, Fox Force Five is a girl group in Pulp Fiction, there are a blonde girl, a French girl,

a black girl, a Japanese girl, and a brunette girl. Similarly, in Kill Bill the DiVAS, there are

Elle Driver, Sofie Fatale, Vernita Green, O-ren Ishii, and The Bride respectively (Tarantino

and Peary 119). Nevertheless, in Peary’s interview, Tarantino mentions that he was inspired

by a lot of things from Lady Snowblood (Fujita, 1973) (119) and, as Tarantino and the re-

invention of the martial arts film article Dave Brown argues, Lady Snowblood is a “blueprint

of kill bill” (Dave Brown) in terms of the story that has a female main character who is driven

by the vengeance in her heart and use the Samurai sword as her main weapon. The finale

fight in Kill Bill 1 that the samurai sword fighting also can be seen in this sequence that has

the snow cover in the final battle between the Bride against O-Ren Ishii. Further more,

Tarantino also uses flower of carnage (Kaji 1973), which is the original song in Lady

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Snowblood by Meiko Kaji in the end of Kill Bill vol.1. In the violent scenes Tarantino likes

to put a sense of humour, which was also inspired from The Lone Wolf and Club series

(Koike and Kojima 1972), that shows a beautiful killing scene with blood-soak dancing.

Back to O-Ren Ishii, the animated sequence is introduced about young O-Ren Ishii before

becoming of the leader of underground Tokyo gangsters, Tarantino discusses that he has a

cool friend as Katsuhito Ishii who directed Party 7 (2000) and Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip

Girl (1998), this guy did the short animation for him in O-Ren Ishii introduction’s sequence

(122). That animation contains the contents, which relates with protagonist as young O-Ren

Ishii, who has raw impulse, recklessness and narrowness when she saw her parents were kill

by boss Matsumoto and the scene that when she killed boss Matsumoto as well. In some

respect, the crime novel readers have often seen this context in Transgressor Narratives

familiarly, it also provide a lot of violent element and sexual relation as well (Messent 50-

59). Not surprisingly, he use a dark animated sequence as his strategies to handle with

Western censors because if this sequence has been shot by live action that result in a hard

screening in the Western countries. It is confirm by Dave Brown.

From Tarantino’s speech, Quentin Tarantino: Interviews Quentin Tarantino and Gerald

Peary, he mentions that he brings the three huge kung fu stars from three different countries

in 1970s, there are Gordon Liu for Hong Kong, Sonny Chiba for Japan and David Carradine

for America and “If Bruce Lee (1940–1973) was still alive, he’d be in it. If Sheng Fu (1954–

1983) was still alive, he could be in it too (1940–1973)” (120). First person, Gordon Liu is

reputable in Master Killer (Chia-liang 1978) and Tarantino is a big fan of him. He

represented two roles in Kill Bill, which are Pai Mei and the leader of teenager gangster the

Crazy 88 (120). According to Tarantino and the re-invention of the martial arts film Dave

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Brown, he shows that in the tutor of the Bride, Pai Mei is “with his flowing white hair,

always arched eyebrow and ever-flicking beard” and also teaches the Bride about “five-point-

palm exploding heart technique” which help her to kill bill eventually. Finally, in the 1970s

kung fu films, people often see the scenes like the master of main protagonists were killed by

bad protagonist. Similarly, it has been showed in master Pai Mei was killed by Elle Drive as

well. Second kung fu fighter is that, Sonny Chiba who was on the screen as the Streetfighter

series (Ozawa 1974) and lot of kung fu films in 1970s, since that time he pause his

performance for a while until Kill Bill. In this role he is Hattori Hanzo the master of making

of swords. The last, American kung fu fighter, David Carradine who play as Bill. Brown also

claims that Tarantino brings Kill Bill to American audiences by using Carradine because the

show as the seventies' TV sensation Kung-Fu (Thorpe, 1972) is known very well in America,

for example, at that moment the posters of The Water Margin (various, 1977) and The Silent

Flute (Moore, 1978) with Carradine is playing flute were sticked on teenager’s wall as the

icon.

Some inspirations from Western films, Tarantino claims that Hannie Caulder, a 1971 British

Western film directed by Burt Kennedy is referred into Kill Bill that he thinks Sonny Chiba

from Kill Bill similars Raquel Welch in Hannie Caulder and Uma similars Robert Culp as

well. On another example, the scene that Elle Drive pretends as a nurse and has a poisoned

syringe as weapon for killing Bride in the hospital, that also is adapted by “Dead and Buried

[Gary A. Sherman, 1981] John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday [1977]” as well, a Swedish

film as “They Call Her One Eye [aka Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Bo Arne Vibenius, 1974]” is

one of a motif of Elle Drive character because she almost wears the black suit and eye

patches, which is same as Elle Drive in Kill Bill (119-120).

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As few movies from revenge story is mentioned so far, of course, Tarantino’s Kill Bill is

truly revenge movie. However, this Bride’s revenge will be discovered about this is right

thing or not and what Tarantino’s point. According to Greene, Richard Mohammad and K.

Silem, they say that in Kill Bill, There is a lot of violence and revenge content, but he also

implies about a painful feeling in Bride’s heart and ethic. Nevertheless, The revenge is the

raw feeling with the basic instinct of human being when they do not have equality. The fact

from “Hammurabi’s law code” in eighteenth-century B.C. showed that “an eye for an eye a

tooth for a tooth”. However, according to the punishment rule of Contrapasso in Dante's

Inferno that means the sinners will suffer on something similar or contrast as they did.

Similarly, Tarantino also use this idea on his characters’ punishment, for instance, “the knife

fighting” between Vernita and Bride, Vernita dies because of knife, O-Ren is cut by the

samurai sword “(those who live by the sword die by the sword)”, a bad guy who live in the

desert, Budd is bit by snake, Elle driver lost her eyes because of disable of seeing the

generosity of Pai Mai, and bill is killed by breaking heart. Moreover, Dante and Tarantino

have the same direction of seeing the revenge in terms of “love, goodness and righteousness”

in their content, also believe about if there is not the fact of the equality, so there will not be

the fact of the gracefulness. So, this Bride’s revenge is no matter correct or incorrect, but the

important thing is that her life is threatened and losing her daughter, then, there is not able to

have any mercy to Bill, and she deserves to kill Bill (85-89).

However, the result of this revenge will not be ending, or it is the circle of revenge. Tarantino

explains that there are few mini-stories of children who lose their parents in the murder and

try to find real murderer in Kill Bill. The first example is that when the Bride kills Vernita

already and faces Vernita’s daughter Nikki, the Bride said, “When you grow up, if you still

feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting”. Then, Tarantino links this phrase into next chapter instantly

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about O-Ren’s orphan story. As Oren’s child, she saw everything that boss Matsumoto killed

her parents, after that, she grows up and kill boss Matsumoto. There are also clues about the

bride, Bill and Budd who do not have parents as well. For example, Bill said something like

“like most men who never knew their fathers” and when the bride is asked in wedding that

why your parents do not come to your wedding and she answers “I don’t have any one” and

another relation is that the Bride has a braid as same as O-Ren and Nikki have. All of these

elements are the endless violence in a hate. However, Hattori Hanzo often implies about

morality of this revenge in film. For instant, when the bride is going to kill O-Ren, it can be

heard Hanzo’ voice “Revenge is never a straight line. And like a forest it easy to lose your

way, to get lost, to forget where you come in.”, and he also indirectly tells “ I can tell you

with no ego, this is my finest sword.” It means that he will not make the sword for revenge

anymore. Lastly, “If on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut.” It is a

warning that the bride will not only hurt her enemies but also hurt herself as well (Greene,

Richard Mohammad and K. Silem 89-90).

Not surprisingly, the bride believes that she is the representative of God as she says “it seems

proof like no other not only does God exist, you doing his will.” Similarly, it can be seen in

Pulp Fiction, about Jules as he gives a mercy for Honey Bunny and Pumpkin because he

thinks that he is agent of God. From the Hebrew Prophets, the Bride is right to kill Bill

because this act is representative of God’s anger in Old Testament, it is not wrong thing and

this is method to punish bad people as it appears in the Bible. Also, it is clear that in Kill Bill,

even the Bride gets her revenge completely but, it is kind of self-defense, in Kill Bill 2, Bill is

only one person who is killed by the Bride. By contrast, unreasonable killing that is shown by

Gogo Ubari and O-Ren’s killing of boss Matsumoto, that is not seft-defence. More

importantly, the bride decides herself from the killer to the mother because she is pregnant as

Tancharoen 18

Jules walks away from being hit man to ordinary person in Pulp Fiction. So she is still right

to revenge, but the circle of revenge and violence will never end. And as the Bride tells Nikki

about revenge, there is monster inside Bride’s heart. As prophet Bono says “We must not

become a monster in order to defeat a monster.” However, the only way to stop violence and

revenge is the forgiveness, it also can be seen the “forgiveness and tenderness” in the Bride

‘eyes when she looks at Bill’s death (Greene, Richard Mohammad and K. Silem 90-95).

.

Messent believes that Transgressor Narratives often represent the obvious violence (50-59)

and Tarantino uses that as a motif to push a lot of violent fighting scenes in Kill Bill 1

especially revenge’s Beatrix Kiddo, as he is requested by film critics to do kind of this thing

“There were critics who bemoaned your return to violence with Kill Bill: Vol. 1” (Tarantino,

Quentin and Gerald Peary 132). However, the point is that this Beatrix Kiddo’s revenge is

right or not. Firstly. This point will be investigated by the most reputable theories that is

utilitarianism, which is valued by the happiness and unhappiness with the consequence of that

action. So one of a good example scene that is calculated about level of morality is that the

first revenge’s Beatrix Kiddo of killing Vernita Green, as we know, two killers who are

trained with martial art fight each other, and it need to look at the consequence of this

fighting. Obviously, Beatrix Kiddo will be happy to complete killing Vernita Green.

Similarly, Vernita Green will be happy to stay alive. So this action could not be told by

utilitarianism about “morally permissible or not.” Notwithstanding, when the audiences see

the school bus stops in front of the house and the Nikki, Vernita’s daughter comes back

home. From this point, it will be focused no Nikki’s experience on happiness or unhappiness

from this action instead of happiness or unhappiness of two killers. Perhaps, Nikki would

gain a lot of painful feeling after Kiddo kills her mother. When all information of this action

Tancharoen 19

is analysed by utilitarianism, “it is clear that the action is morally impermissible” (Greene,

Richard Mohammad, K. Silem 75-76).

Greene, Richard Mohammad and K. Silem also states that there is another way to discover

which action right or wrong, are “Formula of Universal Law and the Formula of Humanity”,

they mean that “act always according to that maxim which you can, at the same time, without

contradiction, will to be universal law.”. However, Tarantino shows contradiction occurring

between his characters with the scene that the negotiation between Elle Driver and Budd

about exchanging one her million dollars with his Hattori Hanzo sword, she comes to his

house with a briefcase with full of money as agreement. Finally, however, inside the money

is Black Mamba snake. Budd is bit by the snake many times around head and face until dead.

Thereby, she takes the money and Hattori Hanzo sword. In this point, so this is the act with

contradiction because of obtaining with “some advantage and benefit”(78-79). Again,

Tarantino still respects about violence in his films and omit about one hundred precent of

morality in his main characters. In another word, Transgressor Narratives is shared by noir

literature that provides kind of anti-hero that he really like to put inside his performers

(Messent 51-59), some point about moral perspective of his character is omitted because he

wants to make more deep character dimensions to have the conflict inside, as a result, the

characters are really engaging, so he would like to gives this style as his signature for his

fans.

Results

In this section, I will summarise the analysis of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill vol. 1 and vol. 2 . In

the first part, I showed how Tarantino notes the tropes of crime fiction in Pulp Fiction, he

Tancharoen 20

using the sense of humour and focus on natural dialogue that can be seen in Charles

Willeford’s Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction. He was also inspired by the idea of non-linear

storylines by referencing J.D Salinger’s Nine Stories (J. D. Salinger 1953). In addition, the

mixing between humour and violence is one of Tarantino’s strategies to create his own

particular symbol on the genre. In the second part, extending his ideas through Kill Bill vol.1

and vol.2, Tarantino exhibits the inspirations of Lady Snowblood (Fujita, 1973) and gives the

real dimension of his protagonists with conceptual anti-hero by Transgressor Narratives and

literature noir (Messent 51-59) and also implies and consider moral thing inside his

characters properly (Greene, Richard Mohammad and K. Silem). Furthermore, Tarantino

took the stars of oriental martial arts era, then in their seventieth decade, who are his living

martial arts ‘motif’, to feature in his film. However, the archetypes of revenge European films

also were used a bit.

Discussion

This section addressed the interpretation of the results that Tarantino shows the tropes of

crime fiction to create Pulp Fiction and also extends the tropes into Kill Bill vol.1 and vol.2

with oriental martial art films. He connected a much-loved reference with “stylistic time-

travel; a 40s film noir meets 50s and 70s celebrities with 1990s” (Hopkins 14, 17) that relates

with art direction, characters, dialogues and so on. I confirm that, he has used crime fiction

and oriental martial art films as a motif to reflect our postmodern culture (Leitch, 118) in

postmodern film (Mason, 160).

Conclusion

Tancharoen 21

To sum up, Tarantino’s style is that, he collects information from the things that he loves

such as crime fiction and oriental martial art films, and reinvents them by mixing and

matching in “the language of popular culture” and “the violent play of urban life” (Hopkins

14, 16) lead to postmodern crime movies. Therefore, the readers can adapt and use the ideas

from their own cinematic sources of inspiration to create their unique work.

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