The use of ultra-violence as a filmic technique. Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Sam Penkenpah, and Brian DePalma have used this technique to not only show the dangers of violent societies and characters who walk on the edge of morality, but to function as “Plato’s cave wall” and give viewers a darkened but heightened reality. In this fractured world, where society’s connection to each other through real human interaction becomes less common, ultra-violence places the viewer into the film by presenting graphic violence in a way that enables the viewer to connect with the protagonist and project himself onto the film. An examination of these techniques in a few of these ultra-violent films shows their effectiveness in communication.
“Actually we’re all tickled to death to hear you say that. Quite frankly, watching Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we all get to going to the movies.”
Aldo Rayne (Brad Pitt) calls forth the “Bear Jew”, Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) to begin one of the most violent film sequences in recent history. The violent scene shows the perfect example of filmmaker Quenton Tarantino’s ultra-violent action.
Quenton Tarantino’s filmic language calls to mind predecessors like Sam Peckinpah, Kubrick, and Scorsese. His self-defined exploitation style films Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2 and Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence), expand the revenge and war movie genres while incorporating shots from cinema masters, John Ford and David Chiang. It is his use of the ultra-violent action sequence in these three films that firmly plants him into the class of auteur. His rich hyper-realities draw upon the aesthetics of ultra-violence to place extraordinary characters in morally ambiguous narrative space, so that their final decisions can be kept in suspense until the film’s final moments.
New Myths
Tarantino explained to Charlie Rose the intertwining of the three films (then two), Inglourious Basterds and Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 and his break from Basterds to write Kill Bill: “ I think I’m going to switch over to something else for a little bit, and I started writing Kill Bill, and that was two years there.” (Tarantino, Charlie Rose) Tarantino’s style has never been more apparent than in these three films. Although they explore two different genres, they create original myths and use a hyper-reality, one like the world described by Eco, “The ideology of this America wants to establish reassurance through Imitation. But profit defeats ideology, because the consumers want to be thrilled not only by the guarantee of the Good but also by the shudder of the Bad.” (Eco) These new “myths” must, as Tarantino describes, have “More there, there.” (Tarantino, Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence) That “more” in the case of Basterds and Kill Bill includes both, the insurmountable evil and the hero that must go to any extreme to defeat it, even if the extreme means not only violence but ultra-violence.
Different modes of extreme cinematic violence
Philosopher Joseph Kupfer suggests we are living in the “Age of Violence”. In his examination of violence he discerns that there are three kinds of violence or “Violence—the sudden, intense, forceful tearing down or apart of someone or something”: Practical violence- “a violent alternative as a means to something sought” (Kupfer 42), that is a way to forcefully get something that one desires from someone that is an obstacle. This is the traditional type of violence that is executed for “money, career, power, revenge, or jealousy” (42) over someone or something else. Practical violence interests itself “with the product of the violent act” or its result. Other modes of contemporary violence do not have the same motivations. He goes on to describe two kinds of contemporary violence that can be labeled as “extreme”: Assertion violence, which “focuses more on the act as a process” and “is a process by which the individual tries to affirm himself as someone who matters in the world.” (42) He goes on to explain that assertion violence is “process whereby the individual displays the appearance of agency [self-control] “to the individual into the "public view," perhaps with the aid of the media,” (50) so that the transgressor can see himself in a Lacanian way through the eyes of the media and society. His second form of violence that permeates our society shows itself most prevalently in cinema, ultra-violence, which is “concerned with the process of the act, except that in this case destruction is valued as an aesthetic process rather than as a self-affirming one,” (51) and is “valued for its aesthetic content—the sights and sounds of human destruction: the tearing of flesh, mashing of bone, letting of blood.” (52). Like the world that the semiotic, Eco, suggests of the hyper-real imitation, this ultra-violence is rooted in the experience of the process. Its aesthetic requires the perpetrator to also be the experiencer. The senses must all be involved in the act, receiving the experience through the senses, without regard for society or his place in it. The act, like the statues in Eco’s ‘Fortress of Solitude”, is important. The process is the concern, not the “result”. The violence in Tarantino’s films, especially those of the 2000s use this discourse of ultra-violence. By transferring this style of this violence to The Nexus, the screenplay creates a landscape where the viewer gets caught up in the process of the protagonist’s journey, more easily committing to the narrative.
By examining a few of Tarantino’s landmark ultra-violent films, the understanding of ultra-violence can be clarified.
Kill Bill
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) concern themselves with the revenge plot of “The Bride” (Uma Thurman) and her query “Bill” (David Caradine). The two films are told in chapter form. With an anti-ploy structure that moves back and forth through the revenge plot, the films lead The Bride to exact her revenge in a story that appropriates different genres of film including, spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation, and Kung-Fu films. Tarantino claims the original intent was to release the films as one release, but during filming, Harvey Weinstein decided that he should split release so he would not need to edit as destructively. (Tarantino, Charlie Rose) This splitting of the film into two separate volumes gave the film a more revenge-process oriented focus. This process takes the viewer through the activity of “The Bride’s Kill List” to her final altercation with Bill.
Volume 1
Volume 1 starts with the “Shaw Scope” logo followed by the “Featured Presentation” logo that usually preceded the blaxploitation and “B” movies of the 70s. Tarantino quickly establishes the film’s placement in the exploitation genre of films. Blaxploitation and other exploitation films of the 70s capitalized on a market audience for their genres and produced films that reduced production value to increase profit margins. The movies have a formula that is not unlike Tarantino’s films: “The formula was simple: lots of action, lots of sex, and a black hero (or heroine) who is, in Thomas Doherty’s words, ‘invariably dangerous and individualistic.’” (Lev) These requirements all are met in Kill Bill.
After the two false title sequences, the frame of the film is filled with a placard the reads; “Revenge is a dish best served cold—Old Klingon Proverb,” again placing the space of the film in an otherworldly location and at once giving the direction of the story, revenge, while still keeping the reference to the hyper-real pop culture of Star Trek. The screen fades to black and the heavy breathing of a woman, who sounds like she is in pain, is heard. A woman who has been beaten severely, and wears a bridal veil, takes up the majority of the screen. A man in boots walks towards her and talks to her. He reaches down to clean her face. The audience sees her from his point of view. He savors this moment to talk to her and convince her that this moment he is “at my most masochistic.” The audience hears him take out a gun and cock it. Before he fires, the woman tells him “Bill, it’s your bab…” and her head is blown open. The rest of the opening credits play to “Bang Bang” sung by Nancy Sinatra, which is about a woman’s lover shooting her. The choice of camera position or “shot” here is significant. Not only does the sequence feature a selection that places the viewer in the active mode implicit in the violence, but it also links the audience in the process of the violence, creating this moment of ultra-violence. “Bill” takes time to wipe off The Bride’s face and savors the moment before he shoots her. Although the audience only sees the shot for less than a frame, it is the lead up to the violence that is the focus of this opening scene and the rest of the film.
The next scene takes time forward to Chapter One “2”. In the scene, The Bride relives a moment of violence in a brief flashback and then begins to engage in a choreographed knife fight with Vernetta Green (Vivica A. Fox), in classic Kung-Fu style fighting.
Kung-Fu films have a very specific way of displaying violence. They approach violence the same way as musicals approach dance sequences. As Wendy Arons explains when examining women in Kung-Fu films, “The pleasures of both the Kung Fu and musical genres derive from watching skilled performers execute difficult moves with incredible precision and timing.” (Arons 30) Like the musical uses dance and choreography to forward the plot and give the audience enjoyment through the displayed skill of the performers, the Kung-Fu fight equally is necessary for the narrative action and cues the audience to the skill of the performers by giving them some kind of face-off before the fight. Arons goes on to explain that, “Although the violence in Kung Fu films is often graphic and disgusting,…it is stylized and framed in a way that mutes its impact.” (Arons) This deliberate focus on the movement and performers and their process at the expense of reality is another example of the ultra-violence in films. The appropriation of the Kung Fu action in Kill Bill begins with the fight between Vernetta and The Bride and continues until the final fight with Bill in Volume 2.
Here, in this first fight, the fight begins with the stand-off and the flashback in The Bride’s mind of Vernetta knocking her to the ground. As the fight ensues, it becomes a display of martial skill that destroys the living room of the house in the process. Another example of how the ultra-violence focuses on the process of fighting is the pause of the fight as Nikki returns home from school. Vernetta and The Bride stop their fight and hide their weapons to talk to the young child. The reality of violence can be paused instantly, further distancing the fight from real violence to the hyper-real violence that can be stopped at any moment. Vernetta and The Bride arrange a meeting while Vernetta prepares Nikki’s bowl of cereal. As a clue to the viewer here, the cereal is called “KA-BOOM”. It is no surprise then that Vernetta attempts to shoot The Bride with a gun from inside the box. The Bride kills Vernetta with a knife and is left to explain to Nikki that she didn’t intend to kill her mother in front of her. She explains that if Nikki still is “raw about it” she will be waiting for her to make amends. To further drive home the disconnection of emotion from the act, Tarrantino imposes a voice over and subtitles that instructs:
For those regarded as Warriors… When engaged in combat… The vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrrior’s only concern. Suppress all human emotion and compassion… kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be the Lord God or Buddha himself. This truth lies at the heart of all combat. (Thurman, Kill Bill Volume 1)
The film then begins a more linear flow with the discovery of the bloody Bride and her recovery in the coma ward.
The ultra-violence in Kill Bill continues with the attempted assassination of The Bride by Elle Driver. The assassination focuses on Elle’s entrance and her change into her “Nurse” uniform. The preparation for the assassination is as important as the assassination.
After a time lapse, The Bride wakes up from her coma. She relieves the moment she was shot. Again Tarantino’s focus is the process of the trigger being pulled, the bullet being hit, and leaving the barrel. This causes a realization by The Bride that she has lost her baby and is in the hospital. She then hears people coming her way and she realizes that her situation is dangerous. She pretends to sleep as Buck and a trucker come into the room.
The next sequences includes an attempted rape and the realization that Buck has been selling chances to rape The Bride. Buck goes over the rules of the rape. The Trucker is left alone with The Bride. The camera pans away as The Trucker mounts The Bride and pans back as The Trucker screams. The Bride is biting his lip and has it stretched between her teeth. The scene goes black and when it returns, The Bride pushes the dead trucker off of her onto the floor. She is covered in his blood.
Next, Tarantino presents Buck returning down the hallway. As the shot goes to slow motion and pans down, The Bride is revealed on the floor with a knife, waiting to cut Buck’s Achilles tendon. She does, and drags him over to the door to serve up the same kind of violence that Tarantino’s ultra-viloence predecessor, Martin Scorsese, used in Raging Bull. After smashing his head and getting information out of him, she has a brief flashback that recalls Buck as a rapist. She kills Buck with a massive door slam. What is remarkable about this scene is again not the violence itself, but the lead-in to the violence and the interruption that prolongs the violence and adds tension for the viewer. The viewer sees things that cause the extreme reaction in The Bride and also understands the process she goes through to bring about her ultra-violence.
Although all the scenes of violence in Kill Bill Volume 1 could be examined for this ultra-violent technique, two chapters; “Chapter Three: The Origin of O-Ren” and Chapter Five: The Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves” most clearly capture Tarantino’s focus on the process of retribution and its ultra-violent tendencies.
“The Origin of O-Ren” presents the creation of O-Ren Ishii. The chapter is told in animated Japanese Manga style. What makes the chapter really bring out the ultra-violence is the voice over work provided by The Bride. O-ren’s family is murdered by a Yakuza crime boss. The Kung-Fu scene is effective, but what becomes the classic example of the ultra-violence that makes Tarantino’s vision unique, is when O-Ren’s father is stabbed, the sword is withdrawn and blood sprays from his body in a jet. Then, mother is stabbed while O-Ren hides underneath the bed. The sword barely misses O-Ren. Blood begins to pool through the mattress, then in a moment that lends itself to magical realism, it begins to rain blood down on O-Ren. The voice over explains that O-Ren was able to exact her revenge on the Yakuza boss.
The next scene shows a slightly older, she is eleven, O-Ren straddling the old-man with a sword plunged into his stomach. She twists the sword and his pain is so intense he bites down and crushes his teeth, sending them flying into the air. When she removes the sword again, plumes of blood erupt from the man, painting the walls and O-Ren red. As his thugs run (we hear their footsteps) to investigate, O-Ren hides under the bed. In a feat of hyper-reality, she shoots their feet off and when they fall to the ground, shoots them in their heads, killing them. The final shot turns the screen to red.
The pattern that emerges in this film is the recurrence of the process and way the violence is taking place. The shots follow the object that is causing the violence; the sword, the bullet, the knife, and do not focus on the person perpetrating the violence. The person (and the viewer since the shots give the audience a first person point of view) experiences the effects and process of their violence, which moves it over to ultra-violence. For in ultra-violence, the person committing the violence must be present in the action. It is not enough to commit the action, send a bomb or missile, the aggressor must experience the violence first hand (Kupfer).
The final scene in Volume 1 that must be examined is the climactic, “Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves” recalling two different “1 vs. 100” fights from the Shaw Brothers’ films, Vengence (1970) and The Chinese Boxer (1970), the battle features The Bride against O-Ren’s army, The Crazy 88s. Tarantino draws upon the techniques used by the Shaw Brothers in their films, including wire work to give the fighters ability to achieve superhuman feats of agility and wan iron will that refuses to give up, even when injured beyond human capacity for pain. Again the thing that moves this violence from the realm of Kung Fu to that of Tarantino’s brand of ultra-violence is the focus he gives on the effects of the violence. When someone is injured with the sword, they don’t just bleed, the spray blood. As in The Chinese Boxer (Wang) Tarantino chooses to change to black and white (upon the plucking out of an assailant's eye) for most of the fight. As jets of blood explode into the air and body parts are hacked off, the action and violence can be focused on without being distracted by the color. As The Bride blinks, the color returns, but in a throwback to Chuck Norris’s Forced Vengence (1982), The Bride fights a group of assassins in front of a glowing colored background. This entire sequence, with the referential images from Kung Fu movies of old, again focuses the narrative to the process of vengeance that The Bride is going through.
The chapter concludes with a garden fight scene in snow. The scene between O-Ren Ishii and The Bride slows down considerably, but still focuses on the immediacy of the violence and the experience of the senses. Tarantino uses the visuals of the snow and the sound of a water pump to affect the senses. This hyperreal environment that appeals to the senses is more than just real, it is a garden of perfection. When the top of O-Ren’s head hits the ground, she is still able to speak as her revealed brain catches the soft falling snow. She realizes in her final instant that she has experienced the perfection of a Hanzo sword.
Volume 2
Volume 2 offers a more concise direction. The first scene of violence reenacts the massacre where The Bride and her wedding party were “killed”. All the events leading up to the massacre are shown and the scene pulls back as the assassin squad marches to the church. The sounds of the machine guns and screaming can be heard from the distance. This is a stark difference between the two films. This scene doesn’t fit the ultra-violence of the first film, but is important to reaffirm the vendetta that The Bride is on.
A very important reading rule for the film comes in a scene here in Volume 2. Bud explains to Bill, “That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die.” “Then again so does she, so I guess we’ll just see, won’t we?” Bud clearly states the point of Tarantino’s hyper-violence. This path of vengeance that The Bride is on doesn’t make her a “positive” character. In fact she is as negatively charged as the Deadly Viper Squad. In fact, she is a member of the Deadly Viper Squad. Since the ultra-violence keeps the moral positions of characters ambiguous, it is necessary to the narrative in that it keeps the suspension in place.
Bud goes on to shoot The Bride with rock salt. He scoffs at her, spits on her, steals her sword and buries her alive. Again, the process of putting her into the ground is a focus. The nailing of the coffin and the tossing of the dirt onto the coffin is heard by The Bride from the inside of the coffin. The Bride must experience all the violence of the film, even the violence perpetrated on her.
To show The Bride’s process of escaping from the coffin, Tarantino takes the viewer through the process of The Bride’s training. By learning the three-inch strike, she is able to apply that knowledge to escape the coffin. Tarantino again focuses on the process that The Bride must go through. He puts her in extreme situations so the hyper-realness of her story can be used to connect the audience with her goal.
When Elle Driver kills Bud by setting him up to be bitten by the “Black Mamba” snake, she reads the history of the Black Mamba to Bud as he suffers an agonizing death. Her method of killing Bud shows no honor and clearly defines her as an inferior opponent for The Bride. After a quick face-off with Elle, where Elle tells The Bride (or Beatrix as we now know her name) that she killed her master Pai-Mei, The Bride snatches out Elle’s other eye and leaves her to be bitten by the Black Mamba. The greatest example of her ultra-violence, or Beatrix experiencing the violence with her senses, comes during this fight. After Beatrix snatches out Elle’s eye, she smashes it under her feet, the white matter squishing between her toes.
In the final confrontation between Beatrix and Bill, the battle happens very slowly. The ultimate example of ultra-violence comes in the form of the Five-Point-Palm-Exploding Heart Technique. It requires Beatrix to touch her victim. It also allows her to talk to the victim (Bill) and watch him walk away to his five steps of death. After experiencing this ultimate ultra-violent revenge, Beatrix finally can, as the final subtitle explains, “rejoin her cub”.
Inglourious Basterds
No examination of ultra-violence in Tarantino films can be fully realized without touching on his World War II fantasy epic, Inglourious Basterds (2009).
The film’s scenes of ultra-violence here are not about the main character or protagonist exacting and experiencing revenge. In the case of Inglourious Basterds, the focus is on giving the audience the chance to identify with the subjects as Metz describes as “taking myself” for the character. (701) Since, as a spectator, the viewer brings all of his intellectual understanding, and his understanding that it is not real but “seeming real,” then the spectator can truly involve himself in the ultra-violence enacted not on a specific antagonist, as in the case of Kill Bill, but an ultra-violence enacted by the most villainous force ever to exist, that of the Nazis.
The first major scene of ultra-violence in the film is the interrogation scene that takes place in a reservoir. The Basterds are interrogating German soldiers. The scene is juxtaposed with scenes involving Adolph Hitler, explaining his frustrations over the Basterd’s torture and mutilation of his “boys”. A German soldier relates the story to Hitler and the scene cuts to a German being scalped. The hair can be heard being cut off the skull and the blood is clearly seen. The scene jumps as Aldo Rayne (Brad Pitt) introduces Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger). A flashback scene begins that recalls blaxploitation films of the 1970s, complete with voiceover by a black actor (Samuel L. Jackson) and 70’s graphics. Just as an exploitation movie trailer would give the backstory for the hero and provide action to entice viewers, this flash scene reveals the story behind Hugo Stiglitz. It shows Stiglitz killing multiple SS agents by close quarter combat with a knife and garrotte, including one ultra-violent act where Stigltiz puts his hand down a man’s throat to kill him. The flash scene, just like the blaxploitation movies, shows Stiglitz as “invariably dangerous and individualistic.” (Lev)
As the interrogation continues, the “Bear Jew” is called in to kill the Nazi. As described before, the act is extremely violent and focuses on the build-up of the action. When the beating begins, it is clear Donny enjoys the act and the personal impact he is able to make on Nazis. The shot changes to an overhead shot that displays all the action for the audience. The viewer is given a “God’s Eye View”.
After the beating, the other soldier quickly gives all the information to the Basterds. Rayne then mutilates the Nazi by carving a Swastika into his forehead so that he can be recognized no matter what he wears,so that the Nazi can be spotted even when he is out of uniform.
The next violent scene involves a basement tavern meeting, where the Basterds and their English spy are to meet a German film star who will help them get into a film debut to kill high-ranking German officers. The men are discovered by a Gestapo agent. A standoff ensues and the men all point guns at each other under the table. It is clarified the guns are pointing at each other crotches. Stiglitz slams a gun into the lap of the Gestapo agent. The agent explains that everyone in the bar is going to die, including the “innocent” German soldiers in the bar. The Brit signals Stiglitz who says, “Say auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls,” and shoots the Gestapo agent. A gunfight erupts. Stiglitz stabs the Nazi multiple times before being shot. The shots intensify by zooming in on the shooters. The process leading up to fight is more important than the fight itself.
After the fight, Rayne interrogates Von Hammersmark. In order to make sure that she is telling the truth he “penetrates” her leg by pushing his finger into the bullet hole she received in the fight. Tarantino again uses his ultra-violent technique to zoom in on the hole and the finger. It splatters blood and makes a squishing noise. Since Von Hammersmark has shown herself to be less than moral by killing the German after an agreement had been made, the audience does not consider Aldo’s abuse of her a negative action. In fact, in an interview with Charlie Rose, Tarantino described his process of not considering the morality of his characters and his focus on the objectives of the characters. (Tarantino, Charlie Rose) He does not consider the morals of the character or pass judgment on them committing ultra-violent acts to achieve what they desire.
At the premier, Von Hammersmark is taken into an office with the Gestapo agent, Landa (Christoph Waltz). In a scene that employs foot fetishism to again show the depravity of the Germans and their departure from the norm, Landa tries the shoe he found in the tavern onto Von Hammersmark’s foot. When he knows it is her shoe, he leaps onto her and in an act of personal ultra-violence, chokes her to death with his bare hands.
During the film, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) plays a visit on the Jewess Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent). He tries to force her to have sex with him. It seems like she has killed him but he turns over and shoots her. The action again goes in slow motion to intensify the violence. Her blood floats in the air as she falls. They are both dead.
In “This is the Face of Jewish Vengeance” Donowitz (Roth) and Utivich (B. J. Novak) are able to subdue two guards by using pistols that require them to get close enough to punch their victims. Tarantino chooses the ultra-violent weapons so the characters must experience the violence first hand.
Shosanna gives the command for Marcel (Jacky Ido) to set the cinema on fire through a recording she had pre-recorded. Here in one of the most referential moments in film in recent history, Shosanna, who is dead, appears in a film instructing people that she is the face of Jewish vengeance and they all will die. Like Derrida’s statement on film itself, “These technologies inhabit, as it were, a phantom structure … When the very first perception of an image is linked to a structure of reproduction, then we are dealing with the realms of phantoms.” (J. Derrida) Shosanna’s film comments on the position of this entire film to bring back and serve as an avenging phantom for the Jewish people. Since the entire film represents an altered reality, this portion, where Shosanna avenges her family and people through the “death film” gives the viewer a way to connect to the characters and engage in the “seeming-real” of Metz. (Metz)
Donowitz and Utivich also are able to engage in a ultra-violent exchange as they burst into the box with Hitler and Goebbels and unload clip after clip into them. They then turn onto the crowd as it tries to flee the burning theatre. Finally Donowitz turns back to Hitler and destroys his face with a final clip. As the explosives blow up the cinema, Shosanna’s laughter can be heard and Donny’s intense face can be seen putting an end to the horrific history of the Third Reich.
The final scene of the film puts the artistic ultra-violent touch to the film as Aldo accepts the surrender of Landa, kills Herman, scalps Herman and then carves the swastika into Landa’s forehead. Again, Tarantino’s concern is not the morals of Aldo Rayne, but that the desire of Aldo to punish all Nazis is carried out. Here, Also cannot get around the deal, but he can ensure that Landa will be recognized as a Nazi. Landa, the most evil of the Nazis, gets Aldo’s final marking. For the first time, the audience is allowed to see the actual cuts being made. The audience is able to watch the Nazi suffer. This ultra-violent moment is the “coup de grace” for Aldo.
Hyper-reality and ultra-violence
These examples of ultra-violence are not without dangers. Giroux warns that hyper-real violence leads more young people to explore lives of violence. (Giroux) He believes that since the violent acts have no repercussions in the films and the violent characters operate outside of society, young people are learning that violence can be executed without any price to pay. While this argument is valid, one cannot blame this type of violence on Tarantino. His predecessors, like Pekenpah, Craven, and DePalma and current filmmakers like Scorsese, Stone and Roth, all use violence for effect or to show character. The real consideration is: “How does the violence help the filmmaker communicate the narrative?”
Unlike Scorsese, Tarantino’s violence is not solely to show the moral ambiguity of characters. Pekenpah’s drive to educate about violence and our interaction with it in society, is also missing from Tarantino’s violent scenes. Stone’s violence for shock value is also absent. Like Kubrick, Tarantino’s drive is to use violence as an aesthetic tool, much like camera angles or lighting to establish the narrative style of the film. He began this process with his earlier films Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), continued to refine it in Kill Bill, and established Inglorious Basterds as his masterpiece.
Ultra-Violence then reimagines “Plato’s cave wall” and give viewers a darkened but heightened reality and enables the viewer to connect with the protagonist and project himself onto the film.
See Blog post ‘Suggested Reading” for links to “Works Cited”.
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