Althouse: "The 'Kill Bill' script called for Uma Thurman to be spit on by co-star Michael Madsen, but Quentin Tarantino was the one who did it."

February 7, 2018

"The 'Kill Bill' script called for Uma Thurman to be spit on by co-star Michael Madsen, but Quentin Tarantino was the one who did it."

"He didn’t trust anyone else to spit right. 'I’m the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit,' Tarantino told Deadline on Monday. 'I know where I want it to land. I’m right next to the camera. So, boom! I do it.'... And the choking? Tarantino claims it was Thurman’s idea to have the chain — which in the movie is thrown at the Bride by Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) — actually wrap around her neck and choke her. 'Not forever, not for a long time,' he said of how he did it. 'But it’s not going to look right [without really doing it]. I can act all strangle-ey, but if you want my face to get red and the tears to come to my eye, then you kind of need to choke me.'"

From "Everything you need to know about the growing Quentin Tarantino controversy" by Sonia Rao in WaPo.

36 comments:

madAsHell said...: Remind me! Why do we look down on porn stars?; 2/7/18, 1:07 PM
Henry said...: No animals were harmed in the making of this film.; 2/7/18, 1:07 PM
readering said...: Don't forget he also choked Diane Kruger to death with his bare hands in Inglorious Basterds.

As we might say also about Rob Porter, for an ambitious person seeking the limelight to choke one woman might be regarded as a misfortune, two looks like carelessness.; 2/7/18, 1:08 PM
Triangle Man said...: Remind me! Why do we look down on porn stars?

It's really the only way to get the shot lined up correctly.; 2/7/18, 1:11 PM
Ficta said...: This very long article might change your mind about Kill Bill. It explains the intricate Buddhist allegory underlying all the chaos and carnage of Kill Bill. Of course, the author may just be a nut, but he convinced me.; 2/7/18, 1:11 PM
madAsHell said...: I'll just keep setting them up. You just keep knocking them down.; 2/7/18, 1:16 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Leftwing Hollywood -- glorifying the debasement of women!; 2/7/18, 1:22 PM
Are W said...: When you earn big bucks you often have to do things that you are uncomfortable with. When you earn the minimum wage you often have to do things that you would sooner not. So just quit and let somebody with more tolerance work.; 2/7/18, 1:31 PM
William said...: A strangulation scene without bulging eyes is like an egg without salt. It's the difference between a double or a triple Salchow twirl.......Tarantino will probably get away with this. It was done for the sake of art and was consensual. Consensual art. I think his statements in support of Polanski will get him in far more trouble. They really were terrible and indefensible.; 2/7/18, 1:43 PM
Unknown said...: So let's see. Republicans want to enslave women like in the Handmade Tale! Where women will be tortured and silenced, made to suffer abuse from self-righteous hypocritical men!

Isn't that exactly what's happening here from the left? "Women! Don't be barefoot in pregnant in the kitchen serving your family in love! Come out where we can rape, abuse, and torment you and treat you as nothing but sex objects and worse! Our way is better!"

--Vance; 2/7/18, 1:43 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: They were making art together, which they both freely consented to and could have stopped at any time. Uma is a great big grownup. If she didn't want to work with QT for years and years, she didn't have to. And the rest of the internet, if you find his/their work unpleasant or objectionable, don't consume it.; 2/7/18, 1:47 PM
readering said...: I think the issue is not the filming of the scene, which we all watched long ago. It's the creepy notion that Tarantino did it personally as director, supposedly behind the camera, instead of using a professional stuntman or woman.; 2/7/18, 2:00 PM
Sally327 said...: He didn't try any of this crap on Jackie Brown.; 2/7/18, 2:01 PM
John Borell said...: Per http://www.cattlecallauditions.com/how-much-do-actors-make/uma-thurman-salary/

$12,000,000 per Kill Bill film.

$24,000,000 total.; 2/7/18, 2:15 PM
madAsHell said...: the shot

Money or camera?; 2/7/18, 2:33 PM
Jupiter said...: readering said...
"It's the creepy notion that Tarantino did it personally as director, supposedly behind the camera, instead of using a professional stuntman or woman."

Yeah, right, they should have paid a stunt spitter $10K/hr.

As far as I'm concerned, Uma Thurman deserves Quentin Tarantino, and so does the American movie audience for that matter. But the shit he said about Polanski is sick and wrong. What Polanski did is far, far worse than what that Nassar guy did, and to hear all these shitheads gabbling about what a great direcor he is and how it wasn't -rape-rape (BTW, when does MeToo haul Whoopie away to the knacker's yard?) is just disgusting.; 2/7/18, 2:37 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Method actors do extreme things with/to their bodies. De Niro gained and lost a lot of weight/muscle, Christian Bale did that to an even greater degree, John Hurt had a perfectly good tooth pulled, Daniel Day Lewis only ate meat he personally killed for The Last of the Mohicans, Dick Van Dyke learned to speak in a Cockney accent that would fool anyone who has never heard one...

It's about time actresses, or female actors, stepped it up.; 2/7/18, 2:40 PM
Jupiter said...: Ficta said...
"This very long article might change your mind about Kill Bill."

Oh, for Christ's sake. Tarantino is at least honest enough to admit that his films are just knock-offs of older films, updated to appeal to the jaded sadism of modern audiences. Is there a Buddhist explication of Marcella And The Poolboy?; 2/7/18, 2:42 PM
mockturtle said...: Beatrix Kiddo got her own spitting opportunities in the Kill Bill series. And a whole lot more.

The scene where Bill is making his [his and Bea's] daughter a sandwich while she explains how she knew her goldfish was dead. That's a classic scene. And when Bud tells Bill that he pawned his Hattori Hanzo sword:

Bill: You hocked a Hattori Hanzo sword?
Bud: Yeh.
Bill: It's priceless.
Bud: [Chuckling] Well, not in El Paso, it ain't. In El Paso I got me $250 dollars for it.

And in the burial scene, the corpse making a hand shadow bunny? [Some of these bits are very short and easily missed.; 2/7/18, 2:47 PM
mockturtle said...: As Pants says, Jupiter. No one is holding a gun--or a samurai sword--to your head making you watch.; 2/7/18, 2:50 PM
mockturtle said...: Char-Char Binks suggests: It's about time actresses, or female actors, stepped it up.

Charlize Theron went the extra mile to portray Aileen Wuornos. But few would go to such lengths.; 2/7/18, 2:52 PM
mockturtle said...: Haven't we had this discussion before? Can a person be a great artist/composer/thinker, etc. and be a reprehensible human being? If Mozart turned out to be a child rapist [which he was not] would we turn off his music? I'm not saying yea or nay to this as I see both sides of the coin. But it's something to consider.; 2/7/18, 2:56 PM
Hagar said...: If Tarantino did the spitting, there was no need for a person to do it. A squirt of simulated, but sterile, liquid from a turkey baster would have done fine.; 2/7/18, 3:00 PM
Darrell said...: It could have been worse. Tarantino could have had a line-up of his buddies, like that scene in Airplane with the baseball bats. They all could have taken turns spitting in her face.; 2/7/18, 3:03 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: At least Charlize had an arm amputated for Mad Max. She's a trooper!; 2/7/18, 3:23 PM
rhhardin said...: The nice thing about The Avengers (1998) I watched last night, was the title sequence

A Harvey Weinstein Production

next screen

with Uma Thurman.

Other than that, the understated comedy/adventure was the same joke over and over, and Thurman shows no acting range at all.

As a romcom babe I didn't notice her but she couldn't have been too bad or I would have noticed.; 2/7/18, 3:24 PM
Paul said...: These guys in Hollywood are sick bastards.; 2/7/18, 3:25 PM
Jupiter said...: Blogger mockturtle said...
"As Pants says, Jupiter. No one is holding a gun--or a samurai sword--to your head making you watch."

Nope, and I ain't watching. But when I read women talking about how popular culture "objectifies women's bodies", I wonder what they think popular culture does to men's bodies. Etherealizes 'em? What do they use for fake blood these days? I bet it comes in 50-gallon drums.; 2/7/18, 3:46 PM
Ficta said...: Uma Thurman is the daughter of a well respected authority on Tibetan Buddhism.

She also has a co-creator story credit on Kill Bill.

Tarantino's beloved Kung Fu and Wuxia movies frequently have prominent Buddhist subtexts.

So I don't think a Buddhist reading of Kill Bill is a priori absurd.; 2/7/18, 3:49 PM
Jupiter said...: Ficta said...
"Uma Thurman is the daughter of a well respected authority on Tibetan Buddhism.

She also has a co-creator story credit on Kill Bill."

Well, she can't drive for shit.; 2/7/18, 3:59 PM
rhhardin said...: I have Uma Thurman in 11 DVDs. I remember her only in Kill Bill and The Accidental Husband.

A sort of very clean featureless face.; 2/7/18, 5:46 PM
rhhardin said...: I bailed out of Top Gun just now because the love story is too stupid to care about, and I think I saw all the flight action that there's going to be.; 2/7/18, 5:48 PM
David said...: It's a porn movie, like a lot of Tarantino stuff. Violence Porn. Convinced Hollywood that he is a great artist and of course a big bringer of cash.

What do you expect in a porn movie.; 2/7/18, 6:46 PM
Unknown said...: O-Ren Ishii: "You didn't think it was gonna be that easy, did you?"

The Bride: "You know, for a second there, yeah, I kinda did."; 2/7/18, 7:27 PM
langford peel said...: I thought she was pretty good in "My Super Ex Girlfriend."

She was right on the money in capturing how crazy those bitches be. Amirite?; 2/7/18, 9:06 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: rhhardin said...
I have Uma Thurman in 11 DVDs. I remember her only in Kill Bill and The Accidental Husband.

A sort of very clean featureless face.

2/7/18, 5:46 PM

Funny, many would not describe her as a conventional beauty. Tall, skinny, big nose, big feet.; 2/8/18, 5:02 PM