Kill Bill: Conveying Aura through Camera Angles

Kill Bill is a dramatic action movie starring Uma Thurman and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Throughout Kill Bill, Uma Thurman’s character Black Mamba has been on a mission to take revenge on those who took part in a massacre at her wedding that resulted in the death of her best friends and fiancé. In this scene, Black Mamba walks into The House of Blue Leaves where she plans to kill O-Ren, one of the assassins at her wedding.

Kill Bill 1 Leadup to the Crazy 88 Sequence at youtube .com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIROHAlmvGw

In Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Benjamin criticizes differences between theater and film. He speaks highly of theater and detests film as shown by the following statement: “the artistic performance of the stage actor is definitely presented to the public by the actor in person; that of the screen actor, however, is presented by a camera, with a two folded consequence”. (VIII) The movie clip from Kill Bill defies Benjamin’s argument by showing us how filming actors and actresses can give the audience a perspective they would not have if these characters had performed on a stage. One problem Benjamin has with film is that the camera directs the audience’s attention to only certain aspects of a scene rather than “the performance as an integral whole” (VIII). He continues to say that “It (the film) comprises certain factors of movement which are in reality those of the camera, not to mention special camera angles, close ups, etc.”(VIII) One benefit of a film’s “special camera angles, close ups” is that it directs the viewer’s attention to certain aspects of the scene that they may have missed otherwise. At one point in the clip the screen is split allowing the audience to view both Black Mamba and O-Ren, despite the characters being located in separate rooms. The camera often zooms up on the actors and actresses’ facial expressions, giving viewers an opportunity to see their fear and anger closer than a stage would have allowed. Walter Benjamin states that “Experts have long recognized that in film ‘the greatest effects are almost always obtained by ‘acting’ as little as possible”(IX), yet close ups on Uma Thurman’s face show a fiery set of eyes above flaring nostrils and this acting communicates her emotion very effectively. At one point, while the image is zoomed up onto Uma Thurman’s face, the audience is transported through a flashback in which she sees the face of O-Ren standing over her during the wedding murder. This type of flashback could not occur on the stage of a theater and be as dramatic. Immediately following the flashback, Thurman cuts the arm off of O-Ren’s servant named Fatale. Blood sprays everywhere including onto the screen, putting the audience in the middle of all the action. Without today’s technology and film editing such a realistic special effect would be impossible. One interesting perspective is created when the camera angle is shot from beneath the glass walk way, allowing viewers to see Uma Thurman calmly walking toward O-Ren while fearful bystanders are sprinting out of the building. All these camera angles and views (‘mechanical reproduction’) are necessary aspects of Kill Bill and other movies. Although film is a different medium of storytelling than theater, it is still an art and it still has an aura of its own.