摘 要

“暴力美学”近年频繁出现于文艺领域和大众媒体，在电影界更是受到了极高的关注，并已发展成一种独特的电影艺术风格和表现手法。香港导演吴宇森是近代电影暴力美学的开创者之一，20世纪90年代他将“吴氏暴力美学”带到了好莱坞，引起了美国影视界的热烈讨论。1994年美国导演昆汀·塔伦蒂诺以一部极具个人风格的暴力美学作品《低俗小说》击败了众多优秀导演获得了金棕榈奖，引起了全世界范围内的广泛关注，掀起了影坛的暴力美学热潮。随着社会的发展，“暴力”已成为现代商业电影中不可或缺的要素，因此“暴力美学”得到了更加广阔的发展空间。本文将以鬼才导演昆汀·塔伦蒂诺的暴力美学代表作《杀死比尔》系列为例，分析他电影中的暴力美学结构。并探析昆汀的作品对现如今好莱坞以及东方影坛所带来的影响。全文分为五个部分，第一章是对导演及其作品的简要介绍。第二章主要讲述昆汀早期影视作品中的暴力美学。第三章是以《杀死比尔》为例，来探析其独特的暴力美学风格。第四章是他早期的暴力美学风格对他个人之后作品的影响，以及对好莱坞的作用。最后一章是对全文的总结。

关键词：暴力美学；后现代主义；电影艺术风格；《杀死比尔》

Abstract

Violence aesthetics in high culture art or mass media has been the subject of considerable controversy and debate for centuries. It has attracted more and more attention in moviedom, also developed as a new artistic film style and performance practice. The HongKong director John Woo was the father of violence aesthetics in modern times and he brought it to the Hollywood in the 1990s. Our director Quentin Tarantino was deeply impressed by John’s works, and he presented Pulp Fiction, a very personal style movie of violence aesthetics to the public and won the Golden Palm Award. From then on, Quentin found a way to write himself into the film history and violence aesthetics in pictures was on the rise around the world. With the rapid development of the society, violence has became one significant element in modern commercial film business, so there is no doubt that violence aesthetics has gained more possibilities to improve. In this paper, I’ll take the series movie Kill Bill as a case to analyze the violence aesthetics in Quentin Tarantino’s works. And the influences and contributions he gave to the whole filmdom. The paper is composed of five parts. Chapter one is a brief introduction. Chapter two mainly talks about violence aesthetics in Quentin Tarantino’s earlier works. Chapter three analyzes the stylized violence aesthetics in his movie Kill Bill. Chapter four illuminates the impacts on his later works and the Hollywood. And the last chapter is the conclusion of the paper.

Key Words: Violence aesthetics; post-modernism; artistic film style; Kill Bill

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Violence Aesthetics 1

1.2 Quentin Tarantino and Kill Bill 1

2 Violence Aesthetics in Tarantino's earlier works 3

2.1 The first pattern in Reservoir Dogs 3

2.2 The popularity after Pulp Fiction 3

3 Violence Aesthetics in the movie Kill Bill 5

3.1 Iconic combination of eastern and wester culture in filmdom 5

3.1.1 The simplest linear narrative structure 5

3.1.2 Unprecedented mixture in moviedom 6

3.1.3 Humanity in violence 6

3.2 The structure arrangement of violence 7

3.2.1 Action scenes 7

3.2.2 Color effects 7

3.2.3 The strength of music 8

3.3 The secret of his success 8

4 Impact on his later works 10

4.1 Highly improved violence aesthetics in Django Unchained 10

4.2 Inflluebces on the Hollywood 11

5 Conclusion 13

References 15

Violence Aesthetics in Quentin Tarantino’s Movies

——A Case Study on Kill Bill

1 Introduction

1.1 Violence Aesthetics

Violence maybe the most enduring and the earliest film memory of the majority. As a heated social phenomenon or we can say as a matter of life and death philosophy problem violence attracts public’s attention, meanwhile, it is one of the most significant factors of the movie world. Violence and aesthetic are two words which were totally unrelated from the beginning, yet at some point, they became a new phrase——violence aesthetics, and it has evolved into a popular concept. We can now find it in movies, comics, books and even in fashion industry.

In this paper, violence aesthetics relates to an artistic conception of movie which originated in America while finished in HongKong. It was until the 1980s when the HongKong director John Woo made a series hero movies, in which violence was highly stylized, the public stopped treating such pictures as violent movies because he provided the audience a whole new view of violence in films, so called oriental aesthetics. After which, dozens of film makers started stepping into this new area, include Quentin Tarantino.

1.2 Quentin Tarantino and Kill Bill

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American director, writer, and actor. His films are characterized by nonlinear story lines, satirical subject matter, an aestheticization of violence, extended scenes of dialogue, ensemble casts consisting of established and lesser-known performers, references to popular culture, soundtracks primarily containing songs and score pieces from the 1960s to the 1980s, and features of neo-noir film. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with the release of Reservoir Dogs in 1992; regarded as a classic and cult hit, it was called the "Greatest Independent Film of All Time" by Empire. Its popularity was boosted by his second film, Pulp Fiction (1994), a black comedy crime film that was a major success both among critics and audiences. For his next effort, Tarantino paid homage to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s with Jackie Brown (1997), an adaptation of the novel Rum Punch.

Kill Bill is an American two-part martial arts film series, and the fourth film overall that was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It was originally set to be released as one film, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two films: Kill Bill: Volume 1, released in late 2003, and Kill Bill: Volume 2, released in early 2004. Volume 1 follows a character initially identified as "The Bride," a former assassin seeking revenge on her ex-colleagues who massacred members of her wedding party and tried to kill her. Volume 2 follows "The Bride" pursuing Bill's brother Budd and confronting Elle Driver, a fellow student of Pai Mei. She eventually catches up with Bill himself.

2 Violence Aesthetics in Tarantino's earlier works

2.1 The first pattern in Reservoir Dogs