“Narcissist”, “tasteless”: Stephen King hates this Tarantino film that everyone adores

In addition to being a world-renowned novelist, Stephen King is a demanding film critic. Witness his opinion on Kill Bill: Volume 1 by Quentin Tarantino, immortalized in the columns ofEntertainment Weekly in 2007 :

“Kill Bill is the movie of nonsense. You’ve probably read good reviews about it (…), but remember that film critics see the film for free. (…) So they are adept at raving about super-narcissistic things like Kill Bill, which is shaping up to be ‘Quentin Tarantino’s fourth movie,’ how snobbish.”

“The violence is choreographed like an Esther Williams nautical routine…and the film’s litany of in-jokes is exhausting.”

To make the reference explicit, Esther Williams was the 1939 American 100-meter freestyle champion who acted in musical films that included lots of water ballets to exploit her physical prowess. But King is not done with Kill Bill, and laments the fact that the film is a “volume 1”:

There isn’t even an end to cling to; we are just told that we will have to be patient to get more (…). It’s certainly well done, and the story keeps our interest as it goes along, but if it’s tasteless that’s the rest, right?

“All I’m doing is trying to convey to you the feeling of vague displeasure that you’re likely to experience upon leaving the film, in the sense that you came to be entertained but find yourself warming your hands in front of the bonfire of Quentin Tarantino’s vanities.”

One thing finds favor in his eyes: the admirable performance of the interpreter of the heroine of the film, Uma Thurman. On the other hand, the author is not tender towards the writing of his character:

Alliance

“Uma Thurman really tries and that’s the best part of the movie, but in the end, she’s stuck playing a labeled woman instead of a humanized one: she is, sadly, the Bride.”

Kill Bill is not a pinnacle of nullity like Mars Attacks! or Dearest Mom; it’s just annoyingly full of itself. (…) In ten years, you will have difficulty remembering what it said and who was in it.

Do you share the opinion of the author of The Shining about the first part of Tarantino’s diptych or do you think he is seriously mistaken? Your keyboards !