<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Kill Bill isn't a parody. Sure, it's full of self-referentiality and what you refer to as "ironic nods," but it remains a film in its own right (and I think this is made even clearer in Volume 2, so I'd definitely recommend seeing it).
A parody imitates a form/genre in order to poke fun at the codified, recurring elements and themes. I don't think this is QT's aim with Kill Bill. I see it as analogous to a poet experimenting with form. When you have a predominantly narrative poet who decides suddenly to write a sonnet there is a certain degree of irony implicit in such an action. The narrative poet's sonnet refuses to be innocent by its anachronistic nature. There is, therefore, a certain degree of acknowledgement of this fact expected of the poet. Hence, when you see a poet known for free-verse using form the form poems are often going to exhibit some ironic, self-reflexive characteristics. There's nothing wrong with this - if anything, I find it more honest than if the author were to simply expect the audience to accept such anachronisms with quiet nonchalance.
The way I see it, there's far too much depth in the characters and plot of Kill Bill to refer to it simply as a parody. Tarantino is not a kung-fu/samurai/western/action director, but he is adopting these forms to create Kill Bill. He therefore feels obliged to make reference to the irony implicit in such a creation. It isn't really a film "about other films," in this sense, but merely a film in the <I>form</i> of other films - forms which happen to be alien to Tarantino's own body of work and therefore non-innocent by design. If Tarantino had attempted to <I>feign</i> innocence, by saying "Hey, here's a kung-fu film" without any irony it would have been immensely ill-received. We'd demand to know what he was up to. Where does Tarantino get off claiming to be a kung-fu director all of a sudden? It's those ironic nods that keep the film honest, keep its purposes clear...and ironically (!) they actually enable QT to do something <I>novel</i> with the form by getting all the complaints about feigned innocence out of the way right off the bat.
<b>Spoiler Message:<b>
<span style="background: black; color: black;">Kill Bill isn't a parody. Sure, it's full of self-referentiality and what you refer to as "ironic nods," but it remains a film in its own right (and I think this is made even clearer in Volume 2, so I'd definitely recommend seeing it).
A parody imitates a form/genre in order to poke fun at the codified, recurring elements and themes. I don't think this is QT's aim with Kill Bill. I see it as analogous to a poet experimenting with form. When you have a predominantly narrative poet who decides suddenly to write a sonnet there is a certain degree of irony implicit in such an action. The narrative poet's sonnet refuses to be innocent by its anachronistic nature. There is, therefore, a certain degree of acknowledgement of this fact expected of the poet. Hence, when you see a poet known for free-verse using form the form poems are often going to exhibit some ironic, self-reflexive characteristics. There's nothing wrong with this - if anything, I find it more honest than if the author were to simply expect the audience to accept such anachronisms with quiet nonchalance.
The way I see it, there's far too much depth in the characters and plot of Kill Bill to refer to it simply as a parody. Tarantino is not a kung-fu/samurai/western/action director, but he is adopting these forms to create Kill Bill. He therefore feels obliged to make reference to the irony implicit in such a creation. It isn't really a film "about other films," in this sense, but merely a film in the <I>form</i> of other films - forms which happen to be alien to Tarantino's own body of work and therefore non-innocent by design. If Tarantino had attempted to <I>feign</i> innocence, by saying "Hey, here's a kung-fu film" without any irony it would have been immensely ill-received. We'd demand to know what he was up to. Where does Tarantino get off claiming to be a kung-fu director all of a sudden? It's those ironic nods that keep the film honest, keep its purposes clear...and ironically (!) they actually enable QT to do something <I>novel</i> with the form by getting all the complaints about feigned innocence out of the way right off the bat.</span></div>
[b]Sorry, it looks like I'm going to have to kill you in an instant.[/b]
