'EVERYTHING IS A REMIX'
VIDEO PROJECT LEADS TO FOCUS ON KILL BILL, & DE PALMA'S SPLIT SCREENS Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
The above video (I can't seem to get the embed code to work, so you'll have to click on the link above to watch),
Everything Is A Remix by
Kirby Ferguson, is part two of a planned four-part series that explores culture as a perpetual remix of previous (and current) culture. Part one focuses on the consistently recycled bassline from
Chic's
Good Times before delving into
Led Zeppelin and the birth of "heavy metal." In the recently completed part two, above, Ferguson discusses how movies cannot help but be a product of films that came before, and he spends a good deal of time on a well-researched and edited montage of
George Lucas'
Star Wars, noting several of Lucas' influences with side-by-side comparisons. At the end of the video, Ferguson touches on
Quentin Tarantino's
Kill Bill, which he deems Tarantino's "remix master thesis."
"The killer nurse scene in particular is almost entirely a recombination of elements from existing films," states Ferguson, who narrates the videos. "The basic action is the same as this scene from
Black Sunday, where a woman disguised as a nurse attempts to murder a patient with a syringe of red fluid.
Darryl Hannah’s eye patch is a nod to the lead character in
They Call Her One Eye, and the tune she’s whistling is taken from the 1968 thriller,
Twisted Nerve. Capping it off, the split screen effect is modeled on techniques used by Brian De Palma in an assortment of films, including
Carrie."
I wrote a comment on Ferguson's blog to say that this sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1 always seems to give me a tinge of De Palma's Dressed To Kill in the mix, as well, especially regarding the scene in the latter where Bobbi kills the nurse and steals her clothes. Something about the fetishistic aspect of Tarantino's shots touches on this. In any case, Robert Grigsby Wilson was recruited by Ferguson to complete the study on Kill Bill, and you can watch that one below.* (And speaking of Carrie, I think one can make a case for that De Palma film being included in the mash-up of the scene in Kill Bill Vol. 2 where the Bride (Uma Thurman) punches her fist from the grave.)
*(Again, I can't get the embed code to work, so click the link below to watch the Kill Bill remix.)
Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.