In Defense of Kill Bill’s Intermission
When Quentin Tarantino’s Kill bill: The Whole Bloody Affair returns to movie theaters this weekend, it dose so wiht a stunning new transfer as well as a new “lost chapter” created in Fortnite. The most novel part of the experience, though, isn’t the opportunity to once again watch The Bride (Uma Thurman) lay waste to those who wronged her.It’s the 15-minute intermission.
it’s admittedly a little disconcerting to be sitting in a regular-ass AMC theater when the lights come up mid-movie – traditionally, a sign that something has just gone wrong. At the recent Kill Bill press screening I attended, there was no flourish to the reveal, just the white “Intermission” text popping up against a black screen. Yet it was still a welcome opportunity to stand up, stretch my legs, and order some mozzarella sticks before the movie began again.
Yes, I also used the bathroom during that time. Presenting The Whole Bloody Affair with an intermission is pretty much a biological necessity, as the full running time of Tarantino’s action epic (combining the original releases of Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2) is 275 minutes (including the intermission). Yes, that’s over four and a half hours. Long haul truckers might be able to forgo bathroom breaks for that length of time, but most of us do not have that kind of training, despite modern filmmakers like James Cameron and Martin scorsese pushing their recent runtimes beyond the three-hour mark.
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The phenomenon of bladder-challenging epics isn’t one that began in the 21st century, as the golden age of cinema is rich with examples of movies of a considerable length: Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-How – all acclaimed blockbusters of their eras. The key difference between now and then: Those movies had intermissions, built-in periods of time to pause and reflect on what had already happened, before proceeding forward.
Outside of the mainstream, much longer films have been produced over the years, such as 1968’s The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World.
2025/12/04 22:15:34
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