Listing Tarantino’s top five films would be an exercise in difficult omission. Rather, it would be a list of his films starting at 8 – “pretty damn good” to 1 “awesome,” and that’s just plain boring. I’m sure we could narrow down a top five, but it would only represent the best 5 of some really good films. Therefore, we’ll make a it a bit tougher and look at the Top 5 Tarantino Characters. Over the past two decades their lines have infiltrated our vernacular, become part of pop culture, and have secured their films and their auteur in the cinema canon. Here we go:
5. Mr. Blonde — Reservoir Dogs: Perhaps it’s just my love of anything Bob Dylan that highlights this character, but watching Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) seethe with joyous sadism as he douses someone with gasoline in time to “Stuck in the Middle with You” makes me flinch sing along.
We know the victim’s ultimate fate, and we can’t root for Blonde, but this scene also introduces us to the stylistic violence we’ve come to know from the Tarantino canon. Does our association with other films diminish Blonde’s value on this list? Instead, he’s just the first dose of our acceptance of vulgar brutality in certain contexts.
4. Beatrix Kiddo — Kill Bill 1 & 2: The two strongest female characters in Tarantino’s cinema are played by Uma Thurman. O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) is a close third, but her role as a sadistic half-breed in Kill Bill is one dimensional. So, we’re forced to choose between Beatrix Kiddo and Mia Wallace.
While Marcellus Wallace’s wife gives us a dose of one who is betrothed to and restricted by a life of crime, Kiddo is a more dynamic character.
Perhaps we see this best at the end of Kill Bill 2 when she lies writhing on the bathroom floor, fluctuating between anger, elation, and regret. She is both the ubermadchen replete with maternal instinct and the innocent girl fawning over a falling idol. But she is also believable as the Hanzo-wielding assassin battling her way through a list of nefarious villains.
Plus, she replaces the man as the archetypical hero of Kung Fu and Western films. She is the underdog who hacks her way through a few dozen soldiers in Japan; she is the Sheriff in a lawless town wherein the person with the biggest gun – er sword – makes the laws.
3. Budd — Kill Bill 2: For the second time, Michael Madsen makes an appearance on this list. This time as Budd, Bill’s brother and former assassin in the Deadly Viper Squad. We know he’s going to die as Beatrix slaughters her way to Bill, but it’s unfortunate and sad when he does. There’s remorse in his eyes when he notes that Beatrix “deserves her revenge” and “we deserve to die.”
But this lament is meant with an egotism that has been suffocated by his coke-sniffing strip-club owning boss. Budd has seen atrocious things and been part of horrific assassinations. And, his gravely, strained voice seems to suggest that it’s little used. In the same way that he’s unable to stand up to his boss, he was unable to stand up to Bill.
Instead, he acquiesced, attempted to kill Beatrix, and now lives with his guilt. At the same time, he’s a killer and is well aware that he is.
2. Jules — Pulp Fiction: Tarantino’s first officially monikered “Bad Mother Fucker,” Jules inspired my interest in Ezekial – 25:17 and other passages. His roaring mostly monologue also sets the tone for the film that explores the intertwining discourses of faith and coincidence. Are these vignettes connected? Are they by design or just matters of happenstance?
On a less metaphysical level, his lines are also some of the more memorable in the film. Vincent (John Travolta) might inform us that a Quarter Pounder is called a Royale with Cheese in Amsterdam, but Jules’ repetition with jive intonation sticks with us. As does his lament that his “girlfriend’s vegetarian, which pretty much makes [him] vegetarian” his claim that he’s the “foot fuckin’ master,” or his assertion that Ringo tell “that bitch to be cool!” while he stares unflinchingly in the would-be robber’s eyes.
Each line is delivered with a blend of stoic philosophy, anger, and badassness. Each line gives us a bit of the struggle within Jules.
1. Col. Hans Landa — Inglourious Basterds: If Jules is the bad mother fucker, then Landa is the condescending, captious mother fucker. From the beginning of Inglourious Basterds, we follow a sadistic colonel bent on doing his job better than anyone else. Unfortunately, for anyone else, his job centers on tracking and exterminating Jews.
The content is disturbing, but somehow made even more so by Landa’s faux chivalry and megalomania. This role is one that could easily venture into hyperbole, creating a more ostensibly twisted and psychopathic character.
Here, Waltz plays Landa with meticulous cunning and patient coldness. His lines are delivered in the manner of someone who knows he’s already won. It’s as if Landa is the historically accurate character in Tarantino’s fairy-tale take on World War II. We know the Nazis ultimately win; we didn’t know Hitler was slaughtered in a riddling of Tommy Gun bullets; we know the evil undercurrent that ran through the philosophy of the Third Reich – Landa is that personified, but in an abject, human way.
