As an aspiring film director I am obviously a big fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work, my favourite of his films would be the Kill Bill Volumes (followed by death-proof), it always seems to surprise people when I say this but I’ve never quite understood why. I personally feel stylistically that these are some of his strongest moments. Anyway a while back I was asked why I thought that QT chose to keep ‘The Bride / Black Mamba’ ’s name a secret until volume 2…
I personally think that Tarantino did this so that the audience was emotionally disconnected to the bride in some way.
Vol. 1 is very much focused on her revenge and by god does she get it. In this film The Bride is presented to the audience as essentially a deadly assassin. She was undercover, she herself would have had to keep her identity a secret so perhaps it is also a way to include us in the disguise that The Bride had to undertake. There is also a theory that her real name isn’t even Beatrix Kiddo but this too is a code name given by Bill.
Volume 2. is perhaps my favourite out of the two films, in this we are treat to The Bride’s backstory and form a real emotional connection to the character, we see her as a person, at her most vulnerable. Only here are we able to learn her real name and see her for something other than the deadly Black Mamba.
There are a few hints to her name throughout the film, my favourite is the line, ‘Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.’ (there are more but I am doing this from memory.)
We do in fact see her full name in both Vol. 1 & 2. on the plane tickets to Japan… Not everyone notices this, its a great easter egg.
I also quite like the theory that she has different names to represent the different stages in the films narrative. Chronologically she begins as Black Mamba, she wakes from her coma; the birth of the Bride. The death of the Bride at the hand of Budd comes in Vol 2. after she fights her way out the coffin this is the birth of Beatrix Kiddo, (we learn her name in the following scene with Elle.) She then suffers another death (symbolically) when she arrives at Bill’s and is shot with a toy gun by daughter B.B, she is here reborn as “mommy.”
Faye CW
FAYE CARR-WILSON Filmmaker 