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Let's start with a simple question: Why is Uma Thurman famous? Not even, why is she still famous, but why is she famous at all? More specifically, how is it that Thurman has perservered while, say, Bridget Fonda has fallen down a deep and silent well?
There are some easy and obvious, if not entirely satisfying, answers. For starters, Thurman is one of modern cinema's great beauties. Maybe some of you will disagree, but you are wrong, or blind. ["Actually, she was one of cinema's great beauties, until about five years ago. Since then -- as anyone who wasn't blind could clearly see when she was recently on the cover of Entertainment Weekly -- she has turned into the latter half of Wayland Flowers and Madame." -- Wing Chun]
Sure, almost all actresses are beautiful by definition. But how many actresses could plausibly portray the goddess Venus, rising naked on the half-shell, as Thurman did in Terry Gilliam's 1988 film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen? This was not a job for Juliette Lewis.
Furthermore, Thurman's an Oscar-nominated actress. Maybe we should let her off the hook right now. Classic beauty, Oscar nominee: what further fame qualifications could one possibly require?
And yet.
A glance at Thurman's resume reveals her cinematic accomplishments to be as ethereal as her beauty. She came to most people's attention as the delicate and ultimately deflowered Cecile de Volanges in 1988's Dangerous Liaisons. Her role in that movie, though, was limited to cooing under John Malkovich's corrupting touch, before finally freeing herself from that cumbersome bodice and those pesky, flimsy underthings.
Thurman then cemented her celebrity in 1994, as Mia Wallace in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. It was invigorating to see this formerly demure blonde ingenue sniffling and jitterbugging and getting all coked up, rampaging across the screen in clamdiggers and a sassy black bob wig. Mia misbehaved so much that she wound up in an OD coma. Then she got to serve as a pin-cushion in the funniest hypodermic-needle- to-the-heart sequence ever filmed. Notably, her two most famous film roles have both involved the buttons of her blouse being popped off.
We haven't seen Kill Bill, Vol. 1 yet, so we can't say whether Thurman busts out of her canary yellow warm-up suit. As you know, the build-up to this film has focused mainly on the director -- specifically, on his ten-year absence from theatres. But in a sense, Thurman's been just as truant. Ask yourself: What's Thurman been up to since Pulp Fiction? On what foundation does her continued renown rest? Sure, everyone remembers Letterman's "Uma, Oprah" joke from a few Oscars back. And her now-dissolved marriage to the shlumpy Ethan Hawke kept her on the gossip pages. And her Lancôme makeup ads kept her on the glossy pages in between. But as far as actual movies go, Thurman's been close to a washout. She starred as Emma Peel in a remake of The Avengers. She played Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin. And those are just the grisly, unwatchable stinkers. Let's not forget all other films she's made. Oh, wait, we already forgot them. Here's a reminder: Final Analysis, Jennifer Eight, Mad Dog and Glory (just say when), Beautiful Girls, The Golden Bowl, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, Where the Heart Is, Robin Hood (any time now), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Gattaca, A Month By The Lake, Les Miserables (okay -- uncle. Uncle!)
Hey, we loved her as Mia Wallace as much as anyone. But the truth is that there's only one person in the world who has any clue what to do with Uma Thurman, and that's Quentin Tarantino.
Fortunately for Thurman, Tarantino recently declared her his muse. So despite her limitations and lousy choices, she's now assured of a long career swinging samurai swords and saying very little. And somehow, it all works; she's great drenched in blood. We're not sure what kind of weird, career-resuscitating pixie dust Tarantino possesses, but it's powerful, and John Travolta sure could use another sprinkle of it right about now.
Still -- what's in it for a geek like Tarantino? Besides, you know, getting to traipse around Cannes with one of the world's most ["formerly" -- Wing Chun] beautiful women? What other reason could he possibly have for choosing such a plate-glass beauty as the person around whom to rebuild his skyscraper career?
Well, if Hollywood history teaches us anything, it's that auteurs love their empty vessels. Sure, Scorsese had the good sense to ally himself with Robert De Niro, but most visionaries can't stand headstrong actors, who are always, you know, adding stuff. Instead, they prefer good-looking wards who won't chew the scenery up. Hitchock had a famous fetish for blondes, from Grace Kelly to Janet Leigh to Kim Novak -- and the less animated, the better. (If his leading lady overemoted, he'd simply send in the knife-wielding psycho, or attack her with flock of angry birds.) Jean Seberg, made famous by Jean-Luc Godard, is remembered now mostly as a haircut who could hit her marks.
Before Keanu Reeves fell into The Matrix, he was the darling of auteurs everywhere: Francis Ford Coppola, Gus Van Sant, and Bernardo Bertulucci all fell under the spell of his sleepy gaze and somnambulent line deliveries. Most people aren't sure whether Rebecca Pidgeon, wife to David Mamet, is a good or bad actress, because they've only seen her in Mamet films. She shows up on cue to speak robotically like Actresstron 3000. The truth, though, is that she's performing perfectly. Mamet, who's famously wary of actorly flourishes, wishes that all his actors spoke that way. That's why Thurman's role as Mia Wallace worked so well -- because Tarantino spent half the film mythologizing her before we even saw her in the flesh. By the time she slithered onscreen, she seemed more myth than woman, a cocktail-lounge Venus with a barstool as her half-shell. By casting her as The Bride in Kill Bill, Tarantino's once again made her mythic, though this time, she's Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. Thurman, for her part, has few lines in the film, which is just as well. Tarantino hasn't put her on a pedestal to hear her deliver a speech.
Uma Thurman may not be much of an actress, but as a muse, she's found her perfect role. The good news for her is that she'll probably pile up even more fame, and at least now it will be for all the right reasons.
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