If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And similarly, if you release a film in two parts, and charge two admissions, can it still be a single film?

On this second thought experiment, director Quentin Tarantino would like to give his opinion. While there is much debate whether Kill Bill, which was released in two separate parts in 2003 and 2004, is technically one or two movies, Tarantino, who made both (or made it, depending on your view) is categorical about this: Kill Bill is one film.

He told CinemaBlend...

Technically you are correct [that they could be considered two movies], because we released it as two movies. And there is a closing and an opening credits. But I since made it as one movie and I wrote it as one movie, that’s just some chicanery I did in editing.

Tarantino conceived Kill Bill as an epic, and shot it that way as well. After shooting was complete, Harvey Weinstein, the film’s distributor, pushed Tarantino to release it in two parts, which is what he ultimately did. “It works really good that way,” Tarantino said to CinemaBlend. “And frankly the truth of the matter is I don’t think it would have been as popular as four-hour movie.”

Tarantino is more than entitled to his opinion. But I go with the technical definition. As Tarantino himself says, technically they are two movies because they were released as two movies. I paid to see them twice. When I rented them recently, I rented them twice. There’s no way to watch the complete version commercially. (Tarantino has screened the pair as a single film, called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, but very rarely.) Until that Whole Bloody Affair is widely available, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree.

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