Most of Quentin Tarantino's death scenes are gruesomely satisfying, like Calvin Candie, but others are more heartbreaking, like Vincent Vega.
The defining theme of Quentin Tarantino’s filmmaking is revenge. From the Basterds’ blood-soaked rampage through Nazi-occupied Europe to Django’s anti-slavery crusade across the antebellum-era Deep South, many of Tarantino’s iconic antiheroes seek brutal retribution against monsters who have wronged them. As a result, most of the writer-director’s death scenes are gruesomely satisfying.
But they don’t all evoke the grisly vengeance of exploitation cinema. A few of Tarantino’s death scenes have broken audiences’ hearts. Fan-favorite characters like Dr. King Schultz and Shosanna Dreyfus have been gunned down in the final acts of their movies.
Dr. King Schultz
Dr. Schultz’s death scene in Django Unchained is bittersweet. The dentist-turned-bounty hunter seals his own fate when he refuses to shake Calvin Candie’s hand. All he has to do is shake Candie’s hand to finalize the deal to buy Broomhilda and reunite Django with his wife. But he can’t bring himself to do it, so he shoots Candie dead with his Travis Bickle-style sleeve pistol instead.
Schultz tells his stunned protégé, “I couldn’t resist,” before being wiped out by Candyland henchmen. Schultz practically digs his own grave by shooting the head of the pride in the middle of the lions’ den, but it doesn’t make his demise any less heartbreaking.
Shosanna Dreyfus
While Shosanna Dreyfus’ revenge plot works a charm and Hitler’s top cronies are burned alive in her cinema, she sadly doesn’t survive to the end credits. Throughout Inglourious Basterds, she’s harassed by Fredrick Zoller, the subject of a new propaganda piece who isn’t used to being denied attention.
During the premiere of Nation’s Pride, as Shosanna enacts her plan to wipe out Hitler’s cabinet in a blaze of glory, Zoller visits her in the projection room. He bursts into the room and she manages to land a shot – but it’s not fatal, giving him a moment to draw his own pistol and shoot Shosanna dead. Shosanna effectively wins the war for the Allies, but she doesn’t get to stick around to enjoy that victory.
Vincent Vega
The nonlinear storytelling of Pulp Fiction means that Vincent Vega’s death scene isn’t the last time he appears in the movie. This ordering of the scenes adds dramatic heft to Vincent’s “divine intervention” debate with Jules in “The Bonnie Situation.”
The fact that John Travolta’s lovable hitman is destined for a grim fate is made even more tragic by Jules’ insistence that their near-death experience at Brett’s apartment is a message from God. Jules gets out of the game and avoids Butch Coolidge’s wrath. Vincent keeps his job in the criminal underworld and gets shot dead a few days later.
Pai Mei
When the Bride is buried alive in Kill Bill: Volume 2, she draws on her training under the relentless tutelage of the legendary Pai Mei to break out of the coffin, soar through the dirt (the movie isn’t particularly concerned with realism), and escape to safety. The Bride’s climactic showdown with Elle Driver – which turns out to be hilariously anticlimactic – is set up with a heartbreaking flashback in which Elle reveals that she poisoned Pai Mei.
Pai Mei is a merciless teacher in the training montage, which made him unsympathetic to some viewers, but he’s only that firm because he wants her to succeed. And it’s fair to say that this tactic worked, because he turned Beatrix Kiddo into a lean, mean killing machine.
Mr. White
Tarantino’s debut movie, Reservoir Dogs, ends on a tight close-up of Mr. White as he cradles the bleeding cadaver of Mr. Orange. Cops are heard bursting into the warehouse off-screen and they shoot Mr. White out of the frame. Cue the end credits.
The truly devastating thing about Mr. White’s death is that he looks like he already feels dead before the cops open fire. He came to think of Mr. Orange as a son, only to realize he’s an undercover cop – after Mr. White shot and killed a dear friend on the belief that Mr. Orange was who he said he was.
Mr. Blonde
Although the ending is unforgettable and there are plenty of memorable scenes in Reservoir Dogs, easily the movie’s most iconic moment is Michael Madsen’s sinister Mr. Blonde torturing a tied-up police officer to the tune of “Stuck in the Middle with You.”
He goes out to his car, grabs a jerry can, pours gasoline all over the cop, and just as he’s about to light the match, Mr. Orange comes to and empties his magazine into Mr. Blonde’s chest, killing him.
Calvin Candie
As devastating as it is to watch Dr. Schultz get gunned down by Candie’s closest associates seconds later, it’s great to see Schultz shoot Candie dead in his study. Candie extends his hand for a handshake and Schultz unexpectedly extends a gun for a kill.
Candie’s bleeding pocket flower is a nod to Jack Palance’s death scene in the classic Sergio Corbucci spaghetti western The Mercenary. If ever a movie villain deserved to go down, it’s Calvin J. Candie.
The Manson Family Murderers
In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as soon as Tarantino tells the audience that it’s the night of August 8, 1969, nobody is expecting a historically accurate portrayal of events. After he killed off Hitler and decimated white slavers, there was no way that the Manson Family would escape from Tarantino’s historical revenge fantasies.
And, of course, the movie’s blood-drenched finale didn’t disappoint. The murderers sent by Charles Manson decide to go to Rick Dalton’s house, not Sharon Tate’s, and don’t count on Cliff Booth and his loyal pit bull waiting for them.
Stuntman Mike
On the whole, Death Proof is regarded as one of Tarantino’s weakest films. There are long stretches of mundane, inconsequential dialogue and it doesn’t have the thematic depth of Pulp Fiction or Django Unchained. But its slasher-meets-carsploitation premise sets up a classic horror villain: “Stuntman Mike,” a former Hollywood stunt driver who stalks unsuspecting young women in his “death-proof” stunt car.
In the movie’s second half, Mike unwittingly targets a group of women that’s ready to take him on. After outrunning him in the car chase, they track him down, drag him out of his car, and beat him to death. This wonderfully straightforward climactic smackdown ends the movie on a high note.
Adolf Hitler
Tarantino established his penchant for historical revisionism with the delightfully inaccurate death of Adolf Hitler in the final act of Inglourious Basterds. As S.S. brass is burned alive by a Jewish refugee, Hitler and his main confidants are riddled with bullets by Jewish American soldiers.
After playing Stealers Wheel over a torture scene and editing an anime short into the middle of Kill Bill, Tarantino was already renowned as a daring filmmaker, but Hitler’s Inglourious Basterds death was arguably his boldest, gutsiest directorial move to date.
