Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Yes, amazingly did not see Reservoir Dogs (1992) at the time¹

Reservoir Dogs (1992) - so what was all the fuss about... ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 July

Reservoir Dogs (1992) - so what was all the fuss about... ?


On this showing, it is less clear what in it caused the clamour for QT, but the story goes that Tony Scott directed Tarantino's screenplay for True Romance (1993), because the latter only had the chance to make one of them, and he chose Dogs : #UCFF thinks Scott's film far superior











 Except for those who like painting in blood – actually, a slick of it (do we question that ?), or so that, we are to believe (or are we ?), it perfectly soaks into one or two white shirts, to leave them uniformly dyed (with no streaks or other colour-variation) – it may not be immediately clear what, after the opening scene in the restaurant / diner, Dogs newly offered audiences that did not routinely depend on shock for effect.


Maybe it is that, as heralded or betokened by that opening (which therefore acts as a kind of synthesis of the elements of blood and brain ?), Tarantino seeks to set up a kind of bi-polar opposition to all this bloody physicality : maybe we also see these considerations applying in Kill Bill : Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2004) ?



For the life of the flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls ~ Leviticus 17 : 11a [KJV]




Considered in this way, Tarantino's aim may be akin to the purpose of the phlegmatic ‘calm before the storm’ in films made by The Allies during World War II (or to promote their messages afterwards) – or even the mysterious (dis)quietude of the mise-en-scène of Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter² [1957] ?


There is, for example, the highly protective tenderness of Mr White (Harvey Keitel) towards Mr Orange (Tim Roth), or how the latter’s throaty shouting³ is in contrast to moments of quieter conversation (when, for example, Mr Pink (Steve Buscemi) arrives, and White and he go aside to talk). Yet too much else, as we wait around in this space for 'something to happen'⁴, feels located - as in Beckettt's fame-making play⁵ En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot) - in an excessively heady mood, as if it were a text-book on epistemology, or on irrationality in decision-making⁴.




Lacking the cunning and panache of Pulp Fiction (1994), Dogs still clearly does what Tarantino wanted – making a statement [of intent] and / or his mark. However, in later films under his direction, he has much better handled issues that are important to him, such as that of trust and its basis, and, in scripting them, the role of flashback and how to use it innovatively, which we see him rather noisily and boisterously trying out here.




#UCFF has some other things to say here about Tarantino and Kill Bill : Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2004)


Yeah, you made me feel
Shiny and new :






Whenever Tarantino imagines us thinking Reservoir Dogs set, on its release, the notoriety around Madonna in 1992 was not these initial hits (on which the breakfast club egotistically dilates), but the music-video (lesbian kiss, S&M, etc.) and lyrics - Put your hands all over my body ? - of 'Erotica' (and, that year also, the publication of Sex)




End-notes :

 ¹ The Arts Picturehouse (@CamPicturehouse) was preparing for Tarantino's Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood (2019), all 2h 39mins of it, by reprising his film career.

² We should recall that part of the Zeitgeist, into which both films were feeding, was Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) – with the edginess of the situation of Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon. (A film that, amongst other names, also boasted Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce.)

³ Which, at least, seems verging on homo-eroticism ?


Apart from ‘Nice Guy’ Eddie (Chris Penn) in particular, so many of the characters present as very hoarse, gruff, or both, as if thereby asserting – beyond (reasonable) question – their hard-ball, masculine status ? So much of this guff about the lyrics of 'Like a Virgin', or Larry grabbing / confiscating Joe's pocket-book, is really just posturing about 'Who's got the biggest dick ?'...


⁴ At times, do the reasons for any of the Reservoir Dogs, notably Mr Pink (Steve Buscemi), to stay where they are and / or their irresolution about doing so seem as flimsy as those of the two principals in Godot (i.e. that they are waiting for Godot) ? :

 Vladimir : Well ? Shall we go ?

Estragon : Yes, let’s go.

They do not move.


Artistically, as learnt from cinema, Tarantino has an attraction to stand-offs (and Reservoir Dogs finally resolves with / in one), but he uses this one in a stylistic way, without resolving it : that does not work as an unresolved chord would in music, because he gives the impression of having started that which he cannot (plausibly) finish by scripting - unlike a killer chess-move, or maybe Buscemi taking the legs from under Keitel (though, in this still, all the energy is in and from Keitel's stance)


 ⁵ One of the two posthumous biographies of Beckettt is called Damned to Fame.




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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