🎬 Retro Sunday : RESERVOIR DOGS / Essay

It's extremely difficult to briefly write about Quentin  Tarantino with whose name, as well as films, are familiar even those  that  film theory and history bypassed. Therefore, it is possible that  the best option is to start from the movies themselves and to avoid  listing a long line of already canonized stylistic features. With his  debut thriller, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Tarantino opened the way for  further development of a largely recognizable and unmistakable, end even  then mature and formed movie style.

Reservoir Dogs was proclaimed a cult classic and the best independent  film in the history of cinema. In the context of Tarantino's  filmography, it became the bearer and synthesis of elements that in a  relatively short time became the trademark of his film style and range  from narrative elements to cast.

The central motive of the film is the robbery, though, it's not  shown. Specifically, Tarantino views the events that took place before  and immediately after the robbery itself, making Reservoir Dogs  so-called heist film. The robbery was carried out by a group of five  men. Tarantino chose a strong cast, roles of robbers in suits are:  Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen and Quentin  Tarantino himself appears in a small role. 

The plot has a non-linear narrative structure framed motive of the  crime, and, since there is no chronology, to the viewer the story is  presented in fragments, and certain parts of the story are learned  exclusively from the dialogue of the characters.

Even though with movie classics, like this one, there is no need to  analyze the story, Reservoir Dogs undoubtedly contain scenes that are  worth highlighting.
The introductory scene begins with words spoken by  Tarantino himself, and after only a few seconds the viewer is given a  visual insight. A dynamic camera circles around the round table at which  there are six men talking continuously, although the viewer only in the  fragments sees who of them at a given time has a word.
The themes of  their conversations, ranging from discussing the meaning behind Madonna's songs to those about socially accepted conventions, such as  giving tips, open the way with intriguing and interesting dialogues  pervaded by sharp humor, vulgarity, and references to popular culture.  
The whole scene counts a large number of cuts, short and long shots,  close and big plans. Namely, Tarantino is playing with the film form  from the very beginning, which significantly enriches the content and  atmosphere and opens the way to a unique and fun style.



Tarantino doesn't show us all the characters at the same in the  introductory scene. Even in the final frame, one of the characters  remains omitted. In this way, Tarantino leaves the characters and their  interrelationships and ambitions to be undefined and mysterious. The  introductory scene follows the introductory bundle in which the dynamic  camera follows the slow motion of the men's group and is also the first  moment in which the characters are shown in the crowd.
This legendary scene, which inspired styling of million bachelor  parties, Tarantino assures us that we will see a robbery performed to  perfection by best laid back types since the Rat Pack made "Ocean's  Eleven" in 1960.

After the camera becomes static, the viewer follows the disappearance  of a group of men while in the background plays Little Green Bag, the  first in a series of songs Tarantino has included in the film under the  fiction radio station K-Billy : K-Billy's Super Sounds of the Seventies  Weekend.

The central event, that is, the robbery of jewels, remains hidden  from the viewer. However, we are aware of the events that followed,  because the whole crime was brilliantly derived from the dialogue of  characters that, regardless of the amount of information on previous  events, remains natural, simple and fun. Also, since men point to each  other with nicknames that match color names, it's relatively easy to  understand that the perpetrators of crime are not familiar with each  other, which can be followed by the conclusion that a plan for a perfect  crime has broken apart for a reason.



However, the framework for understanding the plot and the  relationship between the characters is not just in the dialogue.  Tarantino's characters gather after a robbery in an abandoned warehouse  where the most spectacular scene of the movie will take place. After he  succeeds in kidnapping a cop, Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) decides to  take him to the storeroom where they all decided to meet. While the  scene of brutal and bloody violence, in which the most bizarre scene  remains hidden by the sudden rise of the camera, and intertwining  with  song Stuck in the Middle with You, the audience witnesses the fun and  dance content that turns into the outbreaks of severe violence that,  when the viewer becomes aware of, is just too late to unseen.

 
And now to the fun part!

TRIVIA & FUN FACTS 

Tarantino Body Countdown
(click to enlarge)



* The empty building where the second part of the film is shot, was in fact a  mortuary.

* Mr. Blue was an actual bank robber in real life.   Eddie Bunker spent much of the first half of his life in various    correctional facilities. He even wrote semi-autobiographical crime  book titled Little Boy Blue, and yes, Tarantino was  a fan. *  The film was planned to be shot for just $30,000  until Harvey Keitel saw the script and came on as Mr. White & the  executive producer, which increased the budget to $1.2 million.

* Madonna send Tarantino a signed record of “Like A  Virgin” that said: “To Quentin. It’s not about dick, it’s about love.  Madonna”

* Quentin Tarantino says that the briefcase from Pulp  Fiction was originally supposed to have contained a cache of diamonds  before Tarantino decided that keeping the contents of the briefcase  ambiguous made it more interesting. Since Pulp Fiction and Reservoir  Dogs take place in the same universe (Vic and Vincent Vega, major  characters in both films, are brothers), it's been theorized that the  briefcases in both films are actually the same briefcase, which would  mean that someone in the criminal underworld sold the diamonds to Brett  and his gang before the police could return them to their rightful  owners.

*  In Mr. White's flashback, Joe asks him about a girl  named Alabama. This is a reference to Patricia Arquette's character from  True Romance. Quentin Tarantino has stated that he originally intended  this character to meet up with Mr. White and to become partners in  crime. When "True Romance" was released a year after this film, the  ending was changed and so this backstory became inconsistent because  Alabama never went on to meet up with Mr. White.


Quentin Tarantino talks about Reservoir Dogs (1992)