Blog Directory CineVerse: A dog with bark AND bite

A dog with bark AND bite

Friday, July 5, 2013

Neo noir was on the agenda last Wednesday at CineVerse--Quentin Tarantino style. Here are the highlights of our in-depth discussion on Reservoir Dogs:

HOW DID THIS FILM DEFY YOUR EXPECTATIONS?

·       It’s not a linear narrative that tells a beginning to end story: it jumps around in time and space with flashbacks and scene ellipses. This timeline shifting forces us to pay more attention to what’s going on so that we don’t miss any key details.
o   Tarantino was quoted as saying: “Novels do this all the time. A novelist would think nothing of starting in the middle. I think movies should benefit from the novel’s freedom.”
·       For a neo-noir crime thriller, it’s arguably as funny as it is violent and suspenseful.
·       Except for the heist escape flashback, it lacks action scenes, chases and other energetic scenes, relying on well-written dialogue to drive most of the story and characters; in fact, the movie’s “action” takes place after the heist itself, and plenty of action takes place off the screen.
·       The characters each have incredible presence and watchability, with some given more elaborate backstories and motivations than others; for example, Mr. Blonde, despite being a sadistic torturer, is given a backstory and character context that makes him more palatable.
·       The film proves enigmatically interesting, leaving lots of questions for the viewers to try to answer themselves: What went wrong at the heist? Where did everyone go? In fact, we don’t even realize these are criminals until after the opening coffee house scene, which introduces a colorful crew who could be professionals that abide by the law, for all we know.
·       There is no moral side-taking in this story, or good guys vs. bad guys exercise, per se: yes, Mr. Blonde is pretty reprehensible, but all the other criminals, who are just as capable of great violence, are as deserving of our sympathies and rooting interest as is Mr. Orange, the undercover cop.

WHAT ARE SOME HALLMARKS OF TARANTINO’S CINEMATIC STYLE AS A DIRECTOR?
·       Long, extended dialogue scenes filled with pop culture references, realistic adult banter, and ample profanities
·       Use of older music (in this case, songs from the 1970s, some of which many people would say are pretty cheesy) to add a retro hipness quotient to the vibe of a scene or montage
·       Intense scenes of punctuated graphic violence: consider the anal rape scene in Pulp Fiction or the baseball bat beating in Inglorious Basterds.
·       It’s obvious this filmmaker has been influenced by the works of Martin Scorsese, John Woo, Stanley Kubrick, and Sergio Leone, as well as the French new wave artists like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.
·       As one critic put it: “the distinguishing and transforming characteristics of (Tarantino)…is the aura of irreverent yet familiar media saturation that informs his fictions. His characters don’t operate in a hermetic, sterile, politically correct cultural vacuum; they watch, listen, discuss and deconstruct the same cheesy music, TV shows and movies that Tarantino himself (and his audience) does, creating an ingratiating bridge between soulless murderers and popcorn-fed voyeurs.”
·       In short, his films often stress style and attitude as much as substance.

WHAT ARE SOME ESSENTIAL THEMES AND MESSAGES ESPOUSES IN THIS MOVIE?
·       Redemption through suffering and pain: these characters are looking to be redeemed from their lives of crime and gangsterism. Getting “out of the life” is their road to redemption.
·       Flouting authority and catching the boss with his pants down, as one critic put it: consider that only those in highest authority (the bald boss) have the ability to give names
·       Our intrinsic human nature will always spoil the best laid plans: we can’t help but serve our own self interests, betray, violate and be inhuman to one another.
·       Be careful whom you trust.

OTHER FILMS THAT RESERVOIR DOGS BRINGS TO MIND:
·       The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing, two earlier noirs where heists go wrong and the crooks have to scramble for cover
·       Mean Streets
·       City of Fire, a 1987 Hong Kong thriller that Tarantino borrowed liberally from
·       Glengarry Glen Ross
·       The Usual Suspects and Boondock Saints, two movies accused of ripping off Tarantino’s style and pop culture hipness

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY QUENTIN TARANTINO
·       Pulp Fiction
·       Jackie Brown
·       Kill Bill 1 and 2
·       Death Proof
·       Inglorious Basterds
·       Django Unchained

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