The delineation of violence

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2001)

Future historians may well look back at the cinema of the nineties in the United States and wonder why it spawned so many movies that seemed to celebrate gratuitous violence while catering to an audience fascinated with gore. (I have some ideas on this, but I'll skip them here.) Some may say this is nothing new, that there has always been gore in the movies, that the horror flick is a standard genre, and that, at any rate, human beings are quite naturally interested in violence because even if it is rare in their suburban experience, when it does occur it is of overriding significance.
When historians do look back they will surely take a gander at this film, director Quentin Tarantino's celebrated breakout cult classic. Anyone reading this has already seen the movie or certainly knows about its content. It contains one of the most unredeeming scenes of sadistic violence ever to strike the silver screen. It depicts a world in which men stick their guns out at each other the way little boys play.... It is a world in which women exist only on the periphery (like an old war movie there are virtually no women in the film), a world in which men are constantly preoccupied with macho notions and the phenomena of male bonding to the exclusion of anything else. The behavior of the men while superficially realistic is actually stylized in the extreme. Anything and everything may set a man off. His ego is under continual fire, his manhood is constantly being tested. Life is short, brutal and bestial.
Question: where did this vision come from, and why did it resonate so strongly with an audience, and what is that audience? It can be said that Reservoir Dogs appeals primarily to young men and teenaged boys, who are preoccupied with coming to grips with violence because it represents an important part of their lives, and how they might relate to violence is an essential part of their self discovery. This is true, but it is not the whole story. After all, as I write this, Reservoir Dogs is the 58th most popular movie of all time according to votes tabulated at the International Movie Database web site, IMDb.com. Even given that there is still a male bias on the web, this is an extraordinarily high rating for the first film of any director and for such a low budget enterprise.
Part of the explanation for the near reverence shown this film lies not in the blood-letting and the macho posturing, but in a story well told, well-plotted and of characters well-drawn and especially the indelible acting performances from most of the cast. Harvey Kietel as a hardened criminal with a soft heart, and Steve Buscemi as the amoral Mr. Pink, and Michael Madsen as the sadistic Mr. Blonde and Chris Penn as the slightly soft and slightly spoiled son of a criminal father and Tim Roth as the high wire acting Mr. Orange, really rivet us to the screen. The professional cadre of criminals depicted here, the cheap thugs and psychopathic killers, are well realized and their life styles and preoccupations well delineated. Tarantino begins with a scene in which the boys around some tables in a cafe "analyze" Madonna's "Like a Virgin" in manner that might be described as Oxford don crude. They continually espouse the racist, sexist macho values of the criminal underclass, in which loyalty to the band and bravery under fire are the highest values, while cowardice and "turning rat" are the lowest. Furthermore the script is punctuated with sick little jokes (e.g., about the imagined nature of black women), and wryly obscene juxtapositions, notably the macabre dance of Mr. Blonde to the radio playing "Stuck in the Middle with You" as he tortures the cop. Finally there is the structure of the film itself in which time is splintered and events are recalled and presented not chronologically, but according to the logic of the film itself. This technique allows Tarantino great freedom of expression and emphasis.
Okay, so why am I only giving this three stars? Mainly because, while the treatment was striking and original, the story and the milieu presented were not. And some of this was unrealistic to the point of annoyance. That Mr. Orange did not bleed to death or at least go into shock and faint dead away with a gaping hole in his stomach is beyond me. And the "neat" karmic ending was more than a little far fetched. And all those stylized speeches!
You'd think part of this was written for the Shakespearean stage. Indeed, although Tarantino may not realize it, he owes something to the Bard. Didn't Hamlet end much the same way with dead bodies all over the stage? Additionally, while Tarantino's vision appeals strongly to his targeted audience (and his own psyche), it does not relate well with a larger audience. The last thing a man of my age is concerned about is how macho he might be. Such concerns seem childish. And the nature and phenomenon of human violence is very far from a mystery to me; furthermore I know very well exactly how I feel about violence and how I might react in the face of it. I think if I had seen this movie when I was seventeen, I might have been stunned and thrilled with its power. Seeing it in my middle years leaves me a little cold.
Incidentally I agree with those who say that this is a greater artistic achievement than the "Hollywoodized" Pulp Fiction (1995), also directed by Tarantino.
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)