I saw this early Tarantino film a few weeks ago, and it has been occupying that part of my brain that thinks about films, both because it is interesting, and because I haven't seen anything else very recently.
My thesis is twofold: Firstly, I argue that the violence in Reservoir Dogs is non-redemptive. Secondly, I argue that this is a meditation, not on real-world violence, but on movie violence.
I) Non-Redemptive Violence
 |
| Not a really badass crime movie, despite publicity photos like this one. |
"Reservoir Dogs" is incredibly violent. Unlike so many Hollywood films, however, almost none of the violence is redemptive. Rather than engage in a lengthy discussion of Walter Wink's
"myth of redemptive violence," I will simplify the notion of redemptive violence to "violence that ennobles the perpetrating character." Most instances of violence in Hollywood films fall into this category: Luke Skywalker killing Emperor Palpatine; the "heroics" of the platoon in "Saving Private Ryan," etc. Even if these movies contain instances of non-redemptive violence (the empire destroying planets), the dilemmas raised by those acts of violence are resolved by more acts of violence (destroying the death star).
"Reservoir Dogs" first piqued my interest when I realized that (with one exception) none of the violence ennobles the characters, and that the subsequent acts of violence do not resolve the dilemmas that the violence has created, except in that SPOILER ALERT all the perpetrating characters end up dead at each others' hands.
II) Temporality
Part of why this works is that the movie uses flashbacks. The advent of the violence is thus disconnected from its causality, as in the cut from the early slow-motion "walking down the street" sequence to the scene of Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) comforting the visibly wounded Mr. Orange (Tim Roth). Were the events arranged sequentially, the violence would seem more meaningful and ordered; the flashbacks, while still allowing us to (eventually) understand the motivations for the acts of violence, allow us to experience the effects of violence (Mr. Orange bleeding out on the warehouse floor) in tandem with the events of violence themselves (the botched jewelry store heist).
III) The Exception
The only act of violence that is in any way redemptive occurs during the famous "Stuck in the Middle With You" sequence. SPOILER ALERT. Just as Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) is about to immolate the captured policeman (Kirk Baltz) Mr. Orange, barely alive, shoots Mr. Blonde, saving the officer's life and revealing himself as the police informant. This is the film's only ennobling act of violence. Shortly after this (in diegetic time; a series of flashbacks intervene in non-diegetic screentime), the officer is killed, rendering the only redemptive act of violence meaningless; redemptive and meaningful in terms of the development of Mr. Orange's character, but meaningless in utilitarian terms.
 |
| Mr. Orange ennobled. |
It could be argued that Mr. White's actions in the standoff at the film's conclusion also ennoble him. He draws his gun, and ultimately shoots one friend (Joe) in defense of the honor of another (Mr. Orange). This situation is complicated firstly by the fact that he shoots his old friend Joe, hardly an ennobling act, and secondly by the fact that his friendship with Mr. Orange is revealed to be a lie. When Mr. White learns that he has been betrayed, he also kills Mr. Orange, undoing whatever redemption he may have earned himself in the standoff.
Even though we sympathize with the characters committing the acts of violence, particularly Mr. White and Mr. Orange, "Reservoir Dogs" gives us no way to justify their violent actions.
IV) Movies
So, having arrived at the conclusion that "Reservoir Dogs" implicates systems of violence as being non-redemptive and meaningless, I initially thought "whoa, what a great pacifist movie!" This then led me to wonder about the movie's bearing on other systems of violence in the world, and I came to the conclusion that this is a movie, not about systems of violence in the world, but about systems of violence in the movies.
My first clue was the closed-off nature of the movie: It occurs, diegetically, within the confines of a warehouse. The violence that occurs occurs within a closed system (Mr. Orange is shot by the bystander, and then shoots her), affecting nothing beyond itself. This is not true to real-world systems of violence, which have all kinds of far-reaching effects beyond themselves.
My second clue was the fact that this is a Tarantino film. Tarantino is famous for making movies about movies, and this is one of the movies that gave him that distinction.
My third and most telling clue was the temporal positioning of the movie itself. Though it was made in 1992, the movie hearkens back to 1970s gangster films: the cars, the soundtrack, the famous "badass slo-mo scene," even the casting of veteran crime-film actor Harvey Keitel. Why make a movie set in the 1970s when the story would play just as well set in 1992? This movie indicts a particularly seminal period and genre of Hollywood filmmaking, and, by extension, Hollywood filmmaking in general.
V) Conclusions
While I enjoyed thinking about a movie with (almost) no redemptive violence, I was disappointed that its lessons could not be applied to real-world violence, except in a bluntly moralistic sense. Nonetheless, a movie that indicts movies for their unquestioning embrace of the myth of redemptive violence is good movie to have around, and it will be hard for me to see any onscreen violence without parsing it though the lens that "Reservoir Dogs" has afforded me.
Reservoir Dogs at IMDB and Wikipedia, two resources used in writing this analysis.
