Reservoir Dogs

Pankcake house
White / Orange in the car
White / Orange in the warehouse
White / Pink talk
Pink running from the cops
White / Pink fight
White / Pink / Blonde (bring in the cop)
Joe / Blonde / Eddie (Blonde's backstory)
Mash-up of White/Blonde/Pink beating up the cop and Eddie talking on his phone, saying he's heading to the hide-out
Eddie / Blonde / White / Pink in the warehouse
Blonde and the cop (torture scene), Freddy reveals he's the rat
Freddy's backstory (in the diner with Holloway)
Freddy rehearses his story, tells it to Joe / White / Eddie [the story is broken up among different scenes] [shots of Freddy in the bathroom with the police]
Freddy in his apartment, goes down to the car
Freddy / White / Pink / Eddie in the car
The whole crew in the warehouse
White and Orange in the car, rehearsing the job [shows their growing relationship]
White / Orange / Brown after the robbery, White shoots the cops, Orange gets shot by the woman
Back in the car with Orange shot
Back in the warehouse, Eddie / White / Joe standoff, Pink runs out, White kills Orange

[The structure is so intricate that part of me wonders if Tarantino used an old film's structure as a starting point and just built off it. I still can't figure out how to reverse-engineer how he would have constructed something like this, where the different pieces seem to be supporting each other in such a way that you can't remove any one of them without the rest collapsing...]



Shooting Script (Allegedly)

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Reservoir-Dogs.html
- It was a lot of fun to go through the script scene-by-scene, watching each scene in the film immediately after reading it in the shooting script, looking at the differences.

- IMDB: "Quentin Tarantino wrote the first draft in three and a half weeks."

- IMDB: "Robert Kurtzman did the special make-up effects for free, on the condition that Quentin Tarantino write a script for From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) based on a story by Kurtzman."

- IMDB: "Quentin Tarantino had to fight Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein to keep the torture scene in the film, as Weinstein felt it would have a serious negative effect on audiences. Quentin stood his ground and Harvey ultimately relented."

- IMDB: "In then commentary of the True Romance (1993) DVD, Quentin Tarantino says that Tony Scott read both the "True Romance" and "Reservoir Dogs" scripts and told Tarantino he wanted to direct "Reservoir Dogs". Tarantino told him he could have "True Romance" but that he himself was going to direct "Reservoir Dogs"." [Lesson: Think about what your debut is going to be.]

- IMDB: "Terry Gilliam is thanked in the credits in gratitude for advice he gave to Quentin Tarantino during a Sundance workshop." [Lesson: Look for situations like this.]

- IMDB: "To avoid alienating the film's backers, producer Lawrence Bender had the tamer scenes shot first, so that the dailies would strengthen the backers' confidence before getting to the nasty, violent scenes."

- IMDB: "Monte Hellman was originally tapped to direct the film as Quentin Tarantino was a complete unknown. However, when Tarantino sold the screenplay for True Romance (1993) for $50,000, he lobbied hard to direct the film himself. Hellman took on an executive producer role instead." [This doesn't seem to gell with the version of the story Tarantino gives in one of his interviews...]

- IMDB: "The title for the film came to Quentin Tarantino via a patron at the now-famous Video Archives. While working there, Tarantino would often recommend little-known titles to customers, and when he suggested Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987), the patron mockingly replied, "I don't want to see no reservoir dogs!" The title is never spoken in the film, however."
- ...but then the IMDB page for "Au Revoir Les Enfants", it says: "Before becoming a famous movie-director, Quentin Tarantino worked in a video store, where he referred to this movie as "the reservoir film", because he couldn't pronounce the title. He combined this with Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) to produce the title Reservoir Dogs (1992)."
Another website: "Further research reveals:Quentin Tarantino gave an interview in the British magazine 'Empire' in which he said 'It's just a perfect title for those guys, they are reservoir dogs, whatever the hell that means'. from this site (http://www.moviescripts.de/html/faq/tarantino.faq.html) and And as he would do in many interviews, Tarantino balked at explaining the meaning of the film's title, saying "...it's more of a mood title than anything else. It's just the right title, don't ask me why." from this site (http://www.geraldpeary.com/books/tarantino_intro.html) so I now don't know."

- What is the essence of a director's job? Tarantino said you don't need to know about different qualities of films, the details of the mechanics; you just need to really love movies. 
A: Well one thing definitely seems to be a knowledge of how far you can stretch your budget. An aspect that may be related but not essential is the actual RAISING of the money. A part of it is definitely being in the right place at the right time (ie around the people who can put you into the director's chair). [That would be an argument for moving to Palo Alto].

- I think Tim Roth did a respectable job as Orange, but I also think it could have been done better. You can hear his real accent pop through at times. I think Chris Penn just nailed Nice Guy Eddie, ditto for Buscemi as Pink. I think Keitel just about nailed White, with maybe a little room for improvement. I think Tierney just about nailed Joe Cabot.

- List of expensive parts of the movie: the make-up on the tortured cop, White's shooting up of the two cops in the car (the glass gets all shot up), the breaking of the glass of the car that hits Mr. Pink, all the gun shots (blanks), and their corresponding explosions (the explosions on the people).

- It's definitely interesting to see how Tarantino's use of out-of-chronological-order storytelling evolved from this film to Pulp Fiction. It'd be interesting to do a detailed analysis of the differences / similarities between the use of the technique in the two films.

- It's also honestly disappointing that the film centers around such socially-unproductive behavior. It was movies like this that got me sucked into military stuff. I do think that movies like this glorify violent behavior and make people more open to that kind of behavior than they might otherwise be.

- It was interesting to see the differences between the shooting script and the actual film. Examples:
- No shot of White's gun when they're leaving the restaurant; there's just the one wide shot of all of them leaving.
- While White / Orange are driving back to the hideout, it doesn't look like White's going 80mph, dodging between traffic, as the script specified.

- The film is clearly leading the audience to believe that Orange was shot by cops, even though it never explicitly says that.

- The film has a lot of references in the dialogue to other films. It's just like how Eminem's raps frequently have references to other rappers. I think referencing pop culture can be a good way to connect with the audience, but I'm not sure it's an ideal for these art forms to mainly have references to their own art form. Reservoir Dogs does have references to Madonna, and the sounds of the '70s, so I guess it's not fair to say that it has more references to movies than to music. And now that I think about it, rap songs do reference movies and other pop culture a lot as well. I guess the main take-away is: If you're noticing your film / song is mainly referencing its own art form, think about shifting some of those references to other art forms.

- The film does a good job of showing how a movie doesn't have to be perfect to be entertaining. Mr. White's behavior at the end (shooting an old friend) seems pretty unrealistic to me, but the amount of time he's spent with Orange up to that point makes it just plausible enough to not be doubted in the moment.

- Why is Brown (Tarantino's character) in the movie at all? A: I think it may have been two things: 1) an attempt to start to build a resume of appearances, and 2) just a plain old desire to be in a movie. He's arranged cameos in his other movies, when it became clear he wasn't going to be an actor; his role would be as a director.
[Later: Look at this info from IMDB: "Quentin Tarantino was originally going to play Mr Pink, although he made a point of letting all the other actors audition for the part. When Steve Buscemi came in to read for it, Tarantino told him that he really wanted the part for himself and that the only way Buscemi could possibly wrest it from him was to do a killer audition. Buscemi duly complied."]
- It may also have been that Tarantino had already thought of the monologue but couldn't give it to any of the other characters because it wouldn't gell with their personality.
- It may also have been because of how the heist works: Brown is the guy in the getaway car, while Blue helps Blonde with crowd control [see the convo between White and Orange]

- Why is Blue in the movie? A: I'm not 100% sure. It may have been to add mystery to the whole situation ("Where are all these other guys?"). It certainly wouldn't cost much to have an actor in such a small role. But then why not leave it at Brown being missing? Maybe because it would make it too obvious that Tarantino had written himself out?
- Look at this info from IMDB on the actor who played Blue: "Edward Bunker, a former career criminal, was the youngest felon to be sent to San Quentin. (He was 17.) He was a novelist and also played cons in other films - Runaway Train (1985), The Longest Yard (2005) and Straight Time (1978) (which was based on his novel) and worked as a technical advisor on others - Heat (1995), for instance. Jon Voight's character in 'Heat' was based on Bunker."
- Look at this info from IMDB: "According to cast member Edward Bunker, there was a scene that would have shown exactly what happened to his character, Mr. Blue but the scene was cut due to the limited budget. He also said actor Lawrence Tierney could never remember his lines, so Tierney's scenes took a while to shoot." [This actually sounds like a very plausible explanation for why Blue is in the film but doesn't have a big part.]

How did Tarantino come up with the ordering of the scenes that he did?
- From the title-cards for each character ("Mr. White", then "Mr. Blonde", then "Mr. Orange"), it seems like he originally was at one point thinking of doing backstory scenes for each of the characters. This theory is in agreement with what Mr. Blue's actor said, which was that Blue was originally going to have a section of the movie that showed what happened to him, but it got cut for budget reasons.
- So why have a backstory on Blonde but not Pink? I think the reason is that the KEY confrontation in the film is the mexican standoff at the end, and the most important thing for Tarantino to accomplish in the film is to make the audience understand what is leading White and Eddie to each draw their weapons. Blonde's backstory is crucial, then, because it establishes the close relationship between Eddie and Vic which makes it clear to the audience why Eddie would react the way he does when he finds out Vic is dead.
- Why have the scene in the coffee shop at the beginning? A: Well, for one thing, it introduces you to all the characters. That may be the most important thing it does. It also does a bit of character building: you see White as a guy with a good heart, Pink as a ruthless professional, Joe as the gruff boss. It also foreshadows the fact that White is willing to go head-to-head against Joe and considers himself Joe's equal, whereas someone like Pink backs down when Joe gives him shit (like when he names him "Pink").
- Why then cut to the scene with Orange bleeding in the back seat? A: Well, movies tend to like to try to quickly get to a high-impact scene to demonstrate value to the audience (ie hook the audience before they get bored and tune out). His bleeding in the back seat is probably the most intense part other than the ending where they all kill each other and the torture scene, so it works well to hook the audience. It's like how the Ring starts with the death of those teens.
- Why have Blonde's backstory before Orange's? A: Well, Orange's backstory reveals that he's a cop, so you don't want to put it towards the beginning because the identity of the rat is used for suspense.
- Why have Blonde's backstory after White's? A: White has more dialogue at the beginning of the film, so it makes sense to have his backstory around when he's talking the most. Blonde talks more in the middle of the film, so it makes sense to have his backstory around when he has more dialogue.

- Watching the diner scene really made me realize just how much better Keitel / Buscemi / Tierney are than the rest of the guys there at reading their lines.

- Watching Roth act shot reminded me how much things have changed since the early 90s. Nowadays it's easy to see how people actually behave when they get shot. Outrageous real situations are a lot more accessible than they were back then (ie there's a lot of video of these events). So I kept thinking, "If he was really shot he would not be moving at all, not talking much at all. Much more like the Medic in Saving Private Ryan. Roth is wriggling all over the place, stressing his voice, using a lot of energy. It's definitely more dramatic."

- Watching the actors deliver the lines reminded me of how important it is to be able to understand what the actors are saying. There are a LOT of lines in the script where I could barely understand them in the film because 1) the actors were speaking too quickly, 2) the actors were not articulating (Orange acting shot), 3) the actors were speaking too softly, 4) the environment was echo-y

- Why did it cut to a scene of Mr. White talking to Joe after the scene in the bathroom with Mr. Pink?

- Why the slow close-up on White while Mr. Pink is talking about how they need to get out of there?

- After reading the script and having done some acting it's really interesting to be able to notice when the actors are pausing to remember their next line.

- It's really interesting to see how Tarantino creates the differences between the different characters. For example, Blonde never raises his voice, and will keep quiet, and just generally exudes "cool". The soda he has when he first shows up shows how he actually stopped to get something to eat and drink before showing up at the hideout (another way of demonstrating that he isn't freaking out).

- It's also interesting that the script specifies that he has a hotdog and a soda when he first shows up at the hideout, but in the film he just has the soda. The script also specifies that he walks around the warehouse while Mr. Pink is talking. But then in the actual film he just leans up against a pole. So Tarantino may have been envisioning a smaller area when he was writing the script.

- Why does Tarantino include that quip about "niggers" in Mr. Pink's dialogue when he's breaking up the tension between White and Blonde? My guess is it's just an attempt to develop Mr. Pink's character. Otherwise it'd be pretty generic dialogue, something any number of people might say.

- What's with Blonde's asking White if he's a Lee Marvin fan?

- The scene with Blonde / Joe / Eddie shows why Blonde would start shooting people when they pulled the alarm: He had just gotten out of prison and was probably pissed. It also explains why Joe would have chosen someone who may have not been the best fit for the job.
- The name of the parole officer is changed from "Koons" to something else in the film.
- It's interesting how there are more cuts in this scene, maybe because of the limited space.

- Why does Tarantino choose to reveal who the rat is in the middle of the film?

- The actor who plays the cop really does a phenomenal job with his delivery. I'm not sure why the name is changed from "Jeffrey" in the script to "Marvin" in the film.
- Also, the make-up on his cut-off ear was really phenomenal. Apparently Tarantino got a really good special effects guy to do it for free in return for writing the script to "From Dusk Til Dawn".

- I wonder how Tarantino did research for this film. For example, the advice that Holloway gives to Orange about how to tell a story: "If you tell this story to someone who's taken a piss in this bathroom and you get one detail right, they'll swear by you."

- The script says the outdoor shot of the restaurant shows Orange sit down while talking to the black guy, but in the film it shows them hugging.

- The script has no reference to "Long Beach Mike", while the film has a bunch of lines dedicated to him. I couldn't make out the dialogue at first, but after rewatching it I understood. Basically he's a guy the cops have in their pocket. Orange said he did a poker robbery with Mike when talking to Eddie, and Eddie called Mike to verify. Mike said "Yeah", Eddie believed him, and so Orange got in.

- The script has Holloway initially introducing the Commode story in the actual bathroom, while in the film they're on a rooftop. Also, the actor playing Holloway has his hands in his pockets the whole time.

- It's interesting that the script calls for a descent-sized scene at the police station where they dig up information on White, but the film just goes straight to the scene where Eddie / Pink / White pick up Orange.

- Chris Penn really does a phenomenal job with his monologue in the car about Elois. It's interesting that the script calls for laughter at White's "There's a slight difference" sarcastic remark, but the film just shows Pink replying, "Very funny." I remember making those kinds of modifications when doing Wired.

- The script calls for an establishing shot of the guys getting out of the car outside the warehouse and entering the building, while the film cuts straight to Joe Cabot.

- The script calls for Joe to tell a stupid joke as they're entering the warehouse, but the film has him give a more grave speech about how they need to stop fooling around and be serious. I honestly think the speech in the film is WAY better than the one in the script.

- Not sure why it has a shot zooming in to a CU on Mr. Orange while Joe is giving his speech about aliases.

- The script says "Freddy shits a brick." when Joe says he knows everyone except him. That isn't a very easy-to-translate instruction for a director. And Joe doesn't seem to say the line when it's called for in the script.

- Tarantino's acting is pretty bad. He does not come off at all like a criminal.

- The script calls for a scene between Holloway and Orange talking about the cops surrounding the jewelry shop, but the film skips it and goes straight from the alias scene to the scene between Orange and White going over the robbery.

- In the scene between White and Orange in the car, White's line "That girl's ass?" and Orange's response "Right here, on my dick" seems to have been improvised.

- I really like the beat after White talks about cutting off the manager's finger, and before he says "I'm hungry. Let's get a taco." It isn't called for in the script but I think it was very appropriate.

- The script foreshadows Mr. White using his two .45s against the cop car, because in an earlier scene they describe him having used them against cops at a birthday party. But the film doesn't include that foreshadowing scene. It wasn't an essential thing to foreshadow so I think it made sense.

- Mr. Brown's death is pretty deus-ex-machina...one moment he seems fine, the next moment he's totally unconscious.

- It's interesting that it calls for keeping the camera on Freddy when it replays the scene in the car. It seems that by that point the audience's perspective has shifted to following Freddy's story instead of White's.
- The film also has a little more dialogue from Freddy while he's in the car than is called for in the script. I think having it shorter might have made it too jarring.

- The script calls for a scene in the car with Joe / Pink / White where Joe's examining the diamonds and they're talking about getting a nurse for Orange. It's not in the film. I can see how it wasn't essential.