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Reservoir Dogs

post #1 of 17
11/25/08 at 9:30am
Thread Starter 
This could've easily been a play, the structure seems so much like a play. It's lost none of it's ferocity, the dialogue (which has been appropriated and parodied ad nauseum but never bettered) still sound fresh, has a snap to it.

"The man you just killed was just released from prison. He got caught at a company warehouse full of hot items. He could've fuckin' walked. All he had to do was say my dad's name, but he didn't; he kept his fucking mouth shut and did his fuckin' time, and he did it like a man. He did four years for us. So, Mr. Orange, you're tellin' me this very good friend of mine, who did four years for my father, who in four years never made a deal, no matter what they dangled in front of him, you're telling me that now, that now this man is free, and we're making good on our commitment to him, he's just gonna decide, OUT OF THE FUCKING BLUE, TO RIP US OFF? Why don't you tell me what really happened?"

Chris Penn's delivery of that dialogue is brilliant, even the crazy look in his eye as he says, I don't think Chris get's enough props for his performance in this film.
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post #2 of 17
11/25/08 at 11:40am
It's been a play. I think it's probably a nightmare to sit through as one.
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post #3 of 17
11/25/08 at 11:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
It's been a play. I think it's probably a nightmare to sit through as one.
I'm not sure how well it would adapt, actually, even if it were done with less of an eye toward aping the movie exactly.

Despite most of the action taking place in the present in a single location, one of the appealing aspects of the film is how fast and loose Tarantino plays with chronology. We get a lot of our important information via flashbacks (the planning, the breakfast scene, White and Orange in the car, Mr. Blonde being recruited, Orange and his police buddies, the heist, etc.), each of which could conceivably require scene changes and costume changes onstage to establish time and place. These transitions are smooth and instantaneous on film, but could be pretty clunky onstage.
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post #4 of 17
11/25/08 at 12:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
I'm not sure how well it would adapt, actually, even if it were done with less of an eye toward aping the movie exactly.

Despite most of the action taking place in the present in a single location, one of the appealing aspects of the film is how fast and loose Tarantino plays with chronology. We get a lot of our important information via flashbacks (the planning, the breakfast scene, White and Orange in the car, Mr. Blonde being recruited, Orange and his police buddies, the heist, etc.), each of which could conceivably require scene changes and costume changes onstage to establish time and place. These transitions are smooth and instantaneous on film, but could be pretty clunky onstage.
Point. Unless you have some poor lighting tech running across the stage with a [TIME: OCTOBER 1991] card, and then, why even bother?
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post #5 of 17
11/25/08 at 12:12pm
Aside from Phil's link, I've heard about two other stage adaptations. One of them was produced by a friend of mine when he was fresh out of school.
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post #6 of 17
11/25/08 at 12:21pm
There's one in Russian as well.

When I said it'd be bad to sit through as a stage play, I'm talking less about the feasibility of adapting the material, and more about the creative mindset that would think it'd be a good idea.
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post #7 of 17
11/25/08 at 12:28pm
You could do it on a setless stage pretty easily, I think. Use some creative lighting to indicate change of time and place.
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post #8 of 17
11/25/08 at 2:30pm
DM - Great film, of course... And in your post you happened to quote one of my favorite "monologues" of all time. I love quoting it whenever I get the chance. Penn really deserves more credit than he got for that performance. There's also that bit when he shoots the cop and goes:

"Went crazy? Something like that? Worse or better?"

Love that.

I don't really see this working as a play if rendered faithfully. There would have to be a major overhaul. It may be kind of dialogue-heavy but it's not all that static if you really think about it.
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post #9 of 17
11/25/08 at 5:58pm
QT geeks always wanted a Vega Bros. flick. I wanted to see the early adventures of Madson & Penn.

Always loved the line that diffuses the tension between Keitel n' Madson-

"You're a big Lee Marvin fan aren't ya?"
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post #10 of 17
11/25/08 at 7:37pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
I'm not sure how well it would adapt, actually, even if it were done with less of an eye toward aping the movie exactly.

Despite most of the action taking place in the present in a single location, one of the appealing aspects of the film is how fast and loose Tarantino plays with chronology. We get a lot of our important information via flashbacks (the planning, the breakfast scene, White and Orange in the car, Mr. Blonde being recruited, Orange and his police buddies, the heist, etc.), each of which could conceivably require scene changes and costume changes onstage to establish time and place. These transitions are smooth and instantaneous on film, but could be pretty clunky onstage.
The use of single locations and the fact that it's a very dialogue driven film made it seem like it could've been adapted from a play but I agree, turning this into a play is probably best left alone.
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post #11 of 17
8/19/09 at 8:32pm
Reservoir Frogs

Is it vBulletin or CHUD policy that disallows embedding?
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post #12 of 17
8/22/09 at 3:15pm
I think of the first time I watched this film at 16 as being the movie geek equivilant of the first time I heard Nirvanas Nevermind; it was a seismic shift in my tastes and idea of what music and movies could be.

Yeah I would go onto realise that Nevermind was simply appropriating the anger and edge of a lot of earlier punk bands and Dogs owed massive debts to things like City On Fire - but I never would have gone onto love those sorts of things without that initial introduction.

A very special film to me.
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post #13 of 17
8/30/09 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
I think of the first time I watched this film at 16 as being the movie geek equivilant of the first time I heard Nirvanas Nevermind; it was a seismic shift in my tastes and idea of what music and movies could be.

Yeah I would go onto realise that Nevermind was simply appropriating the anger and edge of a lot of earlier punk bands and Dogs owed massive debts to things like City On Fire - but I never would have gone onto love those sorts of things without that initial introduction.

A very special film to me.
I hold this film in very high regard as well. When I was a young teen, 13 or 14, I had to go to my dad's place every other weekend on account of visitation rights. It sucked because he lived far away from my friends with my step-mom and her 3 kids, so on those weekends I had shit to do. On one boring night, I went into my older step-brother's room to find some dvd to watch. I randomly picked this, Fight Club, and The Big Lebowski and watched this all in a row.

This changed me, my friend.
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post #14 of 17
8/30/09 at 1:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesse_Temple View Post
This changed me, my friend.
Surprised your head didn't explode. That would be a pretty great intro.
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post #15 of 17
8/30/09 at 2:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
Surprised your head didn't explode. That would be a pretty great intro.
It almost did. I remember not long after Kill Bill was about to come out. I was telling friends at school how cool it was that a new Tarantino film was about to be released, and everybody was like, who the fuck is that?
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post #16 of 17
8/31/09 at 5:21am
Holy shit. I mean, those three movies wow'd me at different times in my life, but the idea of the three of them at the same time. I kinda wish I could swap my memories for yours.
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post #17 of 17
5/25/12 at 8:29am

Finally got around to seeing this (the only Tarantinos I have left to watch are Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Django when it comes out), and it's quite an auspicious debut. It's low-budget, but never feels cheap. It has the energy and passion of live theater, but you'd never want it not to be a film. It didn't quite wow me in the same way that Kill Bill or Basterds did, but I still really, really enjoyed it. Laundry list!:

 

-I've never disliked Tarantino as an actor all that much because I suspect he just plays a variation of himself every time. This is particularly apt for stuff like the opening scene here or his famous Top Gun analysis in Sleep With Me: a motormouth convinced his circuitous pop culture theory is correct. It's a great, unexpected way to open the film.

 

-Right in the opening scene, you get what everyone's about, especially once they start arguing about the tip. Mr. White is an old-school, honor among thieves kind of guy, a man who thinks women should be treated with respect, and you always listen to your boss. Mr. Orange wants to be part of the group, so he's the one to tell Joe that Pink won't tip. Mr. Pink is above all concerned with both himself and professionalism. Mr. Blonde is a psychotic buried under a veneer of charm. Mr. Blue... well, there's really not much to him, is there? "Nice Guy" Eddie is a daddy's boy. And Joe is a crusty old fart who's tough enough to get Pink to break his no-tip rule.

 

-The cast is all great, although again I have to wonder about Mr. Blue. Eddie Bunker is in two or three scenes, and has maybe five lines. Did they just not want to deal with him that much on the set? I know Lawrence Tierney (who's perfect as Joe) was a complete terror, but I don't know. At any rate, our main guys are all terrific. Harvey Keitel does his Harvey Keitel thing better than just about anyone, Steve Buscemi easily steals the film for me, Michael Madsen is scary as hell, Tim Roth has the hardest part in the movie and nails it, and even Chris Penn manages to fit in among these crooks. His anger and crazy-eyes truly frightened me at a few points.

 

-What kind of accent is Tim Roth going for here? I ask because while he sounds like his natural British accent a lot of the time, there are a few weird points where he sounds Irish. Maybe it's just me.

 

-Even though I knew it was coming, the infamous "Stuck In The Middle With You" scene was still a real shock. As others have noted though, what makes the scene so horrifying isn't the actual violence since it artfully pans away when Blonde starts cutting the ear. It's Blonde's cavalier attitude, the creepy dissonance of the music and action or Kirk Baltz's believably terrified performance as Nash. I will say, however, that what we see of Nash's head after the slicing is impressively nasty.

 

-Orange blowing holes in Blonde as the song ends is another great shock. Even though Tarantino makes a point of showing him lying there a couple times earlier in the sequence, we still forget about him.

 

-One thing I liked about "not showing the heist" is that the dialogue we get describing what went wrong paints a terrific picture in our minds. Sure, we get a couple scenes like Pink and the White-Orange duo running for it (and the untimely death of Mr. Brown), but I think actually seeing, say, Blonde shooting up the store or the posse of cops trading fire would have diminished things.

 

So yeah, I'm looking forward to examining the rest of Tarantino's early work, including stuff like True Romance. One last question: should I read the original script of Natural Born Killers, see the movie, or both? I hear Stone rewrote and changed a lot of things, which pissed Tarantino off enough that he refused to be credited.

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