While there is possibly any number of reasons why Craven stepped out of the theater during this graphic sequence, Tarantino took it with pride.įive people walked out of that audience, including Wes Craven. He ultimately decided to skedaddle before the credits rolled up on Quentin Tarantino's freshman feature, which tickled the Reservoir Dogs writer/director.
CAST RESERVOIR DOGS MOVIE
Notoriously among the folks who have walked out of the movie during this controversial torture scene, however, is none other than Wes Craven, the late horror director behind The Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes, among many other prolific titles. The movie's infamous torture scene, while not as graphic as some folks might assume, isn't for the squeamish either, and it finds the theater with a few empty seats before it's over. Quentin Tarantino has been open - sometimes even possibly boastful - about the high volume of audience members who have walked out of his first film. So I was like, 'OK this is what it is like to watch your movie in public.' It was a fucking disaster. Then finally everyone has their guns pointed on everybody else and almost, as if on purpose, as far as suspense is concerned, right at the height of that scene there's a power outage, and all the power goes out. And somebody realizes, 'Oh shit what's going on.' So they bring the lights down. That would be bad enough, but then it gets to the final climax, where everyone is yelling at each other in the final chapter, and all of a sudden the lights come up. It was a complicated process bringing the film to the festival, with the final print reportedly shipped a mere three days before its first screening, and the film was plagued by a faulty projection, misbehaving lights, and a power outage at a crucial point.Īccording to Tarantino, part of the problem was that the theater didn't have a scope lens for the projector, so the movie didn't look right all the way through. Alas, while Sundance played a pivotal role in Reservoir Dogs' future success, the film's first screening was a legendary disaster. Founded in 1978, the Utah-based film-centric event is a cornerstone for some of the biggest, most exemplary indies of the past few decades, and Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut is one of the movies that helped establish this film festival as the place where careers foster and grow and young, up-and-coming filmmakers become some of the biggest names in Hollywood. It's always a great honor to have your independent film premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
The First Sundance Screening Was A 'Disaster' In the second half, you realize the movie is about other things. For the first half, you wonder if you'll ever see the heist. Although it's not exactly Rashomon, you do get a sense of the characters' different perspectives when they talk about what happened.
But I always liked the idea of never seeing it, and I kept that. The heist wasn't shown for budgetary reasons, it would seem, but in Tarantino's eyes, he always felt this decision was much more interesting.Īt one point the reason for not showing the heist might have been budgetary. For Tarantino, it played in his favor, allowing him to play with his non-conventional storytelling format and character-driven drama. For most filmmakers, especially first-timers, this would be a recipe for disaster.
Well, there's a heist, but it happens entirely off-screen. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Reservoir Dogs is that it's a heist movie without a heist. Especially one filled with hyper-violent beats of action like this one, you need to savor every dollar that's flung your way, which means that Reservoir Dogs needs to make budgetary restrictions. While $1.2 million is certainly a large wad of cash, it's not a whole lot of money to make a movie. The Heist Wasn't Shown For Budgetary Reasons, Though Quentin Tarantino Always Felt This Decision Was More Intriguing
0 kommentar(er)
