Symbols and Tropes

Symbols and Tropes

Physical Space

Tarantino uses the camera to tell us about the relationships between the characters by placing them in certain physical relationships to each other. In the opening diner scene, the image is a bunch...

Pop Culture References

If you've ever taken an extended break from mainstream entertainment media and tried living under a rock, then you know that coming back into reality can be difficult. One minute everyone is obsess...

K-Billy's Super Sounds of the Seventies

Don't you just love the smooth monotone of our boy K-Billy (played by comedian Steven Wright, whose own stand-up style wasn't too different from his line delivery as a radio DJ)? Can't you just hea...

Storytelling

Story Time with Mr. OrangeStorytelling's a continuing motif in the film. Movies are stories. Directors are storytellers. Actors are storytellers. Reservoir Dogs is, of course, itself a story and we...

Racism

In 2012, Jason Reitman brought together an (almost) all black cast to do a reading of the very white Reservoir Dogs. It featured Laurence Fishburne as White, Terrence Howard as Blonde, and plenty o...

Color

Since most of the movie takes place in a drab and colorless funeral home, we need to wake up and pay attention when color appears. A couple of instances worth mentioning:As Eddie's driving away fro...

Color Names and Cool Suits

The color code names seem random, but the point is that Joe insists they not know each other's real names. That way, if they're caught, they can't rat on each other because they don't know anyone's...

Mirrors

Mirror shots are another favorite of Tarantino's. We get two of them in Reservoir Dogs. Just before Orange leaves to meet Joe about the job, he looks in the mirror, checks himself out, and tells hi...