Aestheticization of violence between Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs

           Violence in general is not a stranger to us; war, gang brawls and everyday fights are around us and in the media. Violence isn’t politically or religiously inept, and many people would find it disturbing of the fact that some people glorify violence. In my opinion, violence in films are not channeled to encourage anyone to act violent but to express oneself. I believe in expressing anger and violence in films and music rather than in real life. Violence in films have a terrible reputation, and that a large number of films that are controversial have to do something with violence, for example ‘Natural Born Killers’ by Oliver Stone, a film that was regarded as an influence for so many school shootings and violent crimes, and ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ by Ruggero Deodato, a film that was banned in a lot of countries. How violence is inserted in a film is interesting, some even use it as a mean of narrating a story. ‘Aestheticization of violence is putting violence in a significant and stylistic way, in a form of art or in media’ – Margaret Bruder (www.wikipedia.com); or in other words, means the beauty of violence in films. Quentin Tarantino is a director far succumbed to the mainstream convention. His films do excellent with the aesthetics with the plot of his films. He uses extensive use of violence and gore in his films, but not in a cartoony, inoperative way. His characters help him to shape the violence, and to mean something different. In his two films, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’, both of the films are similar in terms of genre, which is the ‘crime film’ genre, but different in terms of personality of violence.

      
       Pulp Fiction is considered to be Quentin Tarantino’s finest work, with tantalizing script and odd storylines, it is regarded as a cult film. Every detail of its violence is functional, and each tells its own story. The characters in this film conveyed violence in a complex way; the characters are more charming and normal, in an odd, ironically funny way. We jump into the scene where Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) walking to an apartment, trying to hunt down the guys that they are after and retrieve a suitcase that belongs to Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), a big gangster. They then went in to a room with three guys, Brett and his friends. The way this scene was constructed is amazing, when Jules calmly talks about burgers and asking permission to try the burger that Brett was eating. When Brett starts to talk, Jules shoots one of his friends, in a random unmerciful way. The next few lines are crucial, that Jules recites one quote from the bible, Ezekiel 25:17, “the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee”, which he then shoots Brett in a dramatic fashion. We feel that now, Jules is the Lord, the gun is the judge and Brett is the avenged evil men that poisoned his brothers, and we question if Jules did the right thing. Normally we would feel that it’s wrong to recite a line from a Bible, and then kill someone in a manner of evil. It’s the same kind of feeling when we watched Adolf Hitler in ‘Triumph of the Will’, we feel drawn to his speech even though he has done cruel things to the Jews. But we don’t hate Jules in this scene, even though he was just acting by being a stone-hearted gangster, like before he entered the apartment, he asked Vincent to put his ‘game-face’ on. Instead, we ask the question, “Why did he recite a line from the Bible? And then shoots Brett?” The scene did not crystallize what really happened before that, we wouldn’t know if Brett had messed up his relationship with Marcellus by not paying him, or if that Jules is just another hit man sent by an evil gangster. Since the Bible is associated with love and forgiveness, and whoever is sinned will be plunged into damnation, one can ask if Jules translate the Bible correctly. If the Roman Catholic Church during the 5^th century was corrupted even though they used Bible as their main source to the path of God, then what difference does it make for Jules in this film? When they have the power to do so, anything can happen. And in this scene Jules was the powerful one. It comes to mind when we hear about violence and the path of God, like religious wars for example, ‘Jihads’ and so on. The beauty the way this scene was constructed was to show the correlation between violence and the work of God.      

       
         Another scene of aestheticization of violence is during the ‘Bonnie Situation’, which could be one of the best segments of aesthetics in this film. The scene goes back to the time when Vincent and Jules were in Brett’s apartment, after killing Brett, a random man comes out and fires his gun towards Jules and Vincent. He shot 5 bullets and nothing hit Vincent or Jules, they then killed the random man. Jules was then shocked and then said to Vincent that it was a miracle of God that God came down and turned the bullets away from them. Vincent did not believe what he said, and just said that they got lucky. The conversation goes on after that in the car, and Vincent brought Marvin, one of Brett’s friends. Jules then goes on about retiring of becoming a hitman, saying that God gave him a sign that enough is enough. Jules still keeps on going about how God saved their lives. When Vincent turns around and asked Marvin’s opinion on what just happened, the gun in his hand accidently went off and it shot Marvin’s head. The car was painted blood red. This scene was particularly humorous since they weren’t very shocked and that Jules were just worried about the condition of the car rather than Marvin. Our sense of humanity is turned when watching this scene; we don’t know whether to feel sorry for Marvin, or to laugh at Vincent’s mistake. This scene is a black comedy in my perspective, we laugh at death. Maybe, in Jules’s mind he thinks that God is pressurizing him to completely stop what he was doing or else something bad would happen. Just by that incident caused a lot of trouble for Jules and Vincent, they had to call an expert to clean the mess and then they had to crush the car with a whole segment dedicated just for the incident.

      
        On the other hand, in Reservoir dogs, the aesthetics of violence tells a completely different story. Violence in this film can be quite serious; unlike the comedic and ironic violence in ‘Pulp Fiction’. The characters in ‘Reservoir Dogs’ used a different approach in conveying violence, more cynical straightforward characters.  An obvious scene is when Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) tortures the cop for his amusement. Mr. Blonde cuts the ear of the cop while dancing to a ‘Stealers Wheels’ song. We didn’t see directly that he cut the cop’s ear, but then we’re drawn to what is happening. This scene proved to be a disturbing moment rather than a humorous moment, even when he sadistically said ‘Hello’ to the ear that he cut off; it wasn’t particularly humorous. We feel pain for the cop’s character if we were in his shoe. Mr. Blonde is now, for a lay man, a hated character in this film. We deteriorate our relationship on-screen with Mr. Blonde, unlike in Pulp Fiction, we did not deteriorate our relationship on-screen with Jules when he shot Brett and his friends, more likely we absorbed to Jules’s character rather than Mr. Blonde’s character. The reason being, in my opinion, Mr. Blonde felt amused by torturing the cop. He looks calm, and we see him as an inhumane character, an unmerciful psychopath. We root for him sooner to die and our socially constructed minds think that people with psychopathic imaginations should be labeled, abnormal. We don’t want these people in our world, so we hope that somewhere in the film, someone would shoot Mr. Blonde. As for Jules Winnfield, he did not look like a hatred psychopath. He looks more like a guy who acts a certain way because of what he does. Even though Jules kills people he does have a feeling that God exist, and we feel that he is just a normal, friendly man. It showed during the part when he just talks casually to Vincent, and when he calmed down Hunny Bunny later in ‘Pulp Fiction’. It is just when he is doing his job; he is a different human being. If anything, Mr. Blonde is rather similar to Zed, a corrupted rapist cop in ‘Pulp Fiction’.  

      
       Another scene in Reservoir Dogs was when Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) and Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) were trying to get a car after Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino) was shot. Mr. Orange is actually an undercover policeman and is just following the whole thing. When an undercover cop joins a lethal gang, they have to follow what they do, and act as if they are one of them. When Mr. Orange followed Mr. White to rob a car, Mr. Orange accidently shot the women in the car, even when he knew he was a cop, and their mission is trying to prevent innocent people from getting hurt or killed. But I think a mission like this can prove to be psychologically disturbing to an individual, a dilemma that if they would follow the footsteps of the gangs, you would jeopardize the innocent people, but if you don’t you would get killed by them. When we see Mr. Orange’s facial expression when he accidently shot the women in the car we can either say he felt guilty or we can hear his thoughts saying, “What have I done? Have I become one of them?” We never see this type of violence in ‘Pulp Fiction’.

    
       The similarities of the aesthetics of violence is that Quentin Tarantino put a ‘Mexican standoff’ scene at the end. Both of the scenes are similar, that is more than two people are pointing guns at each other, and there may be one person in each film who would panic in a way that would raise some tension. In ‘Pulp Fiction’, we go back to the scene where Hunny Bunny (Amanda Plummer) and Pumpkin (Tim Roth) were talking about robbing the restaurant. They pulled out their guns and then asked everyone to stay put. Everyone was shocked while Jules Winnfield stood there calmly when Pumpkin points the gun at him. Jules then points his gun at Pumpkin, while Hunny Bunny hysterically asked Jules to put his gun down. By that time, Vincent had just come out from the toilet and then points the gun at Hunny Bunny. In this scene there’s only two way out. Either everyone who is pointing the gun at each other dies, or settles down professionally until everyone calms down. The panic and hysterical emotional state of Hunny Bunny and also Vincent during this scene arouses tension.But after that, they came into an agreement, and they calmly left the place. Same goes to the final scene of ‘Reservoir Dogs’. When Nice Guy Eddie was raging because Mr. Blonde was shot, he suspected that Mr. Orange was lying to him. The when Joe Cabot came in, he also said the same thing, accusing Mr. Orange a rat working undercover for the police. Mr. White in his defense for Mr. Orange says that it’s not true. Despite that, Joe Cabot pointed his gun at Mr. Orange, Mr. White pointed the gun at Joe, and Nice Guy Eddie pointed the gun at Mr. White. All of them had a heated argument and Nice Guy Eddie, in a raging and hysterical tone, asked Mr. White to put the gun down, like Hunny Bunny, he wasn’t calm and cool and it does create a lot of tension. It ends with them shooting each other, but it doesn’t end there, it goes on when Mr. Orange told Mr. White the truth, which he is an undercover cop. Another scene of tension, Mr. White just looks blankly into space, thinking about either killing Mr. Orange or not. One can create tension even without the use of comedy, like during the cross-cutting scene between ‘Bruno’ and ‘Guy’ in ‘Strangers on a Train’, but these two scenes arouse tension in a ‘ticking bomb’ way, ‘a classic in so many screenwriting techniques’ – (www.lightsfilmschool.com). In a way, it does have a presence of a hostage taking scene, demanding for something, which in this case, to put each other’s guns down.

     
        Violence can tell a different message by how you look at it. Violence is always associated with evil and cruelty, but violence can also be a mean of comedy or irony. Quentin Tarantino is one of the many great film directors who actually use violence as a mean to tell a story. He artistically and skillfully inserted violence to make us feel in a certain way. Like, when we feel hatred for Mr. Blonde’s character, or when we felt sorry for the women in the car who was shot by Mr. Orange, or we laugh at the unfortunate fate of Marvin when he was shot by Vincent. In conclusion, violence can mean so many things, and make us feel a certain way. Some of us would be very disturbed while others could find beauty in it, artistically.