English Question

The Nature of Surrealism and “True Reality” in Quentin Tarantino’s Films

In one of the most penetrating scenes of Reservoir Dogs (1992), Mr. Blonde, played by

Michael Madsen, turns on his favorite radio station and begins dancing around a warehouse

room to the song Stuck in the Middle with You. With a clean suit on and a knife in hand, he

approaches Marvin, a cop who has been bound and gagged, with a face already bloodied

from a previous beating. The camera pans left to an empty doorway, and the sound of rustling

can be heard between the song and the sound of Marvin’s muffled screams. Suddenly, Mr.

Blonde enters the frame holding a bloody dismembered ear and a bloody knife. He holds the

ear up to his mouth and jokingly says something into it. He laughs, and Marvin screams; he

dances around, and Marvin writhes in pain. The juxtaposition of Mr. Blonde’s psychopathic

cheerfulness and Marvin’s severe agony is a classic example of surrealism, which is a form

of artistic expression in which the workings of the subconscious mind are privileged, and the

emphasis is on a blending of fantasy and reality. Surrealism juxtaposes images and situations

that are somewhere in between a sort of dream-like, subconscious state and reality. Surrealism

– especially the kind we see in Quentin Tarantino’s films -- also reflects a postmodernist

perspective on reality and the subconscious.

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (1994) are perhaps the most revealing films of

Tarantino’s filmmaking style and postmodern philosophy. The outlandish and bizarre

storylines, the witty dialogue, and the cartoonish aspects of his characters create a surreal

effect. The intertwining of a fantasttic and cerebral experience with a hyperbolic visceral

experience introduces us to a dreamlike, subconscious realm. A good example of this

surrealism is the use of wardrobe homogeneity in both films. In Reservoir Dogs, the heist

team members wear matching uniforms (black suits with white buttoned-up shirts and black

ties); they are each stripped of their “Christian” names and given color-coded names, and they

are forbidden to speak about their personal lives or to associate with one another in any way

beyond the heist.

In Pulp Fiction, there is a similar use of homogeneity amongst the gangsters, as they also

wear matching black suit uniforms. This particular use of uniforms and sameness strips each

character of his individuality, and, in effect, they merge together to become a separate entity

in itself. There is no longer a sense of “real” people, rather a sense of separate surreal forces.

In one scene of Reservoir Dogs, for example, Mr. Pink (played by Steve Buscemi) and Mr.

White (Harvey Keitel) talk about the robbery that went sour. When Mr. Pink asks Mr. White if

he has killed anyone, Mr. White responds, “A few cops,” to which Mr. Pink responds with the

question, “No real people?” The dialogue illustrates that not only have the heist members

lost a sense of their own selves and identity, but they are also quickly losing their grasp on

reality with respect to other “real people” in their surreal state of existence.

The loss of one’s grip on reality illustrates the presence of a dream-like world, one that

opens the subconscious “eye.” Constant switches from normality to hyper violence, and the

juxtaposition of pain and pleasure, or crime and humor, ultimately question the validity of

“reality.” Through the medium of the cinema, Tarantino is able to create these unnerving and

illogical scenes that illustrate a deeper realm of existence. If we create our own “reality” with

made-up expectations, definitions, and structures, then there is hardly any separation between

the waking life, in which we follow the uniform rules of society, and a fantastical dream world

where we make up our own rules. The only difference between the two experiences must,

therefore, lie in the homogeneity of social rules in the waking life. Similar to the use of

uniforms amongst the robbers and gangsters in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, we use

definition and language to strip ourselves of individual experience and become the entity

which we call society. The question is whether we see ourselves as “real people,” or simply as

a small, irrelevant part of a larger community in our waking life.

In Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace is immediately resurrected from the dead with a quick stab

of adrenalin to her heart; in Reservoir Dogs, almost everyone’s first name is Mister. In a

Quentin Tarantino film, there is not much that makes sense with respect to “real” world rules.

The surreal visceral experience we can take from his films, however, begs the question of

what reality “really” is, because, although the films present surreal and untrue conditions, the

experience of watching the films is undeniably real and true. We cannot consider ourselves

“real” people when we are simply a small piece of a larger entity, and we cannot consider our

reality a “true” reality if we never alter our perception, as perception breeds experience, and

experience defines our existence. The one realm where rules are bent and broken – the realm

of the subconscious – is where our true reality thus lies.