In the chapter, "Landscapes" Gallefent discusses Tarantino's representation of his characters and/in their physical surroundings. What are the differences between how he presents interior vs. exterior spaces in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown?What do you make of Tarantino's prominent use of the car as a location?
6.24.2008
Spaces and Places
In the chapter, "Landscapes" Gallefent discusses Tarantino's representation of his characters and/in their physical surroundings. What are the differences between how he presents interior vs. exterior spaces in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown?What do you make of Tarantino's prominent use of the car as a location?
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In Pulp Fiction he focuses mostly on Butch. He talks about the scene in which we see Butch speaking with Marcellus. We see Butch through the eyes of Marcellus and never actually see Marcellus. Then we next see Captin Koons through the eyes of a young Butch. He then talks about how Butch constantly falls in and out of sleep moving from real to imagined world. Tarantino makes it difficult to distinguish between the real and imagined world. He uses black and white screens to distinguish when Butch is viewing past events. In the end Marcellus is shown walking away from Butch with his back towards him and the camera. Their relationship is over as put by Marcellus. He compares this to the ending of Reservoir Dogs where the two men are dead. Marcellus and Butch are dead to each other. So in Pulp Fiction he uses shots in black and white and places the camera in the eyes of the receiver or sender of a message. In Jackie Brown he talks about the outdoor scene where Beaumont is shot. The car drives off in a medium shot. The car leaves the scene without the camera following it. The camera then turns left and the car comes back into the frame and the execution takes place at a distance. The use of cars is obviously re-occurring in Tarantinos movies. There seems to be a lot of death involved in vehicles in Jackie Brown and Reservoir Dogs. In Reservoir Dogs several officers are killed in cars and so is Tarantino playing one of the robbers. In Jackie Brown Louis is killed in a car as well as Beaumont. I can only guess as to why the car is so significant in his films and why it is often associated with death. I would think maybe because it is cheaper to do a shoot in a car. Maybe Tarantino had a very traumatic experience in a car as a child. I'm not really sure. He might also use it because it gives him a chance to play music within the film and sell more soundtracks.
Tarantino’s first three movies use interior and exterior spaces in different ways. In Reservoir Dogs, the scenes are almost always interior. The exterior is seen as forbidden or dangerous. The characters are confined to a warehouse, where they become restless and a little insane. In Pulp Fiction, again most of the scenes are interior shots. Most of them also take place in a home of a couple. Each couple’s home is very different from the others, and they describe the characters that live there. The exterior isn’t shown much in the movie, except when people are running from something. Mostly Butch is shown in exterior shots. The main thing these two movies have in common is how the characters ignore the unusual aspects of the exterior and interior. They seem to ignore everything that doesn’t pertain to them at that moment.
Jackie Brown is a different story. Many shots are exterior shots in this movie. Interior shots are only used when private conversations are being held, like Jackie and Max and Jackie and Ordell in her apartment, or Jackie and the detectives at the station. This movie uses the exterior to point out the main flaw in Ordell’s character. He can’t relate that well to big crowds. In a way he is afraid of them. Jackie on the other hand, pulls off a half a million steal because she can stay so cool. She doesn’t get flustered around crowds. She even makes a comment about flight attendants being sales people. She knows how to handle and manipulate people. This is what makes her succeed over Ordell.
The reason Tarantino uses cars so much is clear to me. Cars are a part of everyone’s normal everyday experience. Everyone has conversations in cars, and uses them in many ways. Including the car in each movie provides the audience a chance to relate to the characters even more. Also, the car is a mixture between an interior and exterior space. It’s possible but hard to see inside a moving car. This is an interesting aspect to include in a movie. Tarantino must have fun including the scenes with the cars. According to Gallafent, “Perhaps Tarantino is relying on something that we know, or feel, about this particular generic space- that its familiarity, almost its homeliness, is what makes us feel content in it, but that ion a matter of seconds it can be converted into a horror, a place of blood and death.” Tarantino wants us to understand that we aren’t safe anywhere, not even with a friend in a car.
The first interior space we see in Reservoir Dog is that of the café in the opening scene. We aren’t given much detail, or surrounding visual information about the café since the camera work focuses extensively on the group of men sitting at the table. As stated by Gallefent “ The café is a generic with almost no distinction.” The second setting, the warehouse, is a bit more detailed. Over the course of the film we as the audience are guided around the warehouse and given a brief tour, and shown what it may have been or could be. Throughout the film we are only given slightly detailed, informed shots of the interior, and no detailed shots of the exterior. In Pulp Fiction we are again exposed to mostly interior shots. These interior shots almost all take place in domestic areas accept the basement in which the rape happens Jack Rabbit Slim’, and the café. Again we aren’t given many shots of the exterior, and when we are, chaos and violence seem to be taking place in that general area A good example of this is when we have the fight between Butch and Marcellus. Jackie Brown continue the idea of interior places being in the forefront and exterior in the background. Throughout these movies we can discern that Tarantino views the interior space as the normal world, as the world of comfort no matter how abstract it may be. The outside world is the unknown, it’s the frontier where anything can happen, as apparent in Jackie Brown when Jackie drives out into the outside world alone. As apparent in Pulp Fiction when Butch and Marcellus have a gunfight outside in the middle of a busy street. The outside world is the wild wild west
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None of the set pieces stand out to much in any of the films besides a few examples. It make sense that they shouldn’t , because the movies aren’t particular dependent on a specific setting, the stories can happen anywhere. We shouldn’t care to much about the surroundings because the characters don’t care, it’s not what’s important..
We see violent deaths take place in cars in Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown. Cars, like horse and carriage in old westerns, are means of transportation through the frontier world.
In Reservoir Dogs, the three main areas that Gallafent stresses are: the café, warehouse, and Joe Cabot’s office. In these three places, we as viewers are being exposed slowly to what each place is; we aren’t given an exterior shot of any of these places. In fact, the only exterior shot we do get is a still black and white frame of the jewelry store. But, this is a scene we speculate about but never actually get to see. In each of the locations above, the men act very casual, comfortable, and composed even though many different things are going on around them. For example, when the men are in the warehouse, they are so concerned about their heist and who the “rat” is that they do not realize they are being surrounded by cops or what kind of warehouse they are in. Unless they simply do not care and just ignore their surroundings. Therefore, the interiors of Reservoir Dogs could be categorized by “ how it is noticed or ignored, and by whom”(Gallafent, 71).
As for Pulp Fiction, the domestic spaces are “homely”. The idea of being homely, as clearly presented, is different for each married couple to reflect their living style. For example, Lance and Jodie’s home is messy and chaotic; the Wallace’s home is refined, stolid, and wealthy; Jimmy and Bonnie’s home is neat, orderly, and “homely”. Meanwhile, the exterior spaces allow others to be in control. For example, Marcellus and Butch step out of their comfort area and into a store while quarreling, when they are suddenly taken as victims of two men with odd fantasies. In this scene it shows that while they are in places where they feel comfort, they are able to maintain control but in places outside (exterior) of their comfort, they lose control.
In Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino uses space to show control as well. Although, it is about who works best in which space. For example, Jackie is very well composed in public areas—her getting questioned in the parking lot by the two investigators, having the meeting place in Del Amo Mall—because she is in control. As for Ordell, he likes dark, secluded places—meeting people at bars that are barely lit, having Max come to one of his houses to have the money exchange—that are his comfort and are under his control.
The use of cars in Quentin Tarantino’s films have definitely played a huge role in the progression of the films. In each film, the car was a place of conversation, a place where it was safe but not really because in each film, there was at least one scene with someone dying in a car. Maybe this is to imply the fact that, although a car is a place of comfort and familiarity, it could also be a place of “unexpected and shocking death”(Gallafent, 67).
The settings in Tarantino’s films are directly linked to the level of comfort one has in a certain space, especially when in the context of dealing in crime. His characters often have a blatant disregard for the public space, treating these places just as one would treat a home or any other setting in which these criminal characters could talk about their crimes without having to worry about revealing too much information. The level of comfort and indifference that these characters have with themselves and the space around them is based highly on the circumstances of what their goal is.
When the organized group of criminals meet at a diner right before their heist in Reservoir Dogs, it is clear that each character is preoccupied with the worries of the jewel heist. We can see that the younger characters Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink are nervous about the job. Mr. Pink seems comfortable enough with the space around him to talk with the others about the culture of today’s society with a hint of nervous overreaction, while Mr. Orange sits silently, thinking about this space and how he could be eating his last meal in this cozy diner (of course it is). Here is where Tarantino’s idea of confusing a place of comfort with a place of death comes into play, which I will talk about later in context to the depiction of car’s and the violence that take place in them.
This conversation is seemingly normal enough at face value, but has a twinge of violence and grittiness to it. Once Mr. Pink’s level of discomfort with the job really begins to show, his comfort level with the space begins to diminish. He begins to raise his voice, yell and swear about the ethics of tipping a waitress. He feels enough of a level of comfort in this space (what with the structure of the space and how all of the characters are at a round table in which they can all make eye contact with each other and speak within close quarters, aiding to their comfort) to talk as he normally would. Mr. Pink’s dialogue is just a tad bit offensive (maybe even more so than Mr. Brown’s visceral description of what Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” is actually about) because it is tinged with violence and crime, too telling of what is about to go down. This space, and the blatant disregard for anyone in the diner within earshot, represents a place where one can feel at home enough to speak freely amongst those of a similar status.
This space is juxtaposed with any exterior space in the film (their are only two: the alley behind where the heist is going down and the space outside of the warehouse where the crews’ cars are parked) and shows how chaotic an unfamiliar space can be. The first time we see the crew outside together is during the heist scene, causing immediate hysteria and chaos. Not having really experienced this space before, the characters are jarred and don’t have enough time to think in order to pull off the heist correctly. This idea of being more comfortable indoors than outdoors has to do with the level of experience with a space and the amount of involvement of situations out of the control of the crew. This exterior is a world where the unexpected is to be expected and no one can rely on familiarity because we are not in a diner or someone’s home where we can expect each and every event. Here, we’re out in the public eye, with the rest of the unsuspecting world, for whom intervening is unintentional but hard to avoid. This comfort comes with the territory: an interior space always has some sort of ethical structure to it, where we have been time and time again and can expect to see and experience the same things every time. The exterior has an unfamiliarity to it, which can put even the most experienced criminals (Mr. White) in a situation where the only retreat can be to a familiar, comfortable space.
This brings us to the idea of the car and how Tarantino uses vehicles to convey the idea that our comfort level in a space can be turned into violence and horror in a matter of seconds. In the reading, Tarantino mentions why he thinks he uses the car so often to depict violence in his films. The car is somewhere that each individual with experience feels safe and comfortable, but rarely do we realize the gruesome violence that could occur in a car until we get in a car accident. The car is used in each of his three products as a place of unexpected death. In Dogs, Mr. Brown is inexplicably hit in the head (by either bullet or impact of forehead with steering wheel) and dies in the car. In Pulp Fiction, much of the chaotic violent moments are in cars. Vincent dries the overdosed Mia to Lance’s house in a state of panic in the comfort of his car. Not only does this happen but Vincent also mistakenly shoots a hostage in the head when simply trying to pose a question to him from the front seat to the back seat. Also, Butch runs over Marcellus Wallace in his car after coincidentally running into him on the street and then, in the safety of his car (heightened by the fact that it acts as his offense and defense) gets t-boned hard by another car, unexpectedly. In Jackie Brown, Ordell kills two of his comrades in cars while the victim believes in the safe-haven the car provides for them.
In each of these situations a violent character expects to find refuge and solace in their cars, a staple in the comfort of their own lifestyles, and are surprised by the violence that they find in this place. This is where Tarantino contemplates death in a place of comfort and finding the unexpected in a place we normally deem as simple and straightforward. Tarantino’s spaces ask viewers to take a look at the space that his characters inhabit and wonder if they perceive the whole setting or just what is important to them in that setting at the time.
Edward Gallafent argues that Tarantino makes very intentional use of interior and exterior spaces for specific types of scenes and the nature of situations. I agree that he points out some interesting relationships, although I would be surprised if Tarantino’s choices were all made in such a deliberate manner.
Gallafent makes some particularly interesting arguments relative to the three major locations in “Reservoir Dogs.” The diner, the warehouse, and Joe’s office, at first glance, represent rather cold spaces of masculine interaction – and that certainly relates to the reality of the movie.
The most compelling part of his thesis, however, is that little details “a la Sirk,” provide evidence of an often more ironic or subterranean context. The two best examples are the globe and tusk memorabilia in Joe’s office -- suggesting an interest in a personal crime empire -- and the little details that eventually expose the warehouse as a morgue – visual cues to the audience that this will become a place of death.
I especially like when Gallafent asserts, “…He wants us to see, that we, or the characters in the narrative, can be clearly aware, or sublimely unaware, of the meanings of objects in the spaces we inhabit (or in the narratives we watch) according to where and how our attention is fixed.”
This assertion is an intriguing but little-explored aspect of Tarantino’s artistry, and a believable remnant of his vast knowledge of film industry. Perhaps he’s in on the powerfully effective use of meaningful mise en scene by the John Ford’s and Douglas Sirk’s of Hollywood history. The placement of our characters and the little details they include have a dramatic and long-term impact on our experience of a film, its depth and resonance. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem to be much of a part of today’s blockbuster Hollywood environment. As a Tarantino fan, I can’t but hope that Gallafent is correct.
Gallafent goes on to discuss at length how Tarantino’s uses specific internal and external space to establish the nature and context of a place and its inhabiting characters. The different types of home environments in the three movies establish a relative level of domesticity and safety. The boys in the little apartment raided by Jules and Vincent don’t quite have a real home, and they end up dead as a partial result. Mia’s expensive mansion is secure and full of expensive art and equipment, emphasizing her role as a cloistered trophy of the very wealthy Marsellus.
Without listing every instance of place and its connotation, I would have to agree that Gallafent makes a very compelling argument for Tarantino’s very specific use of mise en scene to establish a place for a particular kind of place and occasion. Finally, on the issue of Tarantino’s use of the car for many important scenes in his films, I agree that automobiles are probably the best example of the technique that Gallafent strives to describe.
Cars seem to both serve as a comfortable space for protected character bonding conversation or perceived safety, escape and relaxation. But the inside-the-car space is also punctuated with shocking moments of death and violence, with Marvin and Mr. Orange as prime examples. Tarantino comes from the LA and American culture of cars as an extension of ourselves, and especially as a symbol of personal power and masculinity. Vincent and Lance’s keying combination is a good recognition of that tendency. Tarantino seems to be highlighting that, absent the traditional Ozzie and Harriet family scenario, that men often feel most comfortable and at-home in their cars and with other men (Orange and White, Jules and Vincent.) He may also be suggesting that this comfort zone is a very thin shell of protection that can end in death and violence at a moment’s notice (Marvin, Orange, Butch and Marsellus.)
Maybe Tarantino is a cinematic artist after all.
Tarantino's first three movies take place primarily indoors. In Reservoir Dogs the movie takes place mostly inside a warehouse except for the diner scene and a few flashbacks. I think Tarantino does this because the location is not that important in this film. What is focused on is the conversation between the characters and the violence. In Pulp Fiction once again most of the scenes are indoors, especially in people's homes, as Gallafent says," it is full of the homely." I think Tarantino does this to show more of the characters personality. You can understand each character better by seeing where they live. For example, Lance and Jody’s house looks like a mess with chaotic piles of objects all over the place, you can tell that there are not the cleanest people, which reflect Lance as a dirty heroin dealer. Jackie Brown is much different then the other two movies because they take place mostly in private places while Jackie Brown takes place in more public places. This happens because it is a way to show how Jackie Brown acts in public places. It allows you to understand her better, by showing you that she knows how to behave in public places and also manipulate people in public places.
Tarantino prominent use of the car is a good way to be between the exterior and interior in a modern experience. Gallafent explains," The inside of a moving car, offering the chance to allow the outside world to pass at a distance, and sometimes to flee from the threat posed by it." Also since it is difficult to have all the passengers look at each other at the same time in a moving car, it makes it a good place for a conversation. Which is what Tarantino usually has in his car scenes.
Ronnie Dhaliwal
The physical surroundings in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown play a major part in each film. More importantly are the spaces in with the actors occupied in each scene that not only sets a scene for the film but also helps to show how the characters react to that space. It is human nature to react differently in every different space we occupy. Each new space brings new experiences and new situations so it is only fitting that spaces in a film have a huge influence on the effectiveness of the characters and the plot line.
Tarantino shows the viewer in Reservoir Dogs a reversal role of spaces compared to Jackie Brown. Dogs is filmed mostly indoors where the characters view it as safe compared to outside which is perceived as dangerous. In can be thought of in the sense that the interior space is sanctuary, a place where the criminals can feel free from punishment and secure, while the exterior space is considered threatening and leaves the characters vulnerable to attack. What is ironic is that the characters soon realize that they are not safe anywhere and could be in a harsher situation indoors than outdoors. This plays a smaller role in Pulp Fiction but it still can be seen.
Pulp Fiction also follows that interior/exterior dynamic as in Dogs. We see most of the film happen in the interior spaces. The most dynamic and intimate situations happen indoors, such as the overdose of Mia or Jules and Vincent’s endeavors in the apartment that held the briefcase, and in the diner where they were stuck up. What also seem to play a big role for Jules are the miracles he claimed to witness and his denouncing of crime from then on. With that intimate indoor space the viewers are able to discuss their feelings in that comforting space. The only odd, reversal part in the film is with Butch. In the beginning of the film we see Butch having a conversation with Marcellus and the camera angle presents an underlying idea of redemption. Gallafant states, “The scene with Butch and Marcellus can be viewed as Butch is not being told something new but facing a truth he already knows” (22). It thus seems that by Butch throwing the fight for Marcellus will allow him a new beginning.
Jackie Brown shows a very different view of spaces. Her ease in public and experience as a flight attendant helps her in the end succeed in pulling off the money exchange. It is Ordell’s downfall with exterior spaces, especially unfamiliar spaces that help Jackie maintain control in the film. It truly makes the spaces a difference between good and evil where the good, righteous space is the exterior and the interior is shady, inscrutable evil. It seems interesting in all three films that the man/woman highest in command and most deadly are the ones that are comfortable in exterior spaces. Mr. Blonde, Marcellus, Jackie Brown.
As for the car as a space, I believe it can definitely be viewed as both an exterior and interior space because it is not stationary but moving through an exterior space. The car provides a sense of limbo in which you never can really read where the space will take you.
In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino seems to want the audience to pay more attention to what is happening (dialogue, plot) instead of where the characters are. The warehouse is slowly revealed as conversation goes on to ironically be a morgue, but is something that can be easily missed by all of the action that is happening. This is shown through a series of shots composed of different items that are found throughout the morgue. He also uses unusual angles to introduce those items, such as the white robes. But there are no exterior shots of the warehouse. According to Gallefent, "...Tarantino wants to foreground the significance of attention (and of inattentiveness, or inability to attend)." (p. 71) In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino is all about private spaces and homes. Pulp is very domesticated, as Gallefent puts it, "it is full of the homely". The three couples of film, Lance/Jody, Jimmie/Bonnie, and Mia/Marcellus all have homes that represent the characters (Mia, for example, lives in a home that's very clean, with wide open spaces and somewhat cold. There isn't a lot of color in their home, and all of these can be thought of as a representation of Mia's choice of drug, cocaine.) Jackie Brown is all about impersonal, wide open spaces. As Gallefent points out, “A list...gives us LAX Airport, Del Amo Mall, a muti-storey car park, a courtroom...” (p.80) This is because, according to Gallefent, Jackie Brown is about the “ability of a single figure to conduct herself, to achieve her ends by knowing both how to behave in these public spaces and how to manipulate the behaviour of others in them” (p. 81) I think that the importance of the car would be that all of the main characters in his movies, in someway or another, are looking for a way out. In Reservoir Dogs,it was out of the decreasingly bloody situation. Pulp Fiction held Butch's need for escape, Jules wanting out of the business all together, and Mia and Vincent's use of drugs as a way to escape. In Jackie Brown, Brown herself was looking for a way to stay afloat with her everyday life, and when she was caught, a way to escape the situation without losing the little that she had. The car serves as a transporter, both figuratively and literally, between where the character is at and where the goal is.
In "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" the majority of the movie is shot in the interior. Only a few interior places are shown in "Reservoir Dogs"; the cafe, office, and warehouse. The interior shots allow us to see who the characters are and what their personalities are like. The same is true in "Pulp Fiction". Most of the shots take place in a house or a restaurant/bar. There are very few exterior shots in both of these movies, but when they do appear they are very violent. In Reservoir Dogs, the shoot-outs with the cops are shown in the exterior and in Pulp Fiction the conflict between Marcellus and Butch is also shown in the exterior. The exterior shots show the exterior world as a dangerous place to be, making the interior world a little more safe. "Jackie Brown" is different from the other two movies in that many of the shots take place in the exterior in a wide variety of places. Many of the exterior shots are still violent, but because there are more of them Tarantino uses other forms of action to fill those scenes. The interior scenes are also used for conversations that show us the personalities of the characters.
I think Tarantino's prominent use of the car as a location gives us something that almost everyone can relate too. Most Americans own a car and it is not uncommon for many of us to spend an hour or more in our vehicles each day. We practically live out of our cars, they have become a home away from home, and we feel comfortable in them. I think Tarantino uses this to draw us in. It gives us a location that he knows we can relate too and then uses that safe location and turns it against us. In his films a lot of violence takes place in cars. In "Reservoir Dogs" a couple of cops, Tarantino's character, and Mr. Orange are all shot in scenes involving cars. The same thing happens in "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown" when Butch hits Marcellus with his car and when lewis and Beaumont get shot in cars. Tarantinos use of cars in his scenes gives us something we should be comfortable with, but turns it against us to make us feel uncomfortable.
-Robert Mueller
Gallafent attempts to describe the differences between exterior and interior spaces in Tarantino’s first three films: “Reservoir Dogs,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Jackie Brown.” However, he ends up discussing solely interiors and their relation to the female presence.
The inside of a car is not an exterior location. That is what is so strange about it. The characters are moving through the world in a safe, enclosed structure. Gallafent explains that this space, “can be a good place for conversation and anecdote among acquaintances.” In the car one is shielded from the outside world and from being overheard by people close by. What I found most interesting about Gallafent’s discussion on cars is how in each film there is a death that occurs as a result of guns not cars. Mr. Brown is shot in the head while driving away from the heist scene, Marvin’s head is blown off in the back seat, Beaumont is shot in the trunk of the car and Louis is shot in the driver’s seat. It is also interesting to note here that the one scene Tarantino directed in the movie “Sin City” took place in a car. It is the scene in which Clive Owen’s character is driving Benicio Del Toro’s corpse to the tar pits and the two have a conversation. Something that Gallafent does not mention about the use of cars as an interior location is the trunk. Tarantino has a point of view shot from the trunk of a car in each movie as well: the cop in “Reservoir Dogs,” Marvin in “Pulp Fiction” and Beaumont in “Jackie Brown.”
It seems that the car is also the only unisex interior in Tarantino’s movies. It is shot the same way whether a man or woman is driving. The mall in “Jackie Brown” is seen as a female space, while the warehouse in “Reservoir Dogs” is seen as a male space. Gallafent makes a humorous argument about how the men in “Jackie Brown” treat the mall. Ordell doesn’t remember his bag and Nicolet has trouble describing it. This “speaks to the gender politics of these accessories, and the anxiety they induce in these men.” Conversely, “Reservoir Dogs” never has a moment when men are not in control of their interior world. This world is devoid of women so they have no reason to lose control. Outside, however, there is one moment that a woman interferes and not only is she killed (in a car) but she also takes power and composure from the men by shooting Mr. Orange. Although men are in complete control in the world of “Reservoir Dogs” their world is half dead; most of the movie takes place in an abandoned mortuary. Is Tarantino saying that although men need control and power they also need women?
“Pulp Fiction” gives us the most balanced and domestic cast of interiors. It is interesting that the spaces controlled by women are sterile and cold while the spaces controlled by men are comfortable and lived in. For example, Mia’s house is “repressive” while Jimmie and Lance’s homes are homier. It is also interesting that the two homes controlled by married men are where cleaning takes place. Jules and Vincent clean out their car and themselves at Jimmie’s and Vincent cleans up the mess with Mia at Lance’s. Gallafent makes an interesting point in that each house is separated by a drug of choice. Lacne’s home is defined by heroin, Mia’s by cocaine and Jimmie’s by caffeine.
Gallafent does not do a good job making broad comparison between the landscapes in Tarantino’s first three films. He mostly dissects the purpose the locations serve within the context of the movie. What I think is interesting about Tarantino’s work as a whole is there he does not shoot landscapes at all. Gallafent does mention that Tarantino is not a fan of establishing shots. This, I think, is more interesting than the spaces he utilizes in his films. This is a style and a deliberate choice. This choice is something that Tarantino does to control his audience while the subtle mise en scene of his scenes may not be so deliberate. The fact that he rarely shows his audience where and when they are is something that, perhaps, should be more explored.
Tarantino uses three different themes of surroundings for each film, business in Reservoir Dogs, family homes in Pulp Fiction, and a combination of business and homes in Jackie Brown.
In Reservoir Dogs we are shown very little of the outdoor world, the majority of the film takes place in a warehouse that shows hints of being a morgue. When we actually see the outside it’s from inside looking out, like when Larry enters the warehouse holding Freddy. The only surroundings we see are ones of business first the dinner, the warehouse, Joe’s office etc. The only time we see a place someone lives is Freddy’s apartment but we are made to believe this is not his actual home but one used for undercover, these surroundings are a contrast to the surroundings of Pulp Fiction.
In Pulp Fiction the surroundings consist of homes, cars and some businesses. Unlike Dogs we are shown places people and in most cases family’s homes, the exclusive, clean, organized Wallace house, the inexpensive, messy, unorganized house of Lance and Jody, the contemporary, well kept, suburban home of Jimmie and Bonnie. The businesses in this film are a dinner, Jack-Rabbit-Slims, etc… Food services are what dominate the world outside of the home. For the exterior we see much more than Dogs, we follow Butch outside on his mission for his watch not stuck in the claustrophobic environment of a warehouse. Also we are should the outside through the use of the car, for example Vincent’s convertible.
In Jackie Brown we are shown a balance of both the dominating surroundings of Pulp and Dogs. Both homes and business, we see the houses of Ordell, Jackie’s house, Max’s office, and the ‘biggest indoor mall in America’. I feel this one out of them all has the most outdoor surroundings; the one shot that comes to my mine is when Ordell kills Beaumont, there is along crane shot as we see Ordell drive his car a round the block into a big empty lot, Tarantino shows us a wide open space unlike Pulp and Dogs.
When Tarantino uses the car for a setting we experience a conversation on the go, we are stuck in a small space with the view of the moving large world outside. During most of the interior car scenes a conversation is happening, which is usual thing to happen in a car but still has a awkward feeling because unlike the dinning setting were the characters are directly across from one another and have nothing to look at but each other, in the car the characters can only look at each other for a few seconds than look at the road giving a less intimate more confined setting.
Gallafent brings up a lot of interesting comparisons involving characters and their settings. In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino’s characters are rarely in an exterior location, and when they are, they are usually only doing so to reach an interior location. Take for example Mr. Pink’s run down the sidewalk to escape to the warehouse, and Mr. Orange and Mr. White’s shoot out with the cops also to escape to the warehouse. In both examples they are running from a location of chaos to a location in which they can regain control, or “act professional”. The only exterior shot of his characters in control is in the title sequence, in which they are on their way to the job. However, the heist goes bad, and this shot only leads them to a total loss of control. In Reservoir Dogs, interior locations are linked to control, and exterior locations are linked to loss of control.
In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s characters also have a preference for interior locations, particularly domestic spaces. In The Bonnie Situation, similarly to Reservoir Dogs, Jules and Vincent must escape from an exposed location to an interior location to regain control. The emphasis on domestication of this location adds an interesting aspect that is repeated in the two other stories of Pulp Fiction. Butch must leave an interior space to regain his watch and then return. But in this narrative, unlike the warehouse for the Misters, the location itself is not the goal. For Butch, it is the return to Fabienne, the return to his relationship that is important. Another dimension of domestication is explored in the story of Vincent and Mia. The Wallace’s home is very organized and cold, while Lance and Jody’s home is messy and decorated in warm tones. I though it was especially interesting that in order to save Mia’s life, Vincent had to remove her from the cold location and bring her to Lance’s place, which Gallafent describes as full of “domestic chaos” and “marital strife”.
Finally, in Jackie Brown, interior and exterior places take on gender roles. For Ordell, interior places are spaces in which he can control women. He keeps Melani, Simone, and Sheronda in houses where they are all subservient to him. But outside, he cannot control women. Jackie is able to gain control over Ordell in exterior/public locations. She has control in the mall, as well as when she tells him to speak to her outside on the balcony of Melanie’s house. She is also able to gain control of interior places when they have been feminized, for example,in her own apartment and the women’s fitting room.
I think it is interesting how Tarantino makes use of car interiors. Cars transport his characters from one location to the other. That is an obvious statement, but in a film you don’t need a car when a cut to a scene change does the same thing. While in a car they are in an interior location, so they retain a sense of control, but because they are in transition from one interior to the next they are vulnerable. He disrupts his characters in cars with accidental deaths and murders to challenge their control and possession of power.
Gallafent estutely points out that Tarantino deals with the idea of space (both interior and exterior) in strikingly different ways, yet a common motif runs throughout.
In Reservoir Dogs, he by and far confines us to a delapidated warehouse (that Tarantino slowly reveals Gallafent once was a mortuary). The interior, even in its present state, represents safety from the outside where the robbery went terribly wrong, resulting in the death of several characters. Yet at the same time the place represents anxiety: the characters are forced to wait there for Joe, while a "rat" is among them. Tarantino presents the duality of spaces, how they can be both safe and uncomfortable simultaneously.
Pulp Fiction has a myriad of rich locations, from the retro diner to the Brett's plain apartment. The diner seems to represent Travolta's past. He walks into a scene straight out of Grease as a washed up actor playing a washed-up killer (who has clearly lost his touch, as evident by his ever-increasing mistakes). In this film Tarantino seems to be both bridging the gap between the past and present (by the use of the TV in the shot from Butch's childhood home and the hotel room), but also separating it, by placing the modern Mia (who operates the high tech security camera) in the retro diner with Travolta, who also represents the past. There is really nothing specific about the exterior locales Tarantino uses in this film.
In Jackie Brown, locations serve as stages for Jackie to perform. In the airport she must be the polite flight attendant, just as in the interrogation room she soon learns to play the scared girl who just wants to play with the cops. With Ordell, she is commanding enough to keep him from killing her, but alof enough for him to believe her. There is a theatrical element to Tarantino's stages: from the bright blue tiles of the airport, to the overred lighting of the bar Jackie and Max go to. While the interior situations represent control--someone is always in charge, the exterior represents the unsafe (Tarantino illustrates this through Louis by his hesitation to wait outside, and also by his agitation in the car parking lot).
Throughout the three films, the car is an important point. It serves different functions: sometimes it is for a journey: Jackie driving toward her new life in the closing of the film, or Mr. White to flee the scene; a place to wait for Louis. But it is also a comfortable place where his characters feel safe conversing, but danger is always lurking behind the wheel (as a simple conversation between Jules and Vincent is interrupted by the shooting of Marvin)
I think Tarantino uses his spaces wisely. Interior space in particular is very prominent in the films, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown. When in these interior spaces, the audience is primarily focusing on the subjects rather than the surroundings of them. I think he does this because the exterior is not important in these scenes; it is irrelevant to the narrative. A good example of this is the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs of all the men sitting around the table talking. It is obvious they are at a café of some sort, but any other exterior information such as what city or state or specific restaurant they are in, Tarantino chooses to leave out. This allows the viewers to really key in on the characters and to be less distracted by their surroundings and more focused on the dialogue.
As far as exterior spaces in Tarantino’s films or at least the three previously mentioned, they are not as frequent as interior ones, and with most of them there is some sort of chaos that follows. This can be seen in Reservoir Dogs when they show the aftermath of the robbery. There is shooting in the streets, running from the cops, stealing getaway cars, etc. It is very brief yet very chaotic. Another example of this can be seen in Pulp Fiction in the scene where Butch and Marcellus are fighting and chasing each other down the public streets. There is gunshot, a car accident so this is another notion of his exterior scenes being somewhat or a lot dangerous.
In the car scenes are frequent in these three films as well. Gallafent argues, “Tarantino shows us that a moving car can be a good place for conversation and anecdote among acquaintances” (Gallefant 67). An example of this can be seen in Jackie Brown where Max picks up Jackie from jail and offers her a ride home. These two “acquaintances” engage in conversation in the car, which begins their friendship and in turn, moves the plot forward.
To start off, in Reservoir Dogs there are not many out door shots at all, and the only ones presented are during scenes of violence such as the shooting between Mr. White and the cops, and Mr. Pink fleeing the scene of the crime, leaving a trail of knocked over pedestrians in his wake. Then there is the scene in the parking lot in which Mr. Blonde presents Mr. White and Mr. Pink with the tied up cop. With the exception of the torture scene performed by Mr. Blonde, this portrayal of a chaotic atmosphere outside closed doors is sharply contrasted by slow moving but high tension scenes in the warehouse and the male oriented jocularity displayed in other scenes including Joe’s office and the coffee shop where the crooks first meet. The outside world in this film is presented as a panic oriented with each conflict usually centering inside (White and Orange) or around a car (The shoot out with White or Brown’s death). Inside, however, is more calculating, but with just as much tension and violence.
Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, relies heavily on cars as a means of outdoor setting. The only time we see characters outside without a car is the scene in which ‘The Wolf’ hoses Vincent and Jules in Jimmie’s backyard, and Butch’s return to his apartment to collect his watch. Both scenes do little to describe their location and are just meant to move the story on to another setting. Violence in this film, happens mostly inside with the exception of Butch hitting Marcellus and then crashing his car himself, and Vincent crashing his car into Lance’s lawn. Jules and Vincent kill Brett and his cohorts in his apartment, Mia overdoses and is injected with the adrenaline shot in her house and at Lance’s home respectively, and the rape of Marcellus occurs in the basement of Maynard’s pawn shop. Not forgetting, of course, Vincent’s death at the hands of Butch in Butch’s apartment. In this movie the outdoors is mostly a transitional place and the action occurs inside.
Jackie Brown operates in another way; violence mostly takes place in or around cars. The only acceptation of this is when Ordell is killed in Max’s office. A lot of this movie has to do with Jackie manipulating the people in her environment. It has less to do with impassioned violence and more to do with violence as a necessary measure as Ordell kills Beaumont to keep him from indicting him, and Louis for killing Melanie. Both of these deaths take place in a car, and Louis kills Melanie in-between two cars.
I was surprised to find out through the reading that Tarantino so successfully used or didn’t use certain settings to enhance his movies. We see the use of interior and exterior spaces differs quite a bit between his first three movies.
RESERVIOR DOGS has a major interior space focus, where all of the major settings are inside: cars, the office, the café, and of course the warehouse. When we do get to see the exterior of places, such as the outside of the warehouse and the street setting of the place of robbery, the shots are very limiting and tight only allowing glimpses. The street is not fully comprehensible and the shots are typically close range and follow characters along the street. We also get a kind of limiting understanding of the interiors, in that they unfold with time. The Gallafent reading points out how the settings are not a focus and that the characters often seem to not care or give thought to where they are. I think this is a reflection of the type of people they are and that it subconsciously adds to the mood of the film: that there’s a larger situation at hand, one that has more significance than where they currently are.
PULP FICTION has a different focus, that of the interior spaces of houses. The domestic settings are all different and relevantly so, depicting settings of varying lifestyles and social levels in accordance to the characters that inhabit each place. I found it very successful the way Tarantino uses each setting for something larger. An example of this is the representation spaces have in accordance to the characters: chaotic mess and eclectic decorations with arguing, clean lines and high design with elegance and coolness. These settings are used in juxtaposition through out the film, enhancing the plot.
In JACKIE BROWN the use of interior and exterior space is quite significant, and frankly one I did not notice until the Gallafent readings. He explains/points out the use of open vs. closed spaces in reference to the comfort and power levels of varying character. The film deals with the idea of Jackie being on ‘display’, aware of her surroundings, and most importantly (for the plot of the film) how to behave in public places (Gallafent, 81). But I will point out that these apply to private spaces too, where she is dealing with men in her house and the police in such small private places as the office. The other significance of interior vs. exterior in this film is the deaths that occur and how they tended to be in more open, vast public realms: the dirt field for Beaumont, the parking lot for Melanie. I think the connection here is the idea of social/gender concerns of spaces. This can be seen dominantly in the use of changing rooms and males/females around that space, purses/bags and the searching/handling of them, and the bonds office with levels of comfort changing amongst characters throughout the film for that space.
I think that the use of the car is a very important aspect of Tarantino’s movies. As discussed in the Gallafent readings, it is a socially awkward space that most people can relate to, making it a great place to have interactions taking place. But going beyond that I think that using the transportation from one place to another, as an actual setting is important. For these movies it is relevant in that the types of people depicted are ones which use their cars a lot and for important things (getting to/from a crime location, transportation of dead/living people, etc). These spaces are also used as places of shock, from the comfort to the chaotic. All the deaths and violence occurring in the vehicles is relatable by viewers and is another way that Tarantino uses control/power as an element of intrigue and shock.
The presentation and interaction of interior and exterior space in Tarantino's work proves extremely important in considering what actions are enabled and prohibited by not only the characters but the spectator as well. Resevoir Dogs' use of exterior space resonates a chaotic and uncontrolled environment that, excluding the title sequence, separates all the main players in the movie leaving the viewer with the foreshadowing notion that when these men are left autonomously to the outside world without the unity of one another they are subject to cataclysmic occurrences. The interior shots are presented to extrapolate, through mise-en-scene and camera movement, character relations as well as insight into the personalities and actions of each. With the opening coffee shop scene, as Gallafent states, "The emphasis is on our closeness to the group of men." THe opposite is true of the warehouse. A much larger space, and one which takes place in a much more turbulent part of the narrative, is used to detach the viewer from each character while also acting as a prudent commentary on the action to take place in that particular spatial setting. The importance of the interior settings is, as noted by Gallafent, " not what is revealed, but how it is noticed or ignored, and by whom."
Pulp Fiction, as opposed to Resevoir Dogs, enacts gender roles and the contrasting nature of individuals' private homes. Using Vincent as a mediator we can compare the homes of Lance and Mia. The Wallace household is steeped in technology and hard or sharp contrasting elements while the suburban drug home offers a warmer inviting atmosphere that ultimately brings Mia back from the grave after her "perfectly glossy" world threatened to take her life. The contrasting events and elements of each space (including Slim's as part of the Wallace household) is not only the directors effort, "to divorce this act of saving a life from its pathological literals," but seemingly a social commentary on the excessive, cold, and unwelcoming nature of modern technology and the upper class. This can be seen through the rude service at Slim's, Vincent's entrance in the Wallace home, and Mia's voyeuristic watching of him through security camera monitors. Exteriors in the film offer a way to link the contrasting interior environments. An example coming in the form of Vincent's car, shattering the empty hardness of the glossy wet boulevard on a "frantic mission of rescue."
Jackie Brown stands in opposition to Pulp Fiction with the marital status of its characters. The film is not about contrasting different spaces or environments and the players stationed in them, but rather how a single character is able to control and manipulate each setting. The wide range of open spaces and private environments is what accounts for the downfall of every character in the film besides Jackie. She is in control and able to move from place to place with ease through manipulation (and her extensive experience as a stewardess). Brown can travel safely through the confines of the law (court, office of Nicolet and Vargas), the homes of criminals, large public spaces, confined areas (cars, jail cells), and even out of the country and back without harm. All of the other characters fall victim to at least some sort of unwanted fate, some more serious (beaumont, Melanie, Ordell, Louis) and others less (Nicolet, Vargas, Max). Even Max is trapped and denied the woman he has fallen in love with because he has a 'business to run.' He does not possess the freedom that Jackie does and therefore cannot follow her to Spain though he clearly desires exactly that.
Tarantino's use of the car, as Gallafent explains, "is a crucial mediation between interior and exterior in modern experience: the inside of a moving car, offering the chance to allow the outside world to pass at a distance, and sometimes to flee from the threat posed by it." His constant use of interior car sequences throughout all three films thus far is a magnificent way compose spontaneity. The car can combine both Tarantino's rambling interactive dialogue with shocking acts of unexpected violence. Marvin, Mr. Brown, Beaumont, Louis, and even the women shot by Mr. Orange are all somewhat out of the blue. The effect of this is directly linked to the viewer and perhaps realism; because we don't have the slightest clue that these events are about to occur our reaction as spectators could be perceived as more appropriate to the situation rather and in a sense much more realistic. The car is also an opportunity for Tarantino to create a back and forth dialogue that cannot be shot in a conventional manner. The car is a transport to and from all cinematic and narrative space that allows for anything to happen, often without warning.
Cars are almost like a way to describe a character or a situation. For example, in Jackie Brown, Ordell drives a mercedes. We can identify when he drives his car or other cars. We also see that Louis drives a VW bus, which matches his clothing style. It goes back to hippie style with the bus and clothing and long hair and smoking pot.
Other way how Tarantino uses cars is to set up situations like Butch and the random cab driver discussing how it felt like to kill a man. Or when Vincent shot Marvin in the back seat by accident and disposed the car by The Wolf. Reservoir Dogs do not use cars much but still used it. The connections between all of the three films we saw so far, Tarantino used the cars as a way to escape or move around to different scenes/settings. Jackie Brown driving away with Across the 110th street song like she is free at last. In Reservoir Dogs, gangs used the cars as a way to get to the warehouse and how much trouble they got into by using cars. For example, Mr Orange got shot while fighting for the car. He had to kill innocent woman for the car. Pulp Fiction used cars frequently. I believe that is because of how much going on in that scenes and how much the characters did not notice their surroundings very much but we can notice it very clearly. It helped us to understand the situation and the plots and how characters can be viewed as the background. For example, Jimmie and his wife has house filled with regular domestic stuff that we tend dont see Hollywood style with mansions or whatever. Vincent and Jules may not have any homes and cars are their homes for a while till The Wolf dumped it at a junk yard with dead Marvin in it.
Interior and exterior shots are interesting when Tarantino decides which to use. I thought Reservoir Dogs took place in morgue was interesting and appealing way to set the setting. From the article, Gallafent explained how morgue relates to how everyone ended up dead at the end of the film. I thought that this is perfect match. In Pulp Fiction, it is either at resturants or at home (apartments or houses), and at the same time out on streets while in the cars. Tarantino seems to like things on the move after he did Reservoir Dogs. I think he just wants to add more exicement and thrill by using exterior whenever possible.
Tarantino doesn’t go over the top with the settings for his characters to interact. I believe this is a wise thing and helps to focus on the human subjects of his movies, which are so vivid standing on their own, and not to distract from this with lavish interior/exterior sets. Reservoir Dogs has very simple settings. The main setting would be the warehouse. There are hardly any exterior shots used throughout the whole film. I believe it gives his characters sort of an authority or feeling of control. Gallafent contrasts the different uses of interior between Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. In Reservoir Dogs, you are never taken into the home of anyone. In Pulp Fiction however, the interior shots are mainly shots of peoples homes. This helps to explore the dynamics of the people, mostly the couples, within these settings. Two great interior settings in Pulp Fiction are the Wallace house and Lance and Jody’s house. Through their carefully arranged settings, Tarantino greatly adds depth to the characters.
Jackie Brown departs, somewhat, from the claustrophobic-like overuse of interior shots and moves us out into the open a bit more. There seems to be more wide open spaces, and even establishing shots being used in this film. There is still many interior setting within the film, but none of them seem quite as relevant as in Tarantino’s previous works. This makes it seem like the characters are on the move much more so than in previous Tarantino films.
As far as Tarantino’s use of the car in his films is concerned, I think it is a setting he chooses because of its intimacy, especially between two people. There is usually important dialog in the car taking place, and this provides a closed setting where all there is to do is talk.
-Alex Sokovich
In Reservoir Dogs, when the characters are in interior spaces, Tarantino often focuses on the characters, rather than the settings they are in. He slowly reveals parts of the setting, such as the scenes in the warehouse, but doesn’t make it the focus of the movie. An example of his close focus on the characters is in the cafe when they are gathered around a round table. Here he focuses on the faces of people who are talking; the setting that they are in is rarely shown. This makes the audience think that the characters and what they are saying and how they are acting is the important part and where they are is insignificant. Tarantino rarely and briefly shows exterior settings to further keep the focus on what is going on and not where it is happening. This lets the audience know just as much as they need to about the setting, without being distracted by it. An example of this is described in the Landscapes reading where Gallafent describes how Tarantino slowly reveals that the warehouse is an old morgue, which may or may not be noticed by the audience. I think Tarantino does this purposely to show the insignificance of the setting, and add to the intensity of the situation by making us feel like the characters do, not really caring about where they are because they are so focused on what is happening to them in these highly stressful and intense life or death situations.
In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s interior settings often take us into people’s homes, while exterior settings are usually on the street, or in cars going to someone’s home or hotel. By showing domestic settings and the relationships of people who live in them, Tarantino again brings reality to the different narratives that are happening. Instead of showing only the intense action and crazy situations, he also shows what happens after and before them in people’s homes. Instead of just showing Marvin get shot by Vincent, Tarantino shows us one of the consequences of him getting shot, the cleanup, which also takes place in a domestic setting. This use of people’s homes tells us a lot about the characters without even seeing them very much. By showing us many different types of people live, almost everyone that watches the movie can see their house in a mixture of these homes, which makes us relate to his characters even more. In the situation where Bruce returns to his apartment and kills Vincent, being in a house and letting his guard down is what leads to Vincent being shot, and that scene taking place in a normal looking apartment makes it seem likely that something like that could happen.
In Jackie Brown, the interior spaces we see are often open public places, such as the airport, the cop’s office, the jail, the mall, but sometimes are in people’s homes. The homes we see in Jackie Brown are different from those in Pulp Fiction in that they are not the homes of couples in a relationship. Showing no homes in which couples live gives the feeling of a world where monogamous relationships are uncommon, in contrast with those in Pulp Fiction. The living situations of the women in Jackie Brown are much different from the couple’s houses in Pulp Fiction. The fact that Jackie lives alone, and doesn’t seem to be afraid to go home, even though she knows Ordell will be trying to kill her, makes it seem that she is a very independent and brave woman that doesn’t need a man. The way that there are no couples shown also creates a world in which relationships are not permanent, and can change on a whim, for example when Ordell shoots his former best friend Louis for not having the money, something that was out of his control.
I think Tarantino often uses the car as a location because being in a car is a setting that almost everyone is often in. Being in a car is easy for us to imagine and relate to, and he uses this setting because he wants the situation to seem real to the audience. I think it is also interesting that many of his characters are shot in cars because being inside of a car is a place where people usually feel comfortable and don’t expect to be hurt, even thought it is a place where a lot of people die from crashes. I think he also uses the car as a kind of intimate setting because there are usually only two characters in the cars and it seems that if they are not killing each other, they are usually bonding in some way and becoming friends. Being in a car is also a setting that is somewhat cut off from the rest of the world, it’s not a natural setting and usually in a car you can’t hear what’s going on outside as well because of the noise and people outside can’t really hear what’s going on inside the car. I think Tarantino uses this setting to show that his characters are somewhat cut off from the rest of the world, often in strange situations that don’t normally happen to people. In the beginning of Reservoir dogs, when Mr. White and Mr. Orange are driving back to the warehouse and Mr. Orange has been shot, the car allows the audience to focus on what Mr. Orange is feeling and how he and Mr. White interact, without really considering what’s going on around them or thinking too much about how they got in that situation. I think this keeps the audience in the present and makes them feel what’s going on more.
Tarantino’s use of exterior in Reservoir Dogs is pretty much non-existent. Tarantino sets most of the movie in the warehouse, the place where we really get to know the true nature of the characters. The only outside we see is the scene where Freddy and Mr. White are playing out the details of the heist in the car before they go to get tacos. I believe that shooting the majority of the movie in the warehouse provides a blank unassuming canvas for Tarantino to reveal the personalities of his characters.
Pulp Fiction is a little different, we are still seeing the characters inside but there is more of a variety in the spaces we see. Most of the shots take place in a bar or in someone’s private residence. The private residence shots help us to figure out more about the characters and how they live their everyday life. For instance, the drug dealer’s house is a complete mess, when Vincent takes Mia to his house because of her overdose, the dealer cannot find his medical book and takes about a minute to look for it before giving up and throwing the mess around the room. Alternatively, when Vincent picks Mia up for their date, you see Marcellus Wallace’s house which is white, pristine, almost like a museum and everything is put away. This is also funny because Marcellus’ house is clean and fresh whereas his profession is exactly opposite, dirty and shady.
Jackie Brown is shot mainly in public places with a few shots in Jackie’s house and a few shots of Ordell’s residences. I think Tarantino did this to show that Jackie knows how to handle herself in the public eye as well as in her home. In the scene where Max Cherry goes over to her house to get his gun back, she is in her bathrobe and her hair is wet because she just got out of the shower. In the mall, Jackie’s hair is done and she is wearing presentable clothes. She also puts on a vulnerable exterior when she is outside of her apartment, whereas in her apartment with Ordell her first night out of jail, she is rough and demanding.
Tarantino doesn’t really use cars as much in Reservoir Dogs as he does in Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown. In Dogs, there are only about 4 car scenes which do not have much significance. In Pulp Fiction, most of the conversations about pop culture and the happenings occur in cars. The conversation between Vincent and Jules about “Royale with Cheese” and his return from Amsterdam occurs in a car on their way to kill someone who thought they could cheat Marcellus Wallace. Later on in the movie, there is a major scene where Vincent blows a guy’s head off and rest of the scene is what they can do to clean up the car and stay out of the cops’ grasp.
In Jackie Brown, cars are more prominent. Ordell kills people in the trunk of his car, Louis shoots Melanie while he is trying to find his car in an open parking lot and at the end of the movie, Jackie steals Ordell’s car. The cars play a major role in this movie because they help move the plot line along; for example, Jackie steals Max Cherry’s gun from the glove box in his car so she can later protect herself from Ordell.
On another note, cars provide an open space for plot to happen. Ordell drives to an open abandoned field to shoot Beaumont, Louis shoots Melanie in an open car lot, and Bruce has a conversation with Villa Lobos on the open streets with the black and white projected streets whizzing past. The openness provides a blank canvas just as the warehouse did in Dogs, so Tarantino can play out the character’s personalities.
"Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" are both movies in which the characters share very unique relationships with their environments. The characters seem extremely detached from most of their settings, and one gets the idea that the landscapes could be substituted easily. The best example, arguably, is the warehouse in “Reservoir Dogs” which most of the movie takes place in. It, much like the café and Joe Cabot’s office, has a generic and interchangeable ambiance. The viewer feels as though the characters could get up and walk to any other warehouse, and they scene would still survive in a similar aura. This tends to be a motif in Tarantino movies.
By his settings being so generic, Tarantino puts emphasis on characters. Their witty, pop-culture saturated dialogue enhances this. One gets the feeling that it doesn’t matter where they are; the characters are just being themselves. “Jackie Brown” may be an exception to the rule, as many locations are specific and have dire consequences when the characters interact with them (Ordell must go to Max Cherry’s office where the environment is a perfect spot to hold an ambush).
The recurring setting of the car is probably another way of presenting a generic atmosphere in which Tarantino’s characters can react. He presents the viewers with a venue we can relate to, as modern society essentially forces citizens to own one. By giving us familiarity, he can then hit us even harder when the unthinkable happens. Gallafent presents this hypothesis: “Perhaps Tarantino is relying on something that we know, or feel, about this particular generic space- that its familiarity, almost its homeliness, is what makes us feel content in it, but that ion a matter of seconds it can be converted into a horror, a place of blood and death.” I think this is an accurate summation of Tarantino’s intentions.
Jackie Brown in first different in terms of interior space from Pulp Fiction in that there is no interior space that suggests a couple lives there, the closest the film gets in that regard is Ordell and Melanie, who are a not exactly a loving couple, but in a relationship of convenience, dwelling together. He gets fucked, she gets high, everyone is happy. It is different from resevior dogs in that the movie Jackie Brown moves its characters frequently. From ordell's apartment to his car to a meeting place to the bailing officer's office...constantly moving, where as Resevior Dogs was filmed 75% in an empty warehouse.
In Pulp Fiction, exterior shots are set primarily in cars. Ex. The opening shot, john travolta and uma thurman on the way to Jack Rabbit Slim's. Jackie Brown has a only a few elongated shots from outside, the first I can remember was from when Ordell brings Beaumont to be killed. The others from what I recollect are brief, showing and introducing the ouside of the mall, also when Jackie Brown is picked up by the bailing officer.
I think that it makes sense for Tarantino to use cars as a primary location for shooting. He after all does make movies about character that are on missions of sorts, going from place to place. He also has the tendency of following his characters and taking long shots. To truly follow a character you would almost have to spend time with them in their car. It is the place where most of us spend the rest of our time besides home. People are generally in a vulnerable state in their car, which makes the scenes interesting. Characters in cars are in private, yet public places at the same time. Willing to sing as the bailing officer did some truly feminine lyrics and listen to feminine love songs. It is a world that we do not too often see in film and generally we almost never see 90% of people we know in their "car behavior state". Singing songs horribly at the top of their lungs and making an ass out of themselves if only the cars merely 3 ft away could hear them. It is a very interesting decision on Tarantino's part.
In Gallafent discuss the three films in there landscapes, one discuss about the three interiors in Reservoir Dog. The first thing it discusses was about one of the scene, in café and the warehouse setting where most of the film and with it ends. Where the opening scene with a fade –in black, to find a conversation between numbers of men sitting at a tableland discuss how the camera was shooting at a shoulders level of the seating men. In Pulp Fiction the book discuss about the detached private house, how it have three domestic spaces of the film. First the instance of violence occurs in domestic world, at Hawthorne Grill, the apartment, suburban drug dealer home, and Wallace house. In Jackie Brown using wide open spaces , the film opens with the shot of space that is technically an interior, and tell the use of the LAX airport, Del Amo Mall, a multi-storey car park, a courtroom, a record store, a prison holding cell. Also with the discuss it tell about the three small specific spaces, which can immediately recognize as one the impress their impersonality. It also discusses the reflecting on these explorations that is most striking for Tarantino’s work.
-tony-
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