----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Apr 12, 4:49pm, [log in to unmask] wrote: > Subject: Reservoir Dogs > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > I recently saw reservoir dogs and it has to be the most bloody movie I've > seen. Aside from the gore of it all, I thought the acting was superb, with > Keitel and Penn at the forefront. > Did anyone make anything out of the colors each charater represented? For > example, why was Keitel Mr. White...so on. I'd be interested in your responses > Chuck >-- End of excerpt from [log in to unmask] Chuck, I've got a couple of ideas concerning the "colours" (spell it right - the Canadian way ;) 1. As a plot device to instigate the humourous scene involving the "Mr. Pink" appelation. On one level, Tarantino is highlighting the ultra-masculine flavour of the movie (is the only woman with speaking lines the waitress in the beginning?). No one wants to be pink as it is associated with feminine or homosexual attributes. 2. Perhaps Tarantino is poking fun at the PC movement's preoccupation with "naming" and the power therein invoked. By chosing colours, an innocuous , unhierarchical (except for the pink) set of signifiers, Tarantino allows the audience to view the character's divorced from a personal signifier. As stated in the movie, the colours are ostensibly to keep the characters from "knowing too much" about each other - to avoid creating a situation where one is caught all will be. However, the audience too is not allowed into the personal realm of the name and perhaps denied a fundamental way of "knowing" them. Again, this may also be what Tarantino is after - collapsing ways of knowing and ways in which patterns of meaning are constructed of "others" through somewhat arbitrary sets of signs. Remember when the "old guy" (can't recall his name - the boss) when he tells them their names? Its totally arbitrary - just like much naming is. A cool book on this is Tzvetan Todorov's "Conquest of America" where he describes Cortes' and the Spanish colonization of the "New World" and how it was accomplished as much through naming and linguistic appropriation as through fire and sword. "Language has always been the companion of empire". I digress. Hope this helps Chuck. Scott -- R. Scott Burnham Whatcha makin' there? York University Looks like sodie-pop - North York, Canada Watch it fizz... E-Mail: [log in to unmask] - Foghorn Leghorn