The disturbing inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s most shocking scene
When it comes to violence in movies, few directors are as prolific as Quentin Tarantino. On occasion, it can seem like the Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill filmmaker can take things a touch too far in terms of blood and guts on screen, but it’s easy to see that such shocking action is what makes his movie so special.
Even as far back as his debut feature film, 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, it was clear that Tarantino had a penchant for violence. The movie tells the story, typically Tarantino non-linearly, of a group of jewellery thieves who begin to mistrust one another when a heist goes wrong, and a mole within the team is suspected.
There’s no doubt that the most shocking moment of Reservoir Dogs is when Michael Madsen’s character, Mr Blonde, tortures a kidnapped policeman and cuts off his ear to the sound of the Stealer’s Wheel song ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’. It’s a scene that caused much controversy upon the film’s release, and it remains one of Tarantino’s most disturbing.
It’s fair to say that the music of the scene is truly essential to delivering the violence. It’s a deep moment of contrast in which the overtly happy tune makes the act of barbarity all the more harrowing. Tarantino has never been without inspiration from his favourite movies, and it looks as though this moment from his debut was inspired by a Stanley Kubrick film.
Kubrick’s 1971 movie A Clockwork Orange had a moment in which the protagonist, Alex DeLarge, breaks into the home of an author and beats him within an inch of his life, then sexually assaults his wife. All the while, Alex sings the classic tune ‘Singing in the Rain’, which, like Tarantino’s film, is of great contrast to the action.
Tarantino is a great fan of A Clockwork Orange and admitted that he was inspired when it came to making Reservoir Dogs. The juxtaposition of violence and catch pop song is incredibly unsettling, but it’s a stroke of creative genius from both Tarantino and his predecessor, director Kubrick.
Interestingly, the director admitted that he didn’t hand-pick the song, but it just so happened to fit perfectly. He told Rolling Stone, “That was one of those things where I thought [the song] would work really well, and [during] auditions, I told the actors that I wanted them to do the torture scene, and I’m gonna use ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’, but they could pick anything they wanted, they didn’t have to use that song.”
He continued, “And a couple of people picked another one, but almost everyone came in with ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’, and they were saying that they tried to come up with something else, but that’s the one. The first time somebody actually did the torture scene to that song, the guy didn’t even have a great audition, but it was like watching the movie. I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is gonna be awesome!'”
Check out the classic scene below.
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