Lawrence Bender, producer of "'Reservoir Dogs," Jan. 8, 1993

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival. 

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY - Lawrence Bender sits at a table in the hospitality suite o f Z Place, where press and filmmakers come to mingle, do business and escape the crush of humanity on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival. 

Bender has a broad smile on his face, conveying his feelings of wonder and excitement to all who see him. He’s been that way for a couple of days, since “Reservoir Dogs,” a gritty crime film he produced, began getting most of the ink and much-coveted buzz at this 1992 edition of the premiere festival for American independent filmmakers. 

“This is a really great time for me,” Bender says ,with barely contained enthusiasm. “I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I’ve made a couple of other movies, but I was a production assistant on a TV commercial two months before we went into production on ‘Reservoir Dogs’ because I had no money.” 

Then Bender, formerly an actor, had the good fortune to pass along a script by his friend and former video store clerk, Quentin Tarantino, to his acting teacher. The teacher, in turn, gave the script to actor Harvey Keitel (“Mean Streets,” “Bugsy”), who read it, loved it and helped Bender and Tarantino get the movie made.

“Harvey Keitel is one of mine and Quentin’s all-time favorite actors,” Bender explains. “And when I got a message on my answering machine from Harvey Keitel that he loved the script, it was the dream of my life come true.” 

But Keitel became so involved – financing early casting sessions in New York that landed Steve Buscemi (“Barton Fink,” “In the Soup”) as one of the lead actors – that Bender asked Keitel, over supper one evening at the Russian Tea Room, if he would become a coproducer on the film. To which Keitel replied: “Lawrence, I’ve been waiting for you to say this. What took you so long?’”

Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's “The Killing,” “Reservoir Dogs” is a film about the aftermath of a botched diamond heist; as the tough guys who took part meet afterward in a warehouse to sort out what went wrong, why and, most important, who’s to blame. 

“But what’s different about this film is that you never actually see the robbery,” Bender explains with the kind of verve he might have used when scrounging for money to make the $1.1 million production. “And when they come back to this warehouse where they’re supposed to meet, it’s like ‘Rashomon’ – everyone comes back with a different story. 

“And as an audience member, you really don’t know what actually happened. ... And then at a certain point in the movie, you start to understand a little bit more than they know. The movie’s sort of structured in chapters, and it’s very intriguing. In most movies, you get the questions and then you get the answers. But in this movie, sometimes you get the answers and then the questions.” 

And you get something else: unvarnished violence. Point-blank shootouts, sadistic torture and bleeding wounds are included in the price of admission – which, Bender asserts, is precisely the point. 

“The script is a very visceral, brutal depiction of a group of guys,” he says, looking like he’s answered this question more than a couple of times this week. “And the movie is really about loyalty – not among robbers, but amongst men. And loyalty taken to an extreme – such an extreme that extreme things happen because of loyalty. And you start questioning, ‘What is loyalty all about, anyway?’

“And as far as the violence, Quentin actually feels that film is a place where violence should be shown, because violence and action are very cinematic, and that kind of material can really be shown in a very cinematic way.” 

In this regard, Tarantino’s film recalls the more violent and machismo-infused films of Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and John Woo – influences Bender eagerly acknowledges. (In fact, Tarantino is currently at work on a project with Woo.)

“We actually shot certain scenes that could have been cut to be more graphically violent, but we didn’t do it because it didn’t work the way we wanted it to,” Bender explains. “And actually, most of the violence happens off- screen.

“So, to me, I’m really glad that people come out with that reaction; because when you see a picture and you don’t see a lot of graphic violence but you get a feeling of brutality, we feel like we’ve done our job.”

'Reservoir Dogs' review, Jan. 8, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

The title, all by itself, gives a pretty good indication of what’s in store when you sit down to watch “Reservoir Dogs.” It’s as visceral a moviegoing experience as you’ll get anywhere.

The film was something of a sensation at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and is only now making its way back to a Utah theater. Its writer-director, first-timer Quentin Tarantino, has done himself proud with “Reservoir Dogs,” creating a bold genre film that’s repulsive, hilarious, sexist, violent, profane and utterly – utterly – engrossing.

Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s ’50s heist film “The Killing,” Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” opens with a gang of robbers gathered in a coffee shop. They’re analyzing the lyrics of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” debating the etiquette of tipping waitresses and preparing to rob a jewelry store. The language is blunt and offensive, but we realize we’re onto something different here; Tarantino is a style- and violence-wonk in the tradition of Martin Scorsese: There’s artistry galore, but he makes you pay for the experience. 

From the restaurant scene, Tarantino cuts forward to minutes after the caper – we never actually see the robbery, but that's OK ... really. The crime went down badly, and a robber named Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) is gut-shot, screaming and bleeding profusely in the back seat of a getaway car driven by Mr. White (Harvey Keitel). They rush back to the prearranged meeting place, an empty warehouse, and wait for the others to follow.

Soon enough, the rest have returned, including Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) and Mr. Blond (Michael Madsen). The ringleader, Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney), has mandated the color-coded aliases to prevent each of his men from knowing the others; only Cabot and his son, Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn), use their real names. 

As Mr. Orange bleeds to death , on the floor, the rest of the gang discusses, excitedly, the possibility that they were betrayed by an informer. If so, that would mean one of them is a cop. And so Tarantino uses a series of flashbacks to provide background on each of the remaining robbers – Mr. Brown, played by Tarantino himself, buys the farm early on – detailing how they came to be involved in the diamond heist. 

“Reservoir Dogs” is in many ways similar to the hyperstylized crime films of white-hot Hong Kong action master John Woo (“The Killer,” “Hard Boiled”). And Scorsese and Sam Peckinpah are other obvious influences. What seems to set Tarantino apart from these others –the professed adherence to “professionalism” and an intense friendship between Mr. White and Mr. Orange notwithstanding – is an overall emotional detachment and a vision that’s ultimately nihilistic. 

Where his predecessors scoop some form of redemption, however meager, from the ruins of his protagonists’ ordeals, Tarantino appears to revel in the brutalization of both his characters and the audience. The scene that’s been getting all the attention, and rightfully so, is the one in which the psychotic Mr. Blond produces a cop he’s taken hostage and – to the tune of the annoying ’70s pop tune “Stuck in the Middle With You” – proceeds to carve the patrolman’s ear off. While the actual removal of the ear takes place off-camera, the experience is unusually harrowing; Tarantino plays the violence in his film realistically, as opposed to the cartoonish brand of mayhem we typically receive via mainstream Hollywood. 

“Reservoir Dogs” is by no means a “fun” movie. It is, however, a well-made film and one that should be seen by those interested in exciting talent – both in front of, and behind, the camera.

Lawrence Bender, January 1993

Lawrence Bender

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.
 
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY -- Lawrence Bender sits at a table in the hospitality suite of Z Place, where press and filmmakers come to mingle, do business and escape the crush of humanity on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival. Bender has a broad smile fixed on his face, conveying his feelings of wonder and excitement to all who see him.

He's been that way for a couple of days, since "Reservoir Dogs," a gritty crime film he produced, began getting most of the ink and much-coveted buzz at the 1992 edition of the premiere festival for American independent filmmakers.

"This is a really great time for me," Bender says ,with barely contained enthusiasm. "I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I've made a couple of other movies, but I was a production assistant on a TV commercial two months before we went into production on 'Reservoir Dogs' because I had no money."