Asking a Quentin Tarantino fan to name their favorite needle drop is like asking a parent to pick a favorite child. Over the last 33 years, the director of such classic films as Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds has established himself as a master of music curation. From setting the title sequence of his first movie, Reservoir Dogs to George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag” to using the Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time” to kick off Once Upon a Time In Hollywood’s climax, Tarantino has an uncanny knack for picking the perfect song to set whatever mood he’s going for.
We could write this article about almost any song used in Quentin’s 10 films — nine if you count Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2 as a single movie — and make a convincing case for why it’s the best needle drop of Tarantino’s career. However, one song from one scene perfectly captures the essence of Tarantino as a director more than any other, and that’s “Stuck in The Middle With You” from Reservoir Dogs‘ torture scene.
If you’ve seen Reservoir Dogs you know the exact scene we’re talking about. For everyone else, allow us to paint a picture of one of the most shocking sequences — at least by 1992 standards — ever put in a mainstream film.
The Reservoir Dogs Torture Scene Is Not For The Faint Of Heart
A psychotic Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) left alone in an empty warehouse with a half-dead Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and a bound and gagged cop decides to commit a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence. Pulling a straight razor from one of his cowboy boots, Blonde gets ready to torture the officer for his own depraved amusement, but not before turning on a nearby radio and tuning it to “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ’70s.”
The cop looks on in terror as the smooth sounds of “Stuck in The Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel start to waft out of the radio. Blonde, feeling the groove, begins waving the straight razor around and dancing to the music. He taunts his prey a bit with a quick jab and a flick of the razor, slicing the officer high on the cheek. Then Blonde gets serious and sets to work severing the officer’s right ear.
The camera pans away, leaving the viewer to imagine the gruesome act being performed as Gerry Rafferty continues crooning in his best Bob Dylan voice. By the time the camera pans back, Blonde is holding the severed ear, speaking into it and making jokes as the cop sits bleeding from the hole where his ear used to be.
Blonde leaves his prisoner and the radio behind as he exits the warehouse to retrieve a can of gasoline from the trunk of his car. Upon reentering the warehouse, the music fades back in as he begins splashing gasoline all over the hemorrhaging police officer.
It’s a sick, twisted, tense five minutes of cinema made surreal by the inclusion of a fairly upbeat classic rock song in the background. It’s also one of the best uses of diegetic music in cinema. Knowing that Michael Madsen can hear the same music we can makes the scene that much worse. Tarantino makes us complicit in this horrible act by forcing us to share the same experience as the brutal monster committing it.
“Stuck in The Middle With You” is Effective Because It Perfectly Summarizes Quentin Tarantino’s Approach to Filmmaking
What makes “Stuck in The Middle With You” Tarantino’s most effective needle drop over, say, “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” from Kill Bill: Vol. 1, is the scene in which it’s used. “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” is a great piece of music, and the scene it accompanies in Kill Bill is equally great, but at the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of assassins walking down a hallway in slow motion.
It looks cool and pumps the viewer up, but it says nothing about the director or his art, the way the Reservoir Dogs scene does. That one scene is a perfect distillation of Quentin Tarantino’s filmmaking. Dark comedy plus golden oldies plus explosive violence equals movie magic.
It’s an equation Tarantino has employed to one degree or another in every one of his films. It’s Bruce Willis singing along to “Flowers on the Wall” by the Statler Brothers right before he steps on the gas and rams his car into Ving Rhames. It’s The Bride getting shot in the head right before “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Nancy Sinatra starts playing.
You could show that Reservoir Dogs scene to someone who’s never seen a single Tarantino film, and they would instantly “get” him. The scene works on both a narrative level and also as a metacommentary on the director himself. That’s why for us “Stuck in The Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel is the definitive Quentin Tarantino needle drop.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments!
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