Violence

Shortly after Miramax released Reservoir Dogs, the modern-day gangster fi lm debut by Quentin Tarantino, fi lm critic Stanley Kauffmann published a self-refl ective review describing the movie as being “crammed with murders.” More interesting, however, was the acclaimed fi lm critic’s rumination on the use and prevalence of violence in movies today. The movie clearly made Kauffmann stop a moment and think about the effects of violent content on audiences. But his moment was fl eeting, and his review remained stuck on relatively derivative questions of aesthetics-at one point, Kauffmann wondered whether Tarantino, Hollywood’s latest star director, didn’t simply make the fi lm just because he could-whether Reservoir Dogs was produced “just for the sake of its making, the application of style to sheer slaughter.”