Indeed, films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Django Unchained all portray—in almost comic detail—a series of characters who kill often and with little remorse, conscience, or humanity. But the crown jewel of Tarantino’s psychopathic portraits has to be his classic 1. Reservoir Dogs, starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Steve Buschemi. In the film, the crime boss, Big Joe Cabot (Lawrence Turney) and his son, Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn), assemble a diverse group of criminals to pull off a big jewel heist, assigning each of them a color name (Mr. Brown, etc.) which is meant not only to protect their anonymity, but also to dehumanize them. What makes the film such a genius exploration of psychopathy is that each member of the crew, Mr. Orange, etc., beautifully exemplifies a distinct color along on the psychopathic spectrum. All of the members of this antisocial gang fall into the general realm of psychopathy in that they all have a problematic relationship to reality, and interpret their world as a harsh, threatening place that is rotting away. Rotterdam house producer Ben La Desh steps up for our ninth Pelski Podcast. The Dutch DJ has slowly but surely built. If an app or game does not have a rating, it means that it has not yet been rated. Softonic uses the rating systems by PEGI and ESRB. Hell, for them, is the frustrating existence of other people who have competing wants and interests—people who believe they also should have the world to themselves. The “dog pack” also shares a culture of hyper- masculine hostility, which objectifies women as sex objects and demeans them as psychologically weak. The pack members can interact only briefly without reinforcing their self- esteem as superior White men by aggrandizing themselves through racial jokes and comparisons that demean and dehumanize Blacks. Even with each other, they are always ready with an insult, either to retaliate against a perceived slight, or to stifle another man’s attempt to put his head above the pack. In one of the opening scenes of the film, the dog pack members meet each other for the first time over breakfast at Bob’s Pancake House. Tarantino brilliantly uses a discussion about tipping the waitress to reveal both the common worldview of the cons and how their attitudes toward that world and the people in it differ. The most different is Mr. Blond (Michael Madsen), who actually ignores the tipping discussion entirely while he closely attends to the playful struggle for dominance and control that is happening below the surface. Blond is a sadistic psychopath.
He is completely at home in this antisocial world, because it justifies his bliss of being the master of dispensing hell to those around him. Not all psychopaths are sadistic, but many have strong sadistic traits. Blond is willing to risk everything to fulfill his sadistic pleasure in torturing and mutilating a captured cop. Blond has the poorest contact with, and regard for, reality. He believes that if you dare to enter into his world, you deserve what you get. Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) is a criminal psychopath, although a high anxiety version of one. He has the clearest handle on external reality, perhaps even better than the undercover cop, Mr. Although Pink is prone to what he calls panic, he has an animal- like agility to quickly land on his feet and return to a keen focus on self- interest. He is the first to know that there is a rat in the dog pack and he keeps his eyes and hands on the diamonds. He is clear on the facts, but his interpretations of them are hobbled by his profound inability to make basic emotional judgments. When he returns from the botched heist after killing officers and seeing pack members killed, he has to ask Mr. White “Is this bad?” Mr. White has to assure him that it is not good. Although he is also a psychopath, Mr. Pink is the one in the dog pack who has the best overlap with the paranoid type. This hones his awareness, vigilance, his sense of having been given a raw deal in life. His psychopathy also comes through clearly in his anger and anxiety- driven impulsiveness. As he says, “Everybody panics. When things get tense, everybody panics. It’s human nature.” He cannot imagine the quiet mind under maximum stress, the mature virtue of courage. White, who trusts Joe implicitly, Mr. Pink has known Joe since his childhood. But Pink remains unattached to anyone in the pack to the bitter end, even considering that Big Joe has set them up, sold them out, or at least has abandoned them. He watches the conflicts within the pack play out until all are dead except him and almost gets away with the diamonds. As intriguing as are the psychopath (Mr. Pink) and the sadist ( Mr. Blond), the heart of the film is in the dynamic between Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) is a sociopath. His orientation to crime comes from being socialized into criminal society by men like Joe, who he looks to as a father figure. White must have been are drawn to the Joes of the world like moths to a flame. White regrets that this world exists as it is, and he wishes to repair it by being loyal to his antisocial godfather and his associates and by having the integrity of being a professional. He wants to believe that, like Robin Hood, he and his associates are representatives of the downtrodden and unappreciated. They are on a mission to balance the scales of justice that society has loaded against them. Mr. Blond is a sadistic psychopath who can only think and feel by shooting and cutting. He dis- identifies equally with both Mr. Blond and the police, who he sees as an morally illegitimate gang with uniforms and all the lazy habits that come with a steady paycheck. White is able to orient and calm Mr. Pink and to comfort and protect Mr. White is trying to do the right thing by people, at least from his criminal mindset. Ultimately, he cannot forgive Mr. White for bringing Mr. Blond into the heist, because Mr. Blond embodies the unthinking destructiveness that Mr. White does not want to become. Mr. Orange (Freddy) is an undercover cop with a narcissistic (and histrionic) personality. He has a personality disorder because he is turned on by taking unreasonable risks to prove he is “super cool” and superior to the dumb cons he is duping. Aptly his apartment is plastered with adolescent superheroes like the Silver Surfer. His self- inflation and denigration of others motivates him to perform dangerous undercover work. His goal is to exploit and manipulate through deception. He has a generally intact conscience, knowing right from wrong, but he believes he can do no wrong to the criminals he’s trying to trap. Freddie is the great impostor, the master trickster and bluffer, a Machiavellian. The film is set in LA near Hollywood, the capital of illusions where thousands of people dedicate themselves to great performances every day. Holdaway (Randy Brooks) coaches Freddy to be a great actor, to simulate the alternative reality of a lie and to remain detached. Prior to the botched heist, Holdaway has already guided Freddie to identifying White as a hold up man from Milwaukee. White is as good as caught at this point. Although he is ignorant that Freddie and Holdaway have his real name (Laurence Dimmick), Mr. White rightly senses that he shares a bond with Mr. Orange that is unlike his bond with anyone else in the dog pack. White is constantly striving to protect his self- esteem from the corrupt, disappointing, and abandoning models of his youth by being a good soldier and a professional criminal with principles. Orange is bolstering his self- esteem with ideals of perfection and mercurial grace that will help him slay the dragon of crime (Joe Cabot), but it is a grace of deception and manipulation that is also ultimately hollow. I have said that Mr. Blonde has the most tenuous, distorted hold on reality, but I must question if Mr. Blonde’s hold on reality is any more impaired than Freddie’s. Orange knows that he can manipulate Mr. White by telling him his name and therefore becoming a real person to him. After he is wounded, Freddie asks “Larry” (Mr. White) to hold him, knowing that this physical contact and gesture makes it less likely that Larry will leave him to die. But ultimately, when it seems not to matter, Mr. Orange reveals that he is Freddie, a cop. Orange pull off his cover to prove that he was the ultimate trickster, or was this another attempt to make human contact with Mr. White’s better angels by offering up his real identity and his guilt? This post has explored Reservoir Dogs as a kind of illustrated primer on psychopathic types. The second post in this two- parter will look at the world Tarantino created for these personalities to inhabit through the lens of the philosophy of meaning and signification.. White (Character) - Quotes. The content of this page was created by users. It has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff. Mr. Pink: What, you got one? Brown: Let me tell you what 'Like a Virgin' is about. It's all about a girl who digs a guy with a big dick. It's a metaphor for big dicks. It's about a girl who is very vulnerable. She's been fucked over a few times. Then she meets some guy who's really sensitive.. Brown: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.. Tell that fucking bullshit to the tourists. Brown: 'Like a Virgin' is not about this sensitive girl who meets a nice fella. Orange: Which one is 'True Blue'? Nice Guy Eddie: 'True Blue' was a big ass hit for Madonna. I don't even follow this Tops In Pops shit, and I've at least heard of . Orange: Look, asshole, I didn't say I ain't heard of it. All I asked was how does it go? Excuse me for not being the world's biggest Madonna fan. Blonde: Personally, I can do without her. Blue: I like her early stuff. You know, 'Lucky Star', 'Borderline' - but once she got into her 'Papa Don't Preach' phase, I don't know, I tuned out. Brown: Hey, you guys are making me lose my.. I was saying something, what was it? Joe: Oh, Toby was this Chinese girl, what was her last name? Joe: I found this old address book in a jacket I ain't worn in a coon's age. Brown: What the fuck was I talking about? Pink: You said 'True Blue' was about a nice girl, a sensitive girl who meets a nice guy, and that 'Like a Virgin' was a metaphor for big dicks. Brown: Lemme tell you what 'Like a Virgin' is about. It's all about this cooze who's a regular fuck machine, I'm talking morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick. Blue: How many dicks is that? Brown: Then one day she meets this John Holmes motherfucker and it's like, whoa baby, I mean this cat is like Charles Bronson in the 'Great Escape', he's digging tunnels. Now, she's gettin' the serious dick action and she's feeling something she ain't felt since forever. Brown: It hurts her. It shouldn't hurt her, you know, her pussy should be Bubble Yum by now, but when this cat fucks her it hurts. It hurts just like it did the first time. You see the pain is reminding a fuck machine what it once was like to be a virgin. Hence, 'Like a Virgin'. Nice Guy Eddie: Dad, I'm sorry, but I don't know what the hell's happening. Joe: It's all right, Eddie. White: What the fuck are you talking about? Joe: That lump of shit's working with the L. A. P. D. Orange: Joe, I don't have the slightest fucking idea what you're talking about. White: Joe, I don't know what you think you know, but you're wrong. Joe: Like hell I am. White: Joe, trust me on this. You've made a mistake. You're hot, you're super fucking pissed. We're all real emotional. But you're barking up the wrong tree. Joe: You don't know jack shit! The cocksucker tipped off the cops and had Mr. Joe: Dead as Dillinger. White: How do you know all this? White: How do you know all this, Joe? Orange is the informant? Joe: He was the only one that I wasn't 1. I should have my fuckin' head examined for going on a plan like this when I wasn't a hundred percent sure of my crew! Joe: You don't need proof when you have instinct! Orange: What happens if the manager won't give you the diamonds? White: When you're dealing with a store like this, they're insured up the ass. They're not supposed to give you any resistance whatsoever. If you get a customer, or an employee, who thinks he's Charles Bronson, take the butt of your gun and smash their nose in. He falls down screaming, blood squirts out of his nose, nobody says fucking shit after that. You might get some bitch talk shit to you, but give her a look like you're gonna smash her in the face next, watch her shut the fuck up. Now if it's a manager, that's a different story. Managers know better than to fuck around, so if you get one that's giving you static, he probably thinks he's a real cowboy, so you gotta break that son of a bitch in two. If you wanna know something and he won't tell you, cut off one of his fingers. Then tell him his thumb's next. After that he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. White: If you shoot this man, you die next. If you shoot this man, you die next. Pink: We ain't taking him to a hospital. White: If we don't, he'll die! Pink: And I'm very sad about that, but some fellas are lucky, and some ain't. Pink: Don't you fuckin' touch me, man! White proceeds to kick him across the floor! I'll show ya who you're fuckin' with! Pink: Fuck you, White! I didn't create the situation, I'm just dealin' with it! You're acting like a first year fucking theif - I'm acting like a professional! If they get him, they can get you. They get you, they get closer to me, and that can't happen! And you, motherfucker, are lookin' at me like it's MY fault. I didn't tell him my name. I didn't tell him where I was from. I didn't tell him what I knew better than NOT to tell him! Fuck, fifteen minutes ago you almost told me your name! You, buddy, are stuck in a situation YOU created. So, if you wanna throw bad looks somewhere, throw 'em at a mirror! Orange: This is a very weird situation. People were living on resin.. This chick had a bunch. And she's begging me to sell it. So I told her I wasn't going to be Joe the potman anymore, but I would take a little bit and sell it to my close, close, close friends. She agreed to that, said we'd keep the same arrangement as before; 1. I helped her out that weekend. She had a brick of weed she was selling, she didn't want to go to the buy alone. Her brother usually goes with her, but he's in county unexpectedly. Orange: His traffic tickets. They stopped him for something, found warrants on him, took him to county. Now she doesn't walk around alone with all that weed. I don't want to do this. I have a very bad feeling about it. But she keeps asking me, keeps asking me, keeps asking me, finally I said OK 'cause I'm sick of hearing it. Now, we're picking the guy up at the train station.. Nice Guy Eddie: Wait a minute. You go to the train station to pick up the buyer with the weed on you? Orange: The guy needed it right away. Anyway, we're get to the station and we're waiting for the guy. I'm carrying the weed in one of those little carry- on bags. So I tell the connection I'll be right back, I'm going to the boys' room. So I walk in the mens' room, and who's standing there? Four Los Angeles county sheriffs and a German shepherd. Nice Guy Eddie: They're waiting for you? Orange: No, they're just a bunch of cops hanging out in the men's room, talking. When I walked through the door, they all stopped what they were talking about and they looked at me. That's a fucking hard situation. Orange: German shepherd starts barking. Every nerve- ending, all my senses, blood in my veins, everything I have is screaming, ! Just bail, just get the fuck out of there! First there's the shock of it.. I'm standing there drenched in panic. All these sheriffs looking at me, and they know, man. Sure as that fucking dog can, they can smell it on me. White: Hardy fuckin' har. Pink are washing up after the robbery went sour, trying to figure out what happened. Pink: You kill anybody? Pink: No real people? Blonde: Hey Joe, you want me to shoot this guy? You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize. White: The choice between doing ten years and taking out some stupid motherfucker, ain't no choice at all. But I ain't no madman. White: You can't leave this guy with them. Nice Guy Eddie: Why not? White: Because he's a fucking psycho. And if you think Joe's pissed off, that ain't nothing compared to how pissed off I am at him, for putting me in the same room as that bastard! Blonde: See what I've been putting up with, Eddie? I fucking walked in here, I told these guys about staying put. White whips out his gun, he's sticking it in my face, calling me a motherfucker, saying he's gonna blow me away and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. White: This is what he was doing.. Blonde: Yeah, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. I told 'em not to touch the alarm.. If they hadn't done what I told 'em not to do, they'd still be alive. White: That's your excuse for going on a kill- crazy rampage? Blonde: I don't like alarms, Mr. Orange lying on the floor. White: How the fuck do you think? This is so fucking bad. White: As opposed to good? Pink: Man, this is fucked up. Somebody fucked us up big time, man. White: You really think we were set up? Pink: Do you even doubt it, man? I don't THINK we got set up, I KNOW we got set up! I mean, really, seriously, where did all those cops come from, huh? One minute they're not there, the next minute they're there? I didn't hear any sirens. The alarm went off, okay. Okay, when an alarm goes off, you got an average of four minutes response time. Unless a patrol car is cruising that street, at that particular moment, you got four minutes before they can realistically respond. In one minute there were seventeen blue boys out there. All loaded for bear, all knowing exactly what the fuck they were doing, and they were all just there! Remember that second wave that showed up in the cars? Those were the ones responding to the alarm, but those first motherfuckers were already there, they were waiting for us. Haven't you fucking thought about this? Orange knows some things about Mr. White: Well, he knows a little about me. You didn't tell him your name, did you? White: I told him my first name, and where I was from. White: I told him where I was from a few days ago. It was just a natural conversation. Pink: And what was tellin' him your name when you weren't supposed to? White: We had just gotten away from the cops. It was my fault he got shot. He's a fuckin' bloody mess - he's screaming. I swear to god, I thought he was gonna die right then and there. I'm tryin' to comfort him, telling him not to worry, everything's gonna be okay, I'm gonna take care of him. And he asked me what my name was. I mean, the man was dyin' in my arms. What the fuck was I supposed to do? It's against the rules! I don't trust you enough!?
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