“Hello? Hello?” he waggles the ear around, talking into it. The camera returns as Blonde stands holding up the severed ear and looking at it, pinched between his fingers. Kirk Baltz and Michael Madsen in ‘Reservoir Dogs’ And then the camera turns away, gazing above to a doorway where the words “Watch Your Head” have been spray painted. We see Blonde’s back, the arching arm, the razor, the reach. Instead he reaches over the rookie officer’s head. With his back to the camera Blonde sits down on Marvin’s lap, almost as if he’s going to kiss or hold him. He slashes him across the cheek, then grabs his face, studying his work. As the music plays Blonde dances toward Marvin, comically shuffling and wielding the blade like a brush. He’s breathing heavily, and grunting beneath the gag. Two red stripes of blood stream down from Marvin’s nose, painting the silver tape. Blonde struts across the warehouse floor like a rooster, the razor in his hand. It’s then that we hear the first bouncy notes of the song by Stealers Wheel, “Stuck in the Middle With You,” and its lyrics (“I don’t know why I came here tonight / I got the feeling that something ain’t right”), as if the music were saying what you’re thinking. “Do you ever listen to K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the 70’s,” Blonde asks as he turns on the radio, twisting the knob to find his station. ![]() Blonde, a cigarette dangling from his lips, pulls a straight razor from his boot - what kind of psychopath carries a straight razor in his boot? - and you feel certain that something very, very bad is going to happen. Marvin Nash is crying for his life, and you’re thinking about his children at home, his wife waiting for him to return. He just wants to torture Nash, and he tells him this, tells him that he is going to hurt him because he just likes hurting people. ![]() Blonde doesn’t care whether he knows or not. Marvin’s got children for god’s sake! Unfortunately Mr. He sputters and spits, snot and blood running from his nose as he swears to knowing nothing about their jewelry store heist being a setup. Rookie cop Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz) duct taped to a chair, wounds blooming from his face while Michael Madsen, or Mr. With little effort I can conjure up the scene. The images catalogued forever in my consciousness from Quentin Tarantino’s first hit film, Reservoir Dogs (1992) queue up whenever I happen to find myself thinking about severed ears, torture, or, more frequently, when I hear a particular song. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.
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