A Classic Reservoir Dogs Scene Pitted Quentin Tarantino Against Harvey Weinstein
At 29 years old, Quentin Tarantino made his directorial debut with "Reservoir Dogs." With its punchy pacing and electric performances, it was a brash, violent film that put him on the map as an audacious new storyteller. From his humble beginnings as a Video Archives store clerk to the script landing in Harvey Keitel's hands, Tarantino was able to raise $1.5 million to make the movie and debut it at the Sundance Film Festival.
Duane Byrge from The Hollywood Reporter covered the overwhelming audience response to the searing film: "[T]his plug gutter is wiping out audiences here at the Sundance Film Festival. Those who survive it emerge in a shell-shocked euphoria — so good and so blunt is the writing." Miramax won the subsequent bidding war, but although distribution was secured, the road to release was rocky. Producer Harvey Weinstein wanted to remove what is now considered the film's seminal moment: the ear-cutting torture scene set to Stealers Wheel's upbeat "Stuck in the Middle with You."
Weinstein had a reputation for wanting to cut key scenes from movies, earning him the nickname "Harvey Scissorhands." He even tried to force Bong Joon-ho to cut 20 minutes from "Snowpiercer" for its U.S. release "because in his opinion, according to one report, Midwesterners are too stupid to understand the movie as-is," as /Film put it at the time. Similarly, an hour's worth of footage was slashed from Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" at Weinstein's demand, per Vulture. Imagining "Reservoir Dogs" without the ear scene is almost unthinkable. You would just be taking away so many of the distinctive directorial qualities that Tarantino is now famous for: the building of razor-sharp tension, gratuitous violence, and clever use of pop culture references.
Harvey Weinstein thought the ear removal was 'too violent' for women
During an interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience," Tarantino revealed Weinstein's asinine reasons for wanting to cut such a visceral and exciting sequence:
"'Look, Quentin, this is a movie that anybody can watch. But with that torture scene, you're gonna alienate women; they're not gonna wanna see this. So you're literally putting your own movie in a little box. But without that scene, anybody can go and see this movie and everybody will enjoy it.'"
There are so many things wrong with this statement. The first, and most obvious, is Weinstein's hypocritical desire to protect women as one of the biggest sexual predators in Hollywood. He feigns concern yet actively harmed them on a serial basis. Although Weinstein condemned cinematic violence for such "fragile" and "sensitive" women, he never hesitated to force unwilling young women into cruel sexual situations. He shamelessly abused his power, using young women's careers as leverage to ensure their compliance. Weinstein has since been sentenced to 16 years of prison in California.
Secondly, the torture scene in "Reservoir Dogs" is not an anomaly; the entire film is a bloody, gritty caper. The ear torture scene is certainly grisly, but it doesn't necessarily come as a shock during such a highly intense film that already parades its violent proclivities with glee. The removal of the "Stuck in the Middle With You" scene would make no difference in audiences categorizing the film as a rough gaze into the criminal underworld, or have it suddenly be perceived as a fun crowd-pleaser. Women are perfectly capable of enjoying this type of film, and there may be some men who do not have the stomach for it. Personal taste and movie genre preferences have no gender.