Quentin Tarantino & Steve Buscemi Rehearse Scenes for Reservoir Dogs in 1991 (NSFW)

Think about the actors and direc­tors who stood as pil­lars of the 1990s “indiewood” move­ment, and the dis­tinc­tive images of Quentin Taran­ti­no and Steve Busce­mi will sure­ly cross your mind. Both deliv­ered much of inter­est in that cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly fruit­ful decade. Busce­mi, whom Roger Ebert deemed “the house act of Amer­i­can inde­pen­dent films,” played high­ly mem­o­rable roles in movies like Alexan­dre Rock­well’s In the Soup, Tom DiCil­lo’s Liv­ing in Obliv­ion, and the Coen broth­ers’ Far­go and The Big Lebows­ki. Taran­ti­no direct­ed three fea­tures that need no intro­duc­tion, the first of which, 1991’s Reser­voir Dogs, brought them togeth­er. In the clip above, you can watch Taran­ti­no and Buscemi’s video­taped rehearsal ses­sions, where­in, among oth­er things, they work out their respec­tive char­ac­ters, the would-be dia­mond thieves Mr. Brown and Mr. Pink.

Before Reser­voir Dogs, Taran­ti­no had attempt­ed only the incom­plete My Best Friend’s Birth­day. Before shoot­ing what would become his first fin­ished movie for real, he put togeth­er mock-ups of these scenes at the Sun­dance Insti­tute Direc­tor’s Work­shop and Lab, which then sub­ject­ed them to frank eval­u­a­tions from a rotat­ing pan­el of vet­er­an film­mak­ers. As much as we enjoy his act­ing, let’s not for­get his own con­tri­bu­tions as a direc­tor; his 1996 debut Trees Lounge, in which he also stars, eas­i­ly ranks among the finest prod­ucts of that era’s inde­pen­dent cin­e­ma. And as for Taran­ti­no’s own sub­se­quent for­ays into act­ing… well, nobody can argue that they don’t enter­tain.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Best of Quentin Taran­ti­no: Cel­e­brat­ing the Director’s 50th Birth­day with our Favorite Videos

My Best Friend’s Birth­day, Quentin Tarantino’s 1987 Debut Film

Kansas City Con­fi­den­tial: Did This 1952 Noir Film Inspire Quentin Tarantino’s Reser­voir Dogs?

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.