Please read Chapters 4, 5, and 6 in Timothy Corrigan’s book A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Mark Conrad’s essay “Reservoir Dogs: Redemption in a Postmodern World” on pp. 101-116 in The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, and Greg Tuck’s essay “Laughter in the Dark: Irony, Black Comedy and Noir in the Films of David Lynch, the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino,” pp. 152-167, in Neo Noir edited by Mark Bould, Kathrina Glitre and Greg Tuck, and my essays “The Nature of Surrealism” and “Ultra Violence in Neo-Noir Film” in Course Documents; then watch Quentin Tarantino’s neo-noir films Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Kill Bill (2003) and write a double-spaced 4 page Critical Essay in which you compare the way the surreal images and use of ultra-violence in these three films demonstrate/reveal how the physical and emotional cruelty, suffering, and brutality experienced by those who do not conform to the “norms” established by the dominant ideology of traditional realism precludes them from living “normal” or “real” lives as “real” people (people who are not afraid to feel their real feelings and know their own real thoughts) — again, see my essays “Ultra Violence in Neo-Noir Film” and “The Nature of Surrealism” i
