The secret lives of others

As I was watching Reservoir Dogs with some people tonight (great movie), I notice a clip in the movie where Mr. Blonde has just cut the ear off the cop that he kidnapped, and is going outside to his car to get some gasoline to pour on him. As I watched the scene, I started noticing what the director (Quentin Tarantino) really wanted people to see....or should I say hear.

In the scene, Mr. Blonde is opening his trunk and getting out a can of gas, and in the background are the sounds of everyday life in a neighborhood....kids playing, parents and neighbors talking, maybe even a BBQ going. What the director is really driving home in that scene is the fact that normal life is taking it's course, regardless as to what is going on a few short feet away. Which leads me to my question.....

How many times do you think that while you are walking through the city, that some guy that just killed someone passed you by....maybe brushed up against you, heck, maybe even stopped and talked to you about last nights ball game?

Or, how about if you were sitting in a drive through with a car in front of you, and what is not known to you is that there is a kidnap victim that is tied up in the trunk?

How many times have you stayed at a hotel, and wondered what has happened in that very room before? Sex? Drug Use, or maybe a drug deal? Murder?

I sometimes wonder about the world around me, do you?

NOTE - No, I am not a psychopath......I am just curious what kinds of things go on around me that i do not know about.....that seething underbelly of life...

[edit on 25-8-2009 by desertdreamer]

How about it people? Anyone out there had any experiences along these lines?

reply to post by desertdreamer


Do you ever wonder about acts of kindness?

Do you ever wonder about the energies you attract with those musings? It's something to consider, imo.

reply to post by CosmicEgg


Sure I wonder about those things, but that was not my question. If you don't have an opinion that's fine, but don't bust my ba**s because I asked a question....it is no worse than alot of the other crap I have seen people answer to on here. but hey, thanks for playing.....now, back to my question. Anyone else?


[edit on 25-8-2009 by desertdreamer]

I watched that movie just Saturday night. It was the first time I had watched it and during a bout of insomnia I said, "what the hell."

It really was a good movie. I wish it had not ended like it did. I also with Tim Roth had a better accent. [He's trying to cover up his very pronounced Australian accent, unsuccessfull in some cases]

Other than that, I did notice your point about the background noises happening even with such horror going on. Everyday lives being lived out.

Quentin does this in a lot of his movies, actually. It's better to see his shows a few times to pick up on the true genius that is he. Anyway, I digress.

He has a sense of irony with the horror in most of his flicks. There is one movie of his that is truely unwatchable for me. I don't remember the name of it, but it takes place in a chinese martial arts school [maybe] and everyone is just totally hacked to pieces and it's way too gross for me to watch again. That's one movie I hope to never recall again!

How about the movie of his, "Dusk to Dawn." Fabulous and Tarintino at his best. He did, however, get creamed by the critics. I found it a hilarious movie and I surely do like a comedy!

Jackie Brown was up there for me too.


Anyway, I've got myself started and am going to stop it now. Thanks for bringing this topic up.

Excellent thread.

This reminds me of a couple of sites i stumbled across a while back, i think a guy turned it into a book too, but he asked people to send their confessions on a postcard annonymously.

Some were just standard, some were downright bizzare and disturbing. One that stuck in my head was a card that read something like, "After they fall asleep, i cut hair from the children i babysit for". Knowing theres someone out there doing that when they look after a child was quite weird.

Another one simply said, "This finger has killed".

Anyway heres a couple of sites that do this...



PostSecret

ConfessMail

Heres a couple of YouTube vids.....very sad, certainly make you wonder what happened next with a few of them...







The nearest i have come to this is serving in N.Ireland. Walking past certain people doing their shopping, knowing that the day before they were probably planning/carrying out attrocities.

CX.

[edit on 25/8/09 by CX]

Quinton's work just shows fear mongerer to me.. and looks like jah might be affected by it.

To answer your question though, of course "i" think about the world around me, but i don't think about other people being murders or anything of the such... that's just allowing a pre thought to cloud the truth.

And if i have to bring some conspiracy mumble jumble in. Well don't They want each other to fear the neighbors and isolate one selves so they never rise up together? And before ya say well there are murderers and "bad" people out there may i just mention that we are all one and this fear ( that you may or may not be affected by ) is affecting the now.

Star and flag for you. I love that movie but to answer your question... Growing up in the south I knew all kinds of people, so no I never really thought about it.

"Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you,
Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
Stuck in the middle with you."

Great flick.

reply to post by uplander


Yes, I really do enjoy his movies. I saw Dusk til Dawn at the theater when it came out....it was wild! Thanks for the reply!

reply to post by CX


Thanks for the reply CX. I will have to check out the vids when i get home, I am at work....can't get around the filters! I love watching a movie that has subtle things like this that make you think.

reply to post by Sundancer


Yes, it was a great movie....and love that song! Thanks for the reply!

reply to post by desertdreamer


This is one of the charms of being a taxidriver (I am not now, but I have been)...is seeing who goes where...As in, she doesn't know that her lover left her rich condo and went way way downtown to a crack house where he is very likely going to soak up some AIDS whore action...the male prostitute who just got out of prison pays you in advance to wait for him parked by the back fence that he climbs over to sneak in through the open sliding glass doors to get paid for sex with (his "best client") a judge who has fallen in love with him, twenty nights a month, eventually the judge writes you checks for the cabfare...You should hear black people talk about their white "friends" when they're not around, much worse than the reverse, uh-huh, even groovy-types like musicians...I remember a (stupid) dope dealer, he went into an apartment and came out with a shower-curtain-rod, out of which he proceeded to extract right in front of me several thousand dollars that had been hidden inside of it as a stash...Et cetera etc. at length and forever. You can learn a lot about life, through being a taxidriver...And in most places they're always hiring, it is an easy job to get.

The biggest criminals are the ones that work for police and government, the ones who are paid by society to murder anyone they want.

Lying is part of those peoples lifes, and mostly scum to each person.

Absolute power.

But i get what the op is on about, and totally agree.

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


Sweet! That's what I am talking about...experiencing life for real. For what it really is....good or bad. Thanks for posting that!

reply to post by andy1033


That's what I am talking about. You never know what is going to happen next. It could be a bad cop that pulls you over and does who knows what. It's the unknown factor that gets the blood really flowing (maybe a bad choice of words!...lol)

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


Man, your exploits as a taxi driver would make an excellent book!

reply to post by desertdreamer

Here's a reply for you. Maybe others will catch on & do the same.

It was 1985, summer in the San Francisco area; my best friend & I were at the Renaissance Faire. There was lots of fun & music; we had a great time. By & by, we came to a booth that had "unicorns"- not real ones of course; but a pair of small goats which belonged to a local man who had had the goats' pairs of horns surgically altered not long after birth to grow into a single horn on each ones' heads. They were really cute.

People could wait in a long line to get their picture taken with the unicorns for a few dollars. A pair of costumed men, one white & one Asian, were doing this. My friend, Van, asked if I'd like to do so. I told him no, the line was too long & my feet were killing me. My aching feet may have saved my life that day.

The two men, as it turned out not long afterward, were Leonard Lake & Charles Ng. For those of you who are too young , they were the most sordid pair of serial murderers of their day, right up there with Richard Ramirez the Night Stalker. Lake & Ng had been chatting up the pretty young things that got their pictures taken & had successfully convinced some of them to come to their house of horrors in Calaveras, under the ruse of modeling for a calendar. The two of them subjected the people they imprisoned there to unspeakable torture during the making of snuff films. Google them up for more details.

The trouble with encounters like these is, that few people who have them live to tell the tale. There was no way I would have fallen for what Lake & Ng were up to- "modeling" is a favorite pickup line in California; I would tell such men to "call my agent". Of course, they never asked me who my agent was. (I really did have one at the time- but that's another story.....)


[edit on 25-8-2009 by Deianera]

reply to post by Deianera


WOW....that's all I can say. that is exactly the kind of story I am talking about. kinda makes you rethink everything when you find out just how close something was.....huh? Excellent reply....star for you! If you like the post S&F so we can keep it going!

reply to post by desertdreamer


Thanks, DesertDreamer! I didn't know who Lake & Ng were until they were caught by the police not too long afterward; when I found out by reading the San Francisco Chronicle I felt like my blood had turned to ice water; I was horrified. The summer of '85 in California was a pretty weird, bad one. Star & flag for you of course; great thread- let's hope we get some real discussions going!

reply to post by desertdreamer


Very interesting question!

As you said Tarantino was trying to communicate that normal, everyday life was taking place unaware of the horrors unfolding right beneath their noses.

As I said its a very interesting question, statistically we are bound to have some sort of contact with a criminal at one point in our lives. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happens more than once.

The scary part about is though is how many times does that happen without us knowing.

I have slept in hotels before and wondered who previously occupied the room but this is more from a hygienic point of view. Not that I'm a hygiene freak, its just usually simple curiosity.

The eerie part however is like you mentioned: It is entirely possible to walk past a killer in public or to see a car, for all you know, that has a body or victim in its boot.

This probably does happen, maybe not on a daily or weekly basis but every couple of months maybe? I'm not necessarily saying your always going to unwittingly bump into serial killers etc but theres different types of criminals who commit different crimes I'm sure we have dealings with and do not know about them.

It's actually quite a chilling thought to imagine that the person I'm sitting next to on the bus raped or killed someone last night.

The one thing I have wondered about is what goes on behind closed doors but not in an evil way. More like I have thought about how others people lives their lives, what sort of little routines they do etc

I haven't ever thought about the evil side before but definately will now!

S+F!

[edit on 25/8/09 by Death_Kron]

[edit on 25/8/09 by Death_Kron]