Alternative Narrative and the following of conventions in 'Reservoir Dogs'

Alternative Narrative  and the following of conventions in 

'Reservoir Dogs'

The article is written by Tina Dixon. 

(https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16019)

Alternative narrative:

• "Reservoir Dogs has a non-linear narrative telling the story of a failed diamond heist."         
• "Another cut to a scene which at first sight is a little confusing (a feature of a non-linear narrative) of Mr White driving a car at some speed with Mr Orange in the back screaming in agony, blood literally gushing out of his stomach, where he has been shot."

Following conventions:

• "Reservoir Dogs fits the tradition that gangster films are generally made on lower budgets"
• "The scene then cuts to the opening credits, with the now iconic image of the gang, dressed mostly in suits and sunglasses walking in slow motion"
• "In terms of conforming to the conventions of the gangster genre, most of the ingredients are in place. The look of the film or mise-en-scène conforms to the gangster genre; it has very naturalistic lighting, an urban setting, suits, guns, blood etc. The dialogue is realistic colloquial language, known to gangster films."
• "Reservoir Dogs is an extremely violent film, again a convention that audiences have come to expect from gangster films"

The film Reservoir Dogs doesn't follow the conventions of ordinary narrative, therefore the film has a alternative narrative. This is because the film doesn't follow Todorov's theory of narrative - Equilibrium, disruption of the Equilibrium, recognition of disruption, attempt to repair and the Equilibrium or the re-instated Equilibrium - however the film does follow Todorov's theory to a extent. To follow the theory completely the invents that take place have to happened in chronological order like Todorov's theory but in the Reservoir Dogs the events are not in chronological order. 

There are multiple different conventions Gangster films have to follow for the film to be considered as part of that genre. Reservoir dogs does follow a vast majority of those conventions, for example a key prop that is used throughout the gangster genre is guns, this is because gangster films usually involve a lot of violence. Reservoir Dogs follows these conventions by containing a large amount of violence, this is backed up by Tina Dixon in here article - "Reservoir Dogs is an extremely violent film, again a convention that audiences have come to expect from gangster films, culminating in Mr Blonde's torture of a young police officer. This is a scene that is excruciatingly painful to watch: the sight of a young police officer tied to a chair, begging and pleading for his life, whilst a cool Mr Blonde douses him in petrol while dancing to Stealers Wheel's 'Stuck in the Middle With You'. At the end of the scene he sadistically slices off the police officer's ear."