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Pulp Fiction
File:Pulp Fiction cover.jpg
Promotional artwork
Directed byQuentin Tarantino
Written byQuentin Tarantino
Roger Avary
Produced byLawrence Bender
StarringJohn Travolta
Samuel L. Jackson
Uma Thurman
Bruce Willis
Harvey Keitel
Tim Roth
Amanda Plummer
Maria de Medeiros
Ving Rhames
Eric Stoltz
Rosanna Arquette
Christopher Walken
CinematographyAndrzej Sekula
Edited bySally Menke
Distributed byMiramax Films
(U.S. theatrical)
Buena Vista Pictures
(Non-U.S. theatrical and worldwide home video)
Release dates
France May 1994
(première at Cannes)
United States October 14, 1994
United Kingdom October 21, 1994
Australia November 24, 1994
Brazil February 18, 1995
Running time
154 min.
CountryUnited States United States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$8.5 million

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film written by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary and directed by Tarantino. A crime drama with a fragmented storyline, the film is known for its eclectic dialogue, ironic and campy style, and numerous pop culture references. It was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture; Tarantino and Avary won for Best Original Screenplay. The film was also awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. A major commercial success, it revitalized the career of John Travolta, who received an Academy Award nomination for his performance, as did Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman.

The film's title refers to the pulp magazines and novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their strongly graphic nature. Much of the film's dialogue and many of its scenes are based on classic genre films and B movies. The plot, in keeping with most other Tarantino works, is nonlinear. The unconventional structure of the picture and its extensive use of homage and pastiche have led critics to describe it as a central example of postmodernist film. It is seen as having inspired many movies in a similar style.

Overview

Directed in a highly stylized manner and employing many pop culture references, Pulp Fiction joins the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles mobsters, fringe players, petty thieves, and a mysterious briefcase. Considerable screen time is devoted to conversations and monologues that reveal the characters' senses of humor, philosophical perspectives, and secret histories. Classifiable as a black comedy,[1] the film is also frequently labeled a "neo-noir."[2] Critic Geoffrey O'Brein argues otherwise:

The old-time noir passions, the brooding melancholy and operatic death scenes, would be altogether out of place in the crisp and brightly lit wonderland that Tarantino conjures up. Neither neo-noir not a parody of noir, Pulp Fiction is more a guided tour of an infernal theme park decorated with cultural detritus, Buddy Holly and Mamie Van Doren, fragments of blaxploitation and Roger Corman and Shogun Assassin, music out of a twenty-four-hour oldies station for which all the decades since the fifties exist simultaneously.[3]

Nicholas Christopher similarly decribes it as "more gangland camp than neo-noir."[4]

In keeping with writer-director Quentin Tarantino's trademark of nonlinear storytelling, the narrative is presented out of sequence. Pulp Fiction is structured around three distinct but interrelated storylines involving several lead characters. Although each storyline focuses on a different series of incidents, they connect and intersect in various ways. The film starts out with a diner hold-up staged by "Pumpkin" and "Honey Bunny," then picks up the stories of mob hitmen Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, mob kingpin Marsellus Wallace and his wife, Mia, and prizefighter Butch Coolidge. It finally returns to where it began, in the diner, where Vincent and Jules have stopped for a bite; they foil the hold-up and set the robbers on a more righteous path. There are a total of seven narrative sequences—the three primary storylines are preceded by identifying intertitles on a black screen:

  1. Prologue—The Diner (i)
  2. Prelude to "Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife"
  3. "Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife"
  4. Prelude to "The Gold Watch" (a—flashback, b—present)
  5. "The Gold Watch"
  6. "The Bonnie Situation"
  7. Epilogue—The Diner (ii)

If the seven sequences were ordered chronologically, they would run: 4a, 2, 6, 1, 7, 3, 4b, 5. Sequences 1 and 7 and 2 and 6 partially overlap and are presented from different points of view. The narrative structure is nearly circular, as the final scene overlaps and resolves the interrupted first scene.[5]

Plot

"Pumpkin" (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer) decide to rob the diner in which they're eating after realizing they could make more money off of customers than the business itself, just as with their previous heist of a liquor store.


As hitmen Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) drive, Vincent reports on his experiences in Europe, from which he's recently returned—the hash bars in Amsterdam; the French McDonald's and its "Royale with Cheese." They are going to retrieve a briefcase from Brett (Frank Whaley), who has transgressed against their boss, gangster Marsellus Wallace. Jules tells Vincent how Marsellus had someone thrown off a fourth-floor balcony for giving his wife a foot massage. Their witty and philosophical banter is a striking juxtaposition with the scene's end, in which they kill Brett in dramatic fashion.


Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife
In a virtually empty cocktail lounge, aging prizefighter Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) accepts a large sum of money from Marsellus (Ving Rhames), agreeing to take a dive in the fifth round of his upcoming match. Butch and Vincent briefly cross paths as Vincent and Jules come to Marsellus's lounge to deliver the briefcase. Vincent drops by the house of Lance (Eric Stoltz) and Jody (Rosanna Arquette) to score some high-grade heroin. At Marsellus's request, Vincent escorts Mrs. Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), to Jack Rabbit Slim's, a slick 1950s-themed restaurant with lookalikes of the decade's top pop culture icons as staff. Mia recounts her experience as an actress in a failed television pilot, "Fox Force Five."

After participating in a twist contest, they return to the Wallace house with the trophy. While Vincent is in the bathroom convincing himself not to act on his growing attraction to his boss's wife, Mia finds Vincent's stash of heroin in the pocket of his coat. She snorts it, mistaking it for cocaine, and overdoses. When Vincent finds her, he fearfully rushes her to Lance's for help. Together, they administer an adrenaline shot to Mia's heart, reviving her. Before the two part ways, Mia and Vincent agree not to tell Marsellus of the incident, both fearing what he might do to either of them.


Young Butch (Chandler Lindauer) receives his father's watch from Vietnam veteran Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) while watching Clutch Cargo on television. The gold watch, Koons explains, has been passed down through generations of Coolidge men since World War I. Butch's father died in a POW camp, and at his dying request Koons hid the watch in his rectum for two years in order to deliver it to Butch. A bell rings, and the adult Butch wakes from this reverie. He is in his boxing colors—it's time for the fight that he's been paid to throw.


The Gold Watch
Butch wins the bout, accidentally killing his opponent in the process, and flees by taxi, enjoying a cigarette and a short interlude during the ride with the death-obsessed driver, Esmeralda VillaLobos (Angela Jones). Butch has intentionally double-crossed Marsellus, betting the money he received on himself at very favorable odds. When Butch discovers his girlfriend, Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros), has forgotten to pack the watch, he is compelled to return to his apartment and retrieve it though Marsellus's men are most likely looking for him. Butch find the watch quickly, but thinking no one awaits to kill him, he pauses for toaster pastries. Only then does he notice a silenced MAC-10 submachine gun on the kitchen counter. Hearing the toilet flush, Butch readies the gun in time to kill a startled Vincent Vega exiting the bathroom.

Returning from the apartment, Butch encounters Marsellus by chance, and the two grapple, landing in a pawnshop. Butch is about to shoot Marsellus, when the pawnshop owner Maynard (Duane Whitaker) captures them at gunpoint. Maynard and his accomplice, Zed (Peter Greene), are sexual predators, and they tie the two captives with red ball gags strapped in their mouths. They take Marsellus into the back room and rape him, leaving a silent masked figure referred to as "the gimp" to watch Butch. Butch breaks free from his bonds and knocks out the gimp. He is about to flee when he hesitates, deciding to save Marsellus. As Zed is raping Marsellus on a pommel horse, Butch kills Maynard with a katana from the shop. Zed retreats, but Marsellus retrieves Maynard's shotgun, shooting Zed in the groin. Marsellus informs Butch that they are even with respect to the money and botched fight fix, so long as he never tells anyone about the rape and departs Los Angeles forever. Butch agrees, leaving town on Zed's chopper with Fabienne.


The Bonnie Situation
The story returns to Vincent and Jules at Brett's. After they execute him, another man (Alexis Arquette, Rosanna Arquette's real-life brother) bursts out of the bathroom and shoots wildly at them, missing every time before an astonished Jules and Vincent can return fire. Jules decides this is a miracle and a sign from God for him to retire as a hit man. Vincent disagrees. They drive off with one of Brett's associates, Marvin (Phil LaMarr), their informant. Vincent asks Marvin for his opinion about the "miracle," accidentally shooting him in the head while carelessly waving his gun.

Forced to remove their bloodied car and clothing from the road, Jules calls upon the house of his friend Jimmy (Quentin Tarantino). Jimmy objects to the situation, saying his wife, Bonnie, will be returning soon from work. At Jules's request, Marsellus arranges for the help of Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel). Wolfe takes control of the situation, ordering Jules and Vincent to clean the car, hide the body in the trunk, dispose of their bloody clothes, and change into "dorky" T-shirts provided by Jimmy. He also pays Jimmy for his linens, used to cover the bloody seats while they drive to a junkyard where Wolfe's girlfriend, Raquel (Julia Sweeney), works. When Wolfe and Raquel leave for breakfast, Jules and Vincent decide to do the same.


Jules and Vincent eat, and the discussion returns to Jules's decision to retire. While Vincent is in the bathroom, the pair of thieves from the first scene hold up the diner. "Pumpkin" demands all of the patrons' valuables, including Jules's mysterious case. Jules surprises "Pumpkin," holding him at gunpoint. "Honey Bunny," hysterical, trains her gun on Jules, creating a Mexican standoff. Vincent emerges from the restroom with his gun trained on her. Jules explains his ambivalence toward his life of crime and as his first act of redemption convinces the two robbers to take the cash and go, pondering how lucky they are to be alive and leaving the briefcase to be returned to its rightful owner.

Production

The first element of what would become the Pulp Fiction screenplay was written by Roger Avary in the fall of 1990:

Tarantino and Avary decided to write a short, on the theory that it would be easier to get made than a feature. But they quickly realized that nobody produces shorts, so the film became a trilogy, with one section by Tarantino, one by Avary, and one by a third director who never materialized. Each eventually expanded his section into a feature-length script....[6]

Tarantino's script was produced as Reservoir Dogs; Avary's, titled "Pandemonium Reigns," would form the basis for the "Gold Watch" storyline of Pulp Fiction. After the success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino returned to the notion of a trilogy film: "I got the idea of doing something that novelists get a chance to do but filmmakers don't: telling three separate stories, having characters float in and out with different weights depending on the story."[7] Tarantino went to work on the script for Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam. He was joined there by Avary, who contributed "Pandemonium Reigns" to the project and participated in its rewriting as well as the development of the new storylines that would link up with it.[8] Columbia TriStar bought the script but then put it into turnaround.[9] Miramax, which was in the process of being acquired by Disney, agreed to back it. Pulp Fiction—the first Miramax project to get a green light after the acquisition—was budgeted at $8.5 million.[10]

For the costumes, Tarantino took his inspiration from French director Jean-Pierre Melville, who believed that the clothes his characters wore were their symbolic suits of armor.[11] According to the filmmaker, Pulp Fiction was shot "on 50 ASA film stock, which is the slowest stock they make. The reason we use it is that it creates an almost no-grain image, it's lustrous. It's the closest thing we have to 50s Technicolor."[11]

Cast

  • John Travolta as Vincent Vega: Tarantino cast Travolta in Pulp Fiction only because Michael Madsen chose to appear in Kevin Costner's Wyatt Earp instead. Madsen later said this was the worst career move he ever made. Travolta was paid just $140,000 for his services, but the film's success and his Oscar nomination as Best Actor revitalized his career. Travolta was subsequently cast in several hits including Get Shorty, in which he played a similar character, and the John Woo blockbuster Face/Off.[12] The exchange in which Mia Wallace asks Travolta's character "Can you dig it?" to which he responds "I can dig it" is a nod to Travolta's career-making role in Saturday Night Fever. Travolta, not a real-life smoker, learned how to expertly roll Drum-brand tobacco into cigarettes for his part.
  • Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield: The role of Jules was written with Jackson in mind by Tarantino as a payback for casting others in place of Jackson in previous films. However Jackson nearly lost the part after the initial audition. Paul Calderon, Jackson's friend, managed to argue for a second chance. Jackson flew to Los Angeles and auditioned a second time, winning over Tarantino.[13] Jules was originally scripted with a giant Afro. Because Jackson wears his hair short, a wig was required. When a Jheri-curled wig was also brought in, Tarantino and Jackson agreed to use it for Jules.[14] For his performance, Jackson received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
  • Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace: Thurman beat out Holly Hunter and Meg Ryan to win the role of Mia Wallace. Thurman dominated most of the film's promotional material, appearing on a bed with cigarette in hand. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in Pulp Fiction and was launched into the celebrity A-list. She took no advantage of this new found fame and chose to not do any big budget films for the next three years.[15] Thurman's outfit reappears in three of Tarantino's later films, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Volume 1 and Kill Bill, Volume 2.
  • Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge: In Tarantino's original script the character of Butch is a fighter in his twenties. The character was aged to a washed-up boxer to accommodate Willis in the role. Despite his stature as a bankable leading man, Willis took a pay cut and low billing to appear in the film, a career move that drew praise from critics and motivated other high-profile actors to do the same. According to Tarantino, his character was patterned after the role performed by Aldo Ray in the Jacques Tourneur crime drama Nightfall (1956).[16][17]
Harvey Keitel as "The Wolf"
  • Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe or simply "The Wolf": Keitel had previously starred in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs in which he played Larry Dimmick, the cousin of Jimmy Dimmick in Pulp Fiction. The name "Winston Wolfe" was borrowed from a regular customer named "Winston Wolff" who frequented the video store where Quentin Tarantino worked. The real Wolff was a video game programmer. Keitel's role as a "cleaner" is very similar to his character in Point of No Return, released a year earlier.
  • Tim Roth as Ringo or "Pumpkin": Roth had also starred in Reservoir Dogs alongside Keitel and was brought on board again. A year after Pulp Fiction, Roth would again appear with Eric Stoltz in Rob Roy, in which Roth's character kills Stoltz's character. Tim Roth used his natural, London accent in Pulp Fiction but used an American accent in Reservoir Dogs.
  • Amanda Plummer as Yolanda or "Honey Bunny": Plummer gained a lot of attention with a small amount of screen time. She followed up with director Michael Winterbottom's Butterfly Kiss, in which she plays a serial killer. According to the literature accompanying the DVD release, the role was written with Plummer in mind.
  • Ving Rhames as Marsellus Wallace: Rhames won considerable acclaim for his dynamic portrayal of the charismatic gangster. His performance paved the way for supporting roles opposite some of Hollywood's most popular stars in such big budget features as Mission Impossible, Con Air and Out of Sight.[18]
  • Eric Stoltz as Lance: Vincent's drug dealer. Courtney Love later reported that Kurt Cobain was originally offered the role of Lance; if he had taken it, Love would have played the role of his wife.[19]
  • Christopher Walken as Captain Koons: The Vietnam War veteran. Walken delivers a small but memorable performance scene in the movie as his often played slightly "off" persona. He appeared in another small but memorable role in the "Sicilian scene" in the Tarantino-written True Romance a year earlier.
  • Quentin Tarantino as Jimmie Dimmick: Tarantino plays a small role in the film as he did in Reservoir Dogs.

Other actors considered for the film included Sylvester Stallone and Daniel Day-Lewis as Vincent; Paul Calderon as Jules; Sylvester Stallone, Mickey Rourke, and Matt Dillon as Butch; Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, Joan Cusack, Isabella Rossellini, and Daryl Hannah (later cast in Kill Bill) as Mia; and Johnny Depp and Christian Slater (previously cast in True Romance) as Pumpkin.

Soundtrack

Main article: Pulp Fiction (soundtrack)

No film score was composed for Pulp Fiction, with Quentin Tarantino instead using an eclectic assortment of surf music, rock and roll, soul, and pop songs. Dick Dale's rendition of "Misirlou" plays during the opening credits. Tarantino chose surf music as the basic musical style for the film because, "it just seems like rock 'n' roll Ennio Morricone music, rock 'n' roll spaghetti Western music."[16] Some of the songs were suggested to Tarantino by his friends Chuck Kelley and Laura Lovelace, who were credited as music consultants. Lovelace also appeared in the film as Laura, a waitress.

The soundtrack album, Music from the Motion Picture Pulp Fiction, was released along with the film in 1994. In addition to songs from the film, it contains excerpts of dialogue, such as Jules's "Ezekiel 25:17" and Vincent and Jules's "Royale with Cheese." The album peaked on the Billboard 200 chart at number 21.[20] The single, Urge Overkill's cover of the Neil Diamond song "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon," reached number 59.[21] A two-disc collector's edition of the album was issued in 2002—the first disc contains the original soundtrack album songs, plus five additional tracks; the second disc contains an interview with Tarantino.

Reception

The film premiered in May 1994 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or.[22] Opening in the U.S. in October, the film was a major commercial success. Against its budget of $8.5 million and about $10 million in marketing costs, the film earned $107.93 million at the U.S. box office and approximately $213 million worldwide.[23] In terms of domestic grosses, it was the tenth biggest film of 1994, even though it played on substantially fewer screens than any other film in the top 20.[24]

Critical response was also widely favorable. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars, describing it as "so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it—the noses of those zombie writers who take 'screenwriting' classes that teach them the formulas for 'hit films.'"[25] He added Pulp Fiction to his Great Movies list in June 2001.[26] Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the film a "triumphant, cleverly disorienting journey through a demimonde that springs entirely from Mr. Tarantino's ripe imagination, a landscape of danger, shock, hilarity and vibrant local color." The director, she wrote, "has come up with a work of such depth, wit and blazing originality that it places him in the front ranks of American film makers."[27] Richard Corliss of Time wrote, "It towers over the year's other movies as majestically and menacingly as a gang lord at a preschool. It dares Hollywood films to be this smart about going this far. If good directors accept Tarantino's implicit challenge, the movie theater could again be a great place to live in."[28] "There's a special kick that comes from watching something this thrillingly alive," wrote Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. "Pulp Fiction is indisputably great."[29] The response of other critics was not quite unanimously positive. While not panning the film, Stanley Kauffman of The New Republic felt that "the way that [it] has been so widely ravened up and drooled over verges on the disgusting. Pulp Fiction nourishes, abets, cultural slumming."[30] Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times was even sharper in dissent: "The writer-director appears to be straining for his effects. Some sequences, especially one involving bondage harnesses and homosexual rape, have the uncomfortable feeling of creative desperation, of someone who's afraid of losing his reputation scrambling for any way to offend sensibilities.[31] Overall, the film attained very high critical ratings: a 96% score at Rotten Tomatoes[32] and a Metascore of 94 on Metacritic.[33]

At the end of the year, Pulp Fiction was named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics, National Board of Review, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Boston Society of Film Critics, Southeastern Film Critics Association, and Kansas City Film Critics Circle. Tarantino was named Best Director by all six of those organizations as well as by the New York Film Critics Circle and Chicago Film Critics Association. The film received seven Oscar nominations—Best Picture, Director, Actor (Travolta), Supporting Actor (Jackson), Supporting Actress (Thurman), Original Screenplay, and Film Editing. In spring 1995, Tarantino and Avary won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.[34] At the British Academy Film Awards, Tarantino and Avary shared the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, with Jackson winning for Best Supporting Actor.[35]

Influence and reputation

Pulp Fiction is regarded as one of the most influential Hollywood films of its era. Ken Dancyger argues that its "imitative and innovative style"—like that of its predecessor, Reservoir Dogs—represents

a new phenomenon, the movie whose style is created from the context of movie life rather than real life. The consequence is twofold—the presumption of deep knowledge on the part of the audience of those forms such as the gangster films or Westerns, horror films or adventure films. And that the parody or alteration of that film creates a new form, a different experience for the audience.[36]

As Paula Rabinowitz writes, "[I]t simultaneously resurrected John Travolta and film noir."[37]

Critic Gene Siskel described Destiny Turns on the Radio (1995), in which Tarantino acted, as the first (bad) imitation of Pulp Fiction.[38] Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), which shared "Pulp's veneer of hipness," was also in the first wave of beneficiairies of the "guys-with-guns frenzy created by Pulp Fiction."[39] Less similar crime dramas, such as Miramax's Cop Land (1997), were also affected. Cop Land writer-director James Mangold said of the film's casting, "Pulp Fiction had just happened, and Miramax had this tremendous prestige.... Everyone wanted to be in the next Pulp, so I was able to meet almost anybody."[40]

File:PulpFictionGuns.jpg
Vincent and Jules in their classic pose. This image represents Pulp Fiction on Time's "All-Time 100 Movies" list and is one of several similar images from the film homaged by Banksy's "famous" mural.[41]

Several scenes and images from the film achieved iconic status. The scene of Travolta and Thurman's characters dancing has been frequently homaged since, most unambiguously in the 2005 film Be Cool, starring the same two actors.[42] The repeated images of Travolta and Jackson's characters standing side by side in suit and tie, pointing their guns, have also become widely familiar. In 2007, BBC News reported that "London transport workers have painted over an iconic mural by 'guerrilla artist' Banksy.... The image depicted a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns."[43]

More than decade after its release, Pulp Fiction is found near the top of many critical rankings. As of September 2007, it is number 8 on Metacritic's list of all-time highest scores.[44] The film ranks 29th on Entertainment Weekly's "100 Greatest Films" list and 94th on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Movies" list. In 2005, it was named one of Time magazine's "All-Time 100 Movies."[45]

The film also ranks very highly in popular surveys. In a 1995 poll by the British magazine Empire, it was voted number 1 on the "100 Favorite Films" list. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the 18th greatest comedy film of all time. It was voted as the fourth greatest film of all time in a nationwide poll for Britain's Channel 4 in 2001.[46] As of September 2007, it ranks fifth on the IMDB Top 250 List.

Critical analysis

Describing the film in 2005 as Tarantino's "postmodern masterpiece to date," David Walker writes,

Pulp Fiction is marked by its playful reverence for the 1950s—the 'Jack Rabbit Slim' sequence—and its constantly teasing and often deferential references to other films. Its other notable feature is the switchback narrative technique in which Tarantino deconstructs any notion of linear progression and constantly defeats our expectations of what should logically happen next.[47]

Referring to the magazine largely responsible for popularizing hardboiled detective fiction in the 1930s, Tarantino stated that he orginally planned "to do a Black Mask movie.... [I]t kind of went somewhere else."[48]

Homage as style

Pulp Fiction is full of homages to other films and television shows, as well as many other pop culture artifacts. The scene in which Marsellus sees Butch while crossing the street in front of Butch's car is reminiscent of the scene in which Marion Crane's boss sees her under similar circumstances in Psycho (1960). The pawnshop scene is believed to be an homage to John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), while Zed was the name of Sean Connery's character in Boorman's follow-up, the sci-fi film Zardoz (1974). "Zed's dead" was one of the last lines spoken in that film; in terms of the narrative chronology, it is the final utterance in Pulp Fiction. When Butch decides to rescue Marsellus,

he finds a trove of items with film-hero resonances: the baseball bat suggests the American vigilante hero of Walking Tall (1973), the chainsaw conjures a more psychotic response as in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) or The Evil Dead II (1987), while the katana he finally, and significantly, selects identifies him with the honourable heroes of The Yakuza (1975) and Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954).[49]

The staging of the sequence in which Butch kills Maynard with the katana is based very closely on a scene in Enter the Dragon (1973), starring Bruce Lee: From the same camera angle, Butch is seen stabbing Maynard, who is standing behind him, directly through the stomach. Butch holds the sword in place for a few seconds, while he makes exactly the same facial expressions as Lee does in his film's respective scene. Butch pulls the sword out and Maynard is seen falling, again duplicating movements from Enter the Dragon. Among many television references, the maitre d' of Jack Rabbit Slim's is an Ed Sullivan impersonator. The restaurant's burger is named, obscurely, after 1960s television personality Durward Kirby. In the final scene, Jules describes his vision of "walking the earth" like Caine in Kung Fu and evokes Happy Days' Fonzie in order to explain the virtue of being cool.

In an overt reference to literary pulp fiction, Vincent Vega is seen several times reading the first Modesty Blaise novel while sitting on the toilet. The edition Vincent reads has a mock-up cover that Tarantino had the prop department make, based upon the cover of an early edition of the novel. The pop culture references range much more broadly: When Vincent comes to Lance's house with Mia, Lance is eating Fruit Brute, a long-discontinued General Mills cereal. Fruit Brute also shows up in Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill. The majority of clocks in the movie, especially in the pawnshop, are set to 4:20, a subtle drug culture reference. Tarantino has also created his own pop artifacts, partly to establish recurrent motifs in his films and partly to avoid showing actual commercial products in certain scenes. Big Kahuna Burger is featured not only in the Pulp Fiction apartment scene, but also in From Dusk Till Dawn, Reservoir Dogs and most recently, Death Proof. The Red Apple cigarettes that Butch buys inside Marsellus's bar also appear in various ways in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill: Volume 1, Grindhouse and Four Rooms. (A Red Apple billboard also appears in the background of a scene in the 1997 comedy Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. Tarantino was dating Mira Sorvino, one of the film's stars, at the time.)

Notable motifs

The mysterious briefcase

The combination of the mysterious suitcase is 666, the "number of the beast."[50] Tarantino has said that there is no explanation for the case's contents—it is simply a MacGuffin. Originally, the case was to contain the diamonds stolen in Reservoir Dogs, but this was seen as too mundane. For filming purposes, the briefcase contained an orange light bulb, silver foil, and a battery. Despite Tarantino's statements, many theories have been proposed for the contents of the briefcase.[51]

In a video interview with fellow director and friend Robert Rodriguez on MySpace, Tarantino "reveals" the secret contents of the briefcase, but the film cuts out and skips the scene in the style employed in Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse, with an intertitle that reads "Missing Reel." The interview resumes with Rodriguez discussing how radically the "knowledge" of the briefcase's contents alters one's understanding of the movie.[52] A glowing briefcase, containing an atomic explosive, features in the 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly. When the similarity was pointed out to Tarantino, he said it was purely accidental but that he liked the idea.[51]

Jules's Bible passage

Jules ritually recites what he describes as a Biblical passage, Ezekiel 25:17, before he executes someone. We hear the passage three times—in the introductory sequence in which Jules and Vincent reclaim Marsellus's briefcase; that same recitation a second time, at the beginning of "The Bonnie Situation," which overlaps the end of the introductory sequence; and in the epilogue at the diner. The first version of the passage is as follows:

File:Pulp Fiction-Bible.jpg
Jules delivering the famous pronouncement.

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

The second version is identical except for the final line: "And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

Jules's pronouncement is a typically obscure Tarantino reference to Karate Kiba (aka Chiba the Bodyguard), a 1976 film starring Sonny Chiba, whom the director would later cast in Kill Bill. Karate Kiba opens with a virtually identical soliloquy, likewise attributed to Ezekiel 25:17. While the final two sentences of Jules's speech are similar to the actual cited passage, the first two are fabricated from various biblical phrases. The text of Ezekiel 25 preceding verse 17 indicates that God's wrath is retribution for the hostility of the Philistines. In the King James version from which Jules's speech is adapted, Ezekiel 25:17 reads in its entirety, "And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them."[53]

Bathrooms

Tarantino uses the bathroom as a plot device to signify a crucial turn in the plot:[54] When Jules and Vincent are shooting Brett and his companions, a fourth man is hiding by the toilet, waiting to fire—his actions will lead to Jules's transformative "moment of clarity." After Mia returns from "powdering her nose" at Jack Rabbit Slim's, her and Vincent's quiet night out segues into their participation in a dance contest, and they become increasingly attracted to each other.

As described by Peter and Will Brooker, "In three significant moments Vincent retires to the bathroom [and] returns to an utterly changed world where death is threatened."[55] The threat increases in magnitude as the narrative progresses chronologically, and is realized in the third instance:

  1. Vincent and Jules’s diner breakfast and philosophical conversation is aborted by an armed robbery while Vincent is in the bathroom.
  2. While Vincent is in the bathroom worrying about the possibility of going too far with Marsellus's wife, Mia mistakes his heroin for cocaine and overdoses while attempting to snort it.
  3. Vincent goes to the toilet during a stakeout at Butch’s apartment and is killed by Butch with Marsellus's MAC-10.

In the Brookers' analysis, "Through Vince...we see the contemporary world as utterly contingent, transformed, disastrously, in the instant you are not looking."[55]

Awards

Pulp Fiction won the following major honors:[34][35][22][56][57]

Year Award/Festival Category — Recipient(s)
1994 Academy Award Best Original Screenplay — Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary
1994 BAFTA Award Best Supporting Actor — Samuel L. Jackson
1994 BAFTA Award Best Original Screenplay — Quentin Tarantino/Roger Avary
1994 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or — Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, director)
1994 Golden Globe Award Best Screenplay (Motion Picture) — Quentin Tarantino
1994 Stockholm Film Festival Best Film — Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, director)
1994 Stockholm Film Festival Best Script — Quentin Tarantino
1994 Stockholm Film Festival Best Actor — John Travolta

It was also nominated for the following Academy Awards:[34]

It was also nominated for the following BAFTA Awards:[35]

It was also nominated for the following Golden Globe Awards:[56]

Notes

  1. ^ See, e.g., King (2002), p. 185.
  2. ^ See, e.g., Silver and Ursini (2004), p. 65.
  3. ^ O'Brien (1994), p. 90.
  4. ^ Christopher (2006), p. 240.
  5. ^ Villella, Fiona A. (January 2000). "Circular Narratives: Highlights of Popular Cinema in the '90s". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  6. ^ Biskind (2004), p. 129.
  7. ^ Quoted in Lowry, Beverly. "Criminals Rendered in 3 Parts, Poetically," New York Times, September 11, 1994.
  8. ^ Biskind (2004), p. 167; MacInnis, Craig. "Heavyweight Tarantino Won't Be Taken Lightly," Toronto Star, October 8, 1994.
  9. ^ Biskind (2004), p. 168.
  10. ^ Waxman (2005), p. 67; Biskind (2004), p. 170.
  11. ^ a b Dargis, Manohla. "Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction," Sight and Sound, November 1994.
  12. ^ Wills, Dominic. "John Travolta Biography". Tiscali. Retrieved 2006-12-27.
  13. ^ Wills, Dominic. "Samuel L. Jackson Biography". Tiscali. Retrieved 2006-12-27.
  14. ^ Enhanced Trivia Track, Pulp Fiction DVD (Buena Vista Home Entertainment).
  15. ^ Wills, Dominic. "Uma Thurman Biography". Tiscali. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  16. ^ a b Groen, Rick. "Crime Rave," Globe and Mail, October 14, 2007.
  17. ^ Brooker and Brooker (1996), p. 234.
  18. ^ "Ving Rhames Biography". All Movie Guide. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  19. ^ Wenn (2006-09-20). "Cobain Turned Down "Pulp Fiction" Role". Hollywood.com. Retrieved 2007-09-16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ "Pulp Fiction: Charts & Awards/Billboard Albums". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 2006-12-26.
  21. ^ "Pulp Fiction: Charts & Awards/Billboard Singles". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
  22. ^ a b "All the Awards—Festival 1994". Cannes Festival. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
  23. ^ Waxman (2005), p. 78; "Pulp Fiction". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  24. ^ "1994 Domestic Grosses". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  25. ^ Ebert, Roger (1994-10-14). "Pulp Fiction". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-09-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  26. ^ Ebert, Roger (2001-06-10). "Great Movies: Pulp Fiction (1994)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2006-12-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ Maslin, Janet (1994-09-23). "Pulp Fiction: Quentin Tarantino's Wild Ride On Life's Dangerous Road". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-09-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Corliss, Richard (1994-10-10). "A Blast to the Heart". Time. Retrieved 2007-09-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ Travers, Peter. Rolling Stone, October 6, 1994.
  30. ^ Kauffman, Stanley. New Republic, November 14, 1994.
  31. ^ Turan, Kenneth. Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1994.
  32. ^ "Pulp Fiction (1994)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  33. ^ "Pulp Fiction". Metacritic. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  34. ^ a b c "Academy Awards for Pulp Fiction". AMPAS. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  35. ^ a b c "Film Winners 1990–1999" (PDF). BAFTA. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  36. ^ Dancyger (2002), p. 228.
  37. ^ Rabinowitz (2002), p. 15.
  38. ^ "Pulp Faction: The Tarantino Generation," Siskel & Ebert At the Movies, Pulp Fiction DVD (Buena Vista Home Entertainment).
  39. ^ Biskind (2004), p. 258.
  40. ^ Quoted in Biskind (2004), p. 258.
  41. ^ "£300,000 Banksy Is Wrecked". The Sun. 2007-04-20. Retrieved 2007-09-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  42. ^ Laverick, Daniel. "Selling a Movie in Two Minutes—The Modern Day Film Trailer". Close-Up Film. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
  43. ^ "Iconic Banksy Image Painted Over". BBC News. 2007-04-20. Retrieved 2007-09-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  44. ^ "Metacritic.com's List of All-Time High Scores". Retrieved 2006-12-29.
  45. ^ "All-Time 100 Movies: Pulp Fiction (1994)". Time. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
  46. ^ "Star Wars Voted Best Film Ever". BBC News. 2001-11-26. Retrieved 2007-09-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  47. ^ Walker (2005), p. 315.
  48. ^ Quoted in O'Brien (1994), p. 90.
  49. ^ White (2002), p. 342.
  50. ^ "Beast Number". Wolfram MathWorld. 2006-06-12. Retrieved 2007-09-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  51. ^ a b "What's In the Briefcase?". Snopes.com. 2007-08-17. Retrieved 2007-09-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  52. ^ "Rodriguez and Tarantino: Artist On Artist". MySpace.com. April 6, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  53. ^ "The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, 25". The Holy Bible: King James Version. Retrieved 2007-09-13.
  54. ^ White, Mike, and Mike Thompson (spring 1995). "Tarantino in a Can?". Cashiers du Cinemart. Retrieved 2006-12-31. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  55. ^ a b Brooker and Brooker (1996), p. 239.
  56. ^ a b "Awards Search/Pulp Fiction". Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  57. ^ "Prize Winners of 1994". Stockholm Film Festival. 1994-11-20. Retrieved 2007-09-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Sources

  • Biskind, Peter (2004). Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film (New York: Simon & Schuster). ISBN 0-684-86259-X
  • Brooker, Peter, and Will Brooker (1996). "Pulpmodernism: Tarantino's Affirmative Action," in Film Theory: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, ed. Philip Simpson, Andrew Utterson, and Karen J. Shepherdson (London and New York: Routledge). ISBN 0-415-25971-1
  • Christopher, Nicholas (2006). Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City (Shoemaker & Hoard). ISBN 1-5937-6097-3
  • Dancyger, Ken (2002). The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice, 3d ed. (New York: Focal Press). ISBN 0-240-80420-1
  • King, Geoff (2002). Film Comedy (London: Wallflower Press). ISBN 1-903364-35-3
  • O'Brien, Geoffrey (1994). "Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fantastic," in Castaways of the Image Planet: Movies, Show Business, Public Spectacle (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint). ISBN 1-58243-190-6
  • Rabinowitz, Paula (2002). Black & White & Noir: America's Pulp Modernism (New York: Columbia University Press). ISBN 0-231-11480-X
  • Silver, Alain, and James Ursini (2004). Film Noir (Cologne: Taschen). ISBN 3-8228-2261-2
  • Walker, David (2005). "Tarantino, Quentin," in The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, 2d ed., ed. Stuart Sim (London and New York: Routledge). ISBN 0-415-33358-X
  • Waxman, Sharon (2005). Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System (New York: HarperCollins). ISBN 0-06-054017-6
  • White, Glyn (2002). "Quentin Tarantino," in Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers, ed. Yvonne Tasker (London and New York: Routledge). ISBN 0-415-18973-X
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