Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino
USA
1994
This Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm winner has probably been one of the most intelligent and notorious movies ever made to strike audiences from all around the planet since Tarantino introduced it. Honestly, I have never been excited to see the film. Based on most of hearsays, “Pulp Fiction” is a violent film highlighted by Tarantino’s wicked creativity. After seeing ‘Kill Bill 1 & 2”, which are my first two Tarantino films, I somewhat have deduced that “Pulp Fiction”-experience. This deduction though is definitely a sorely curtailed and unnecessary transgression of evaluating a film without actually seeing it; for “Pulp Fiction” is just an overwhelming cornucopia of originality, imagination, and fire!
Aggression resulting to hostility and brutality driven by unjust motivations and/or unexpected obsessions contoured the silhouette of this appealing and edgy fiction. Despite these very unholy human idiosyncrasies engaging the main characters of the film, Tarantino had delineated his cleverness and originality by subtly channeling the characters from a series of worsening mishaps to the beginning of a tranquil redemption. Seeking salvation, consciously or not, in a world of drugs, guns, and fights sounds as helpless as impossible; however, this film shattered all clichés. What is even more commendable is the fact that all of the things most of the characters do are more likely unintentional. Butch (Bruce Willis) is the only protagonist who sturdily and consistently wanted to break up from Marsellus Wallace’s (Ving Rhames) gang from start to finish. Pitt (Samuel Jackson) certainly has the most highlighted emancipation, but he did not want it from start to finish. There had to be a miracle happen to him to realize that he wanted to stop his business with the gang. Vincent (John Travolta) did not have any redeeming moment in the story; however, the closest would be his desperate attempt to revive the cataleptic Mia (Uma Thurman). I believe that it is an exaggeration to label this brilliant film as happily ended, for likewise in fairy tales, a happy ended story needs the correction of everything. I commend Tarantino for not forcing any corrective measures to enunciate the presence of redemption. He only allowed rectifications and not correction because it takes a semi-God to eradicate such business. Moreover, the alterations detectable in the film are personal and not organizational or social. Butch had made a rectification when he went back to the basement, where Marsellus and he were held hostage, to save his boss who few minutes back was just trying to kill him. So Butch, instead of escaping his gangster boss and live his life in apprehension had managed to receive redemption from him and furthermore receive an implied absolution and signal to leave their business and go.
I so fell in love with the sleepy and nostalgically colorful cinematography employed in the film. The soft lighting against the dominantly warm colored set and design creates memory-pinning images of the yesteryears. In case of bar scenes, where the set should be colder in color, the lighting still seldom uses hard lighting. The cinematography also uses a variety of colors to accentuate depth. Tim Burton films and “Pulp Fiction” can be both characterized by colorfulness and darkness, but Burton’s are dark, colorful, and bright, this one is dark, colorful, and squashy. Another element that contributed much to the vogue of the film is its hip musical score. These scores are not original; these are popular songs at least in the American pop culture. Assuming that using pop songs will degrade the authenticity of the film may be true in most cases but in this film, it is unnecessary. In fact, it has made the film more memory-pinning, trendy, and intelligently outstanding. The editing is competitive, though I wish I can say something else for that sounds definitely generic. It is hard to notice editing the first time you watch it, and this film has a non-linear storyline, compelling us to pay more attention to the corrects sequence rather than the shot to shot editing.
An unconventional storyline should possess a strong reason for doing so. Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” had to tell the story in shuffled sequences because he wanted to match his protagonists’ adventures with the different stages of a man’s life—that is from infancy, to adolescence, and finally to adulthood. “500 Days of Summer” is probably the weakest non-linear edited story I have seen yet. “Pulp Fiction” though highly needed that technique. The movie had to start with the Bonnie and Clyde-like lovers planning to rob the restaurant where they were eating, and later reveal to be the exact place and time Vincent and Pitt were eating. The scene had to stop with the female robber pointing her guns while shouting and the next thing we saw was the comic-inspired OBB. It ended with the same scene; the only difference is that we already knew that Pitt and Vincent were also there. As mentioned, Pitt has the most highlighted redemption because it was positioned at the end and we usually remember endings. Aside from that, Pitt’s redemption is spiritual which takes everything into a deeper existential pedestal. Unlike Butch’s redemption which is a lover’s promise-driven one and inevitably commercial, Pitt’s salvation is more artistic and more complying to the artistry Tarantino is doing. The first and the last scene of the film, which is actually a single sequence, provided us with what we need to witness to identify character development. Knowing the reason behind Pitt’s Messianic predicament, permitted us to allow the complexity he is showing. Butch’s story is supposed to happen after that restaurant holdup, but his sequences were edited in the early to middle part of the film. One practical reason is that Butch is a main character and thus, his late appearance will cause disproportionate structure. The shambled sequences are not merely shambled without reasons, instead, it was used to solidify and cohere the many quirky elements of this fervid story into one flamboyant structure of one great film.
Probably the best aspect in the film is the screenplay. The whimsicalities are so foxily planted; either within the character or within the plot. The stories told inside the film, or the rumors circulating among the introduced and unintroduced characters are not as necessary as it should be. It is forgivable though because those are as idiosyncratic as the dominating atmosphere throughout the film. One of my favorite told stories within the film is Mia’s experience as an actress in a pilot of a TV series. Mia was one of the Foxy Force Five, each has their own specialty; the blond one was the leader; the Japanese fox was a Kung Fu master; the black girl is the demolition expert; French fox’s specialty was sex; and she, was the expert with knives and knows a lot of old jokes because her grandfather was a vaudevillian. Moreover, the idea was that she will crack up one joke every episode, but they were never given another episode. Again, this is not really necessary, but it is amusing in that pop-culture-pinning way. The passion for TV, music, and entertainment is always present in the atmosphere, which again makes the film hip! Another small quirky element in the film but has provided a clever irony is when Vince and Pitt are wearing shirts and shorts in the car and the restaurant. Big and tough gangster men can never be ridiculed enough than forcing them to wear shirts and shorts making them look like dorks.
“Pulp Fiction” is a scorching and ostentatious piece of artwork. Tarantino’s originality transcends in a profusion of transforming human wickedness in an extremely pleasurable and highly entertaining cinematic experience. The menacing colors of a film noir, the outrageous possibilities of what is next, and the undeniable force that compels viewers to be drawn are nothing but the niftiest of all the clever filmmakers I have ever witnessed.
