Pulp fiction

Pulp Fiction (known as Violent Times in Latin America) is a 1994 American film written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino. The script is based on stories that Tarantino himself developed in collaboration with Roger Avary during the years 1992 and 1993, including scenes that had originally been written for True Romance. Based on a non-linear narrative, the film intertwines several stories whose protagonists are members of Los Angeles organized crime. The stylized dialogues, the mixture of humor and violence and its ironic tone distinguish the film. Its name derives from the pulp literature magazines and hard boiled graphic novels, very popular in the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and hard prose. It stars John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Willis and Tim Roth, among others. It is considered one of the most representative films of the American director's work, being one of the works that established him as a filmmaker.

It premiered on May 21, 1994 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or. Later, it was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and received seven nominations at the 67th edition of the Oscars (including best film and best director) and, although it only won the Oscar for best original screenplay, it received more than forty international awards and as many nominations. In 2013, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Pulp Fiction is considered one of the main representatives of postmodern cinema. In addition, its unconventional structure and style have made it a cult film whose influence has been felt in other films. films, as well as in other cultural fields.

Plot

Narrative structure

Pulp Fiction is told in non-chronological order and tells three intertwined stories. The first one follows hitman Vincent Vega as he takes care of Mia Wallace. The boxer Butch Coolidge is the protagonist of the second and, finally, the third concerns Vincent's partner, Jules Winnfield. The three stories are related to each other to form a plot that has been described as "an episodic plot, with circular events that have a beginning and an end and in whose developments elements and references to the other episodes are included". These three stories are distributed throughout the six parts of the film:

Foreword

The film begins in the morning, in a coffee shop in Los Angeles where a couple of young criminals, Pumpkin (whom Jules calls Ringo) and Yolanda (whom Jules calls Ringo) meet. also called Honey Bunny) (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer). They both discuss the risks involved in their activity and, finally, they decide to rob the same cafeteria where they are. Then the first cut in the film is produced and the opening credits begin to the rhythm of Misirlou.

Prelude to Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace, the wife of Marsellus Wallace

Two suit-clad criminals find themselves in a moving car: Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and his more laid-back partner Vincent Vega (John Travolta), who has just returned from Amsterdam. They are on a mission to recover a stolen briefcase of unknown contents belonging to their boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Before starting homework, they talk about some topics (the differences between life in Europe and the United States, hamburgers, etc.) and Vincent tells Jules that Marsellus has asked him to keep his wife company., Mia (Uma Thurman) for one night. Then, armed with their pistols, they break into a room where the young criminals who tried to steal Marsellus' briefcase, Brett (Frank Whaley), Roger (Burr Steers) and Marvin (Phil LaMarr), who turns out to be a friend of Marsellus, are having breakfast. Jules. Finally, they retrieve the briefcase and, as is said to be usual for him, Jules quotes a passage from the Bible (which would be in the Book of Ezekiel) before ending Brett's life.

Vincent Vega and the wife of Marsellus Wallace

Vincent and Jules meet at a strip club to return Marsellus' briefcase, and have surprisingly traded in their fancy suits for beachwear. Upon arrival, Marsellus is handing money to Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a boxer at the end of his career, for him to lose his last fight. At the end, Jules and Vincent hand over the briefcase to Marsellus and a minor verbal run-in ensues between Vincent and Butch.

Later, after having visited his dealer Lance (Eric Stoltz), Vincent arrives at Mia's house. He picks her up and they head to Jack Rabbit Slim's , a restaurant with a 1950s theme where the waiters are doubles of famous actors from that time. There Mia volunteers for a Twist contest. She asks Vincent to participate with her and they win from her. They then appear entering the Wallace house, where the good relationship between the two is revealed. Then Vincent goes to the bathroom and there he makes the decision to return home, but meanwhile, Mia finds in Vincent's coat pockets the packet of heroin that Vincent had bought for Lance. Thinking it was cocaine, she inhales it, and when Vincent returns from the bathroom, he finds Mia in a semi-comatose state from her overdose. Vincent decides to take Mia to Lance's house and, once there, although Lance initially refused to help him on the grounds that his customers know how to use merchandise and with the help of Jody (Rosanna Arquette), Lance's wife, Vincent administers a shot of adrenaline to Mia's heart. Thus, the young woman suddenly regains consciousness and, before separating from her, she decides with Vincent not to mention the incident again.

Prelude to The Golden Watch

While sleeping in the locker room before his last fight, Butch Coolidge has a dream in which he reminisces about his childhood. In it, Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), a friend of his father who died in the Vietnam War, gives him a gold watch that had belonged to the Coolidge family for generations.

The gold watch

Butch then suddenly wakes up and, despite the deal with Marsellus, wins the match, taking all the betting money. He quickly flees the place and takes refuge in a small hotel with his girlfriend Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) before fleeing the country for good. However, Fabienne had forgotten to pick up the gold watch from their apartment, so Butch takes a chance and goes back to try and get it back.

There he finds that Marsellus had sent Vincent Vega to deal with him. However, when Butch arrives, Vincent is in the bathroom, which the ex-boxer takes advantage of to shoot him with his own submachine gun, killing him and then escapes from the crime scene, leaving Vincent's dead body in the bathroom and his submachine gun in a armchair. As he drives back to the motel where his girlfriend was staying, Butch runs into Marsellus himself at a crosswalk and runs him over. After this and after hitting another vehicle, Butch is chased by Marsellus, both dizzy and somewhat disoriented by similar injuries suffered until the two find themselves hitting each other in a pawn shop. There, Maynard (Duane Whitaker), owner of the store, takes them prisoner and calls Zed (Peter Greene). He rapes Marsellus while Butch breaks free and tries to escape. However, at the last moment he decides to go back and rescue Marsellus. To do this, he arms himself with a katana and mortally wounds Maynard. He then threatens Zed, but Marsellus shoots the latter with a shotgun. Marsellus then clarifies the situation for Butch and tells him that all is forgiven, as long as he never talks about what happened at the store and that he doesn't return to Los Angeles, under threat of death. Butch then goes back to the motel with Fabienne in Zed's chopper.

The situation with Bonnie

Back at the apartment with Jules and Vincent, a fourth young man (Alexis Arquette) bursts out of the bathroom and shoots at the two gangsters, but Jules and Vincent, miraculously intact, finish him off. As Vincent questions Marvin, his informant, about why he hadn't told them someone was in the bathroom, Jules is left pondering why he survived. As he looks at the bullet holes in the wall, he comes to the conclusion that it is divine intervention.

The conversation continues later in the car, where Jules tells Vincent that she is leaving her current life. He doesn't take him seriously and decides to ask Marvin, who was in the back seat, if he also thinks it was a divine intervention. However, by accident, Vincent shoots Marvin in the head before he has fully posed the question, leaving the car covered in blood. Given the situation, Jules calls his friend Jimmy (Quentin Tarantino), who lives near where they are. There they leave the car in the garage and, to the anger of Jimmy, who tells them that they are putting their marriage in jeopardy, Jules contacts Marsellus Wallace for help. In the end, he decides to send Mr. Winston Lobo (Harvey Keitel), someone who is in charge of "solving problems". Under the Wolf's orders, they wash the car, hide Marvin's corpse and remains, and change into beachwear instead of their suits, which had been soiled. They then ditch the vehicle, say goodbye to Mr. Wolf, and go to have breakfast at the restaurant where Pumpkin and Honey Bunny were.

Epilogue

While, in the cafeteria, Vincent retires for a moment to the bathroom, the two young robbers begin the assault. Jules, like the other customers, hands Pumpkin his wallet, but Pumpkin orders her to open the briefcase. When Jules opens it, Pumpkin is fascinated by what he sees and Jules seizes the moment to grab his gun and take control of the situation. Yolanda then takes aim at Jules, but Vincent comes out of the bathroom in time to take aim at Yolanda, in a sort of Mexican-style duel. As the first act of redemption of his new life, Jules utters Ezekiel's famous line and allows Pumpkin and Yolanda to leave with the money, symbolically buying the robbers' forgiveness and lives, but does not leave them the briefcase. Finally, Vincent and Jules are seen leaving the cafeteria ready to hand over the briefcase to Marsellus.

Cast and characters

Pulp Fiction has an ensemble cast made up mainly of:

• John Travolta - Vincent Vega
• Uma Thurman - Mia Wallace
• Samuel L. Jackson - Jules Winnfield
• Bruce Willis - Butch Coolidge
• Harvey Keitel - Winston Lobo
• Tim Roth - Pumpkin or Ringo
• Ving Rhames - Marsellus Wallace
• Amanda Plummer - Yolanda or Honey Bunny
• Maria de Medeiros - Fabienne
• Eric Stoltz - Lance
• Christopher Walken - Captain Koons
• Rosanna Arquette-Jody

• 

  John Travolta

• 

  Uma Thurman

• 

  Samuel L. Jackson

• 

  Bruce Willis

Minor roles

Production

Quentin Tarantino

Lawrence Bender

Quentin Tarantino wrote the script for Pulp Fiction at the end of 1992 in an apartment in Amsterdam, where there was no telephone or fax; Back in Los Angeles, he enlisted the help of Linda Chen, secretary to screenwriter-film director Robert Towne, who helped him type it up so it would be easier to move between Hollywood producers. Executives at TriStar Pictures They rejected the script by a Tarantino, who already had a certain prestige, after Reservoir Dogs and the scripts for True Romance and Natural Born Killers.

Vincent Vega's character was initially going to be named Vic Vega, as Michael Madsen would reprise the role he played in Reservoir Dogs. Finally, when Madsen declined the invitation to take part in the film because he joined the cast of Wyatt Earp, the character's name changed to Vincent Vega and Daniel Day Lewis was considered to replace him, although Tarantino finally chose John Travolta to play the role.

Molly Ringwald, Holly Hunter, Patricia Arquette, Isabella Rossellini, Meg Tilly, Alfre Woodard, Amy Irving, Kim Basinger, Melanie Griffith, Meg Ryan, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bridget Fonda and Helen Slater were considered for the role of Mia Wallace.. Tarantino also came to think of Julia Roberts, but her salary was too high for a low-budget film. Finally, and after several auditions, the chosen one was Uma Thurman.

The role of Butch Coolidge was initially going to be played by Harrison Ford. After Ford left the project, Tarantino briefly thought of Sylvester Stallone or Michael Biehn, until he cast Bruce Willis in the role.

The film was shot between September 20 and November 30, 1993 and premiered at the 1994 Cannes film festival, where it received the Palme d'Or. On October 14, 1994, it had its premiere in the United States, to high critical acclaim. Pulp Fiction grossed $214,179,088 worldwide, putting it among the highest-grossing films of 1994-1995.

Dubbing

Mexico dubbing studio: SISSA - Oruga (International Sound Service or Latin American Dubbing Company or CLADSA), Dubbing direction: Carlos Magaña.^{[citation required]}

Analysis

Gender

The film's genre has been especially difficult to recognize, so analysts and critics have given various hypotheses. It has been labeled as a black comedy, as well as neo-noir film. However, critic Geoffrey O'Brien has rejected this association with film noir, stating that "the passions of the old film noir, its melancholy and its opera-worthy death scenes would be totally out of place in the scintillating wonderland that Tarantino has created", so in his opinion the film is "neither film noir nor neo-noir". Nicholas Christopher, for his part, situates the work more as a parody of gangster cinema than as a work of neo-noir cinema. Critic Foster Hirsch has suggested that the film's own "imaginary psychedelic landscape" characterizes it far more than any label.

Quentin Tarantino had indicated his intention to make a film in the style of Black Mask magazine, which popularized detective stories and crime novels. O'Brien saw the result as tied "strongly to another traditional form of the pulp magazines: the fantastic and horror stories written by authors like William Irish or Fredric Brown, a world of improbable coincidences and cruel jokes that Pulp Fiction has made its own ».

Pulp Fiction as a Postmodern Work

Pulp Fiction is considered one of the main representatives of postmodern cinema, characterized by "a visceral force so intense that it rejects the desire to reach any deep meaning". For his part, Alberto Morsiano wrote that "the stunning cinemascope format by Tarantino and his remarkable cinematographer Andrzej Sekuła often frames objects with close-ups and offers stark contrasts reminiscent of Sergio Leone's visual strategies", recognized by Tarantino as one of his role models.

The numerous allusions to popular culture present in the film (from the image of Marilyn Monroe's skirt to the different types of hamburgers mentioned) have in turn contributed to many critics framing the work within Postmodernism. Critic David Walker has called Pulp Fiction Tarantino's "postmodern masterpiece", remarking that it "is marked by a veneration of the '50s and its continual mocking yet respectful references to other films".

A film in the form of a tribute

Pulp Fiction is a film full of homages to other films, to the point that Tarantino has been described as a "cinema kleptomaniac". attention to the intertextuality of the film: the dance scene between Uma Thurman and John Travolta and the moment when Butch Coolidge and Marsellus Wallace confront their tormentors.

The dance scene has been perceived as a reference to other Travolta films, specifically Saturday Night Fever and Grease, although Tarantino credited for inspiration. Bande à part by Jean-Luc Godard. In Tarantino's own words:

Everyone thinks that I've written that scene to make John Travolta dance, but the scene already existed before confirming the presence of Travolta... my favorite musical scenes are those of Godard's films because they come from nowhere. It's contagious, family. And the fact that it's not a musical movie, but that it stops time in a musical scene makes it all smoother.

Quentin Tarantino

Similarly, the entire episode between Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace reproduces the plot of Scarface, between Tony Montana and Elvira Hancock, where the thug falls in love with his boss's wife. Even the dance that Elvira does at the Babylon club is similar to that of Mia Wallace.

On the other hand, the scene in which Marsellus Wallace crosses the street in front of Butch Coolidge's car and marks his presence by turning his head evokes the scene where Marion Crane's boss sees her in similar circumstances in Psycho. Marsellus and Butch are taken prisoner by Maynard and Zed, "two sadists straight out of Deliverance", the 1972 John Boorman film. Zed bears the same name as the character played by Sean Connery in Zardoz, another Boorman film. When Butch decides to rescue Marsellus, he comes across multiple items that can be used as a weapon and that have been understood as allusions to other tapes: the hammer from The Toolbox Massacre; the baseball bat from Walking Tall and The Untouchables; the chainsaw from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Terrifyingly Dead, and Mega Vixens; and finally the katana from the many chanbara movies. After being rescued by Butch, Marsellus utters the line "I want this guy stuffed, using a torch and a pair of pliers", reminiscent of a similar line in the 1973 Don Siegel film Charley Varrick and which is spoken by a character named Maynard.

Featured Topics

The mysterious briefcase

The mysterious briefcase belonging to Marsellus Wallace and whose opening combination is 666, the number of the Beast, is for Tarantino a simple MacGuffin, whose sole purpose is to serve the development of the plot. In Tarantino's own words, " the briefcase contains whatever you want it to have". skip the content. In its place and in view of the filming, an orange lantern was placed inside that gave it that supernatural air.

Many solutions were proposed to what one analyst called an "inexplicable postmodern puzzle". Most of these theories are "absolutely crazy", although some found a striking similarity to the film Kiss of Death by Robert Aldrich. Indeed, Tarantino was inspired by this film for the character of Butch Coolidge and in it a luminous briefcase containing radioactive material is present. The theory according to which the briefcase contains the soul of Marsellus quickly became popular among the public. Wallace. For researcher Paul Gormley, the briefcase has certain connections that allow it to be interpreted as a symbol of violence. For Susan Fraiman, the mysterious content of the briefcase represents "masculine intimacy, hidden and mystified. Highly hidden and much sought after, this shimmering, indefinable sweetness is encased in a tough outer shell. Even Jules, who wants to get rid of this burden on herself, carries this briefcase until the end of the film."

Ezekiel 25:17

Before executing someone, Jules Winnfield ritually recites a passage he says is taken from the Bible; specifically from verse 17 of chapter 25 of the Book of Ezekiel. This passage is heard three times in the film: first just before Jules kills Brett, then we hear that passage again from another point of view, and finally, he recites it one last time to Pumpkin in the cafeteria during the Epilogue.

In the original English version, the ending of the passage is very similar to the original version of the King James Bible, although the beginning was created from scratch based on other Biblical quotations. The main source of inspiration for Tarantino was Karate Kiba, a Japanese martial arts film where Sonny Chiba utters similar sentences. On the other hand, another character played by Chiba repeats the same lines about how the world must get rid of evil before it ends. with the villain, in the television series Shadow Warriors. Also, a murderer has a similar type of speech in Modesty Blaise, the spy novel that Vincent Vega reads twice during the film.

As Jules himself explains in the Epilogue of the film, he didn't think much about the meaning of the passage, but simply recited it to someone before executing it. However, in the same scene, the character makes some reflections about the text for the first time: based on the events that had happened to him in the morning and in which he had surprisingly managed to survive, he finally concludes that he is making an effort « with all the intensity for being the shepherd". However, several critics have analyzed the role of the passage and have related it in various ways to the transformation of the character of Jules and to the postmodern character of Pulp Fiction. For Gormley, unlike other characters in the film, Jules Winnfield is "attached to something beyond postmodern pretense...which becomes more noticeable when he stops impersonating a Baptist, as he quoted the passage as a joke." before shooting someone". Adele Reinhartz, for her part, maintains that "the intensity of Jules's transformation" is indicated in the way she delivers her speech: "first, she is a majestic and impressive figure, crying out the prophecy with fury and self-satisfaction... the second time, he appears as someone totally different. He reflects in an unquestionably postmodern way on the meaning of the passage and offers different interpretations that fit his current situation". In another sense, Mark Conard highlights the fact that, as Jules reflects on the quote, he begins to see that "it relates to with an objective picture of value and meaning that is absent from her life", in contrast to the portrayal of the nihilistic culture present in the film. On the other hand, Rosenbaum does not find much sense in Jules' final reflection. According to him, “the spiritual revelation at the end of Pulp Fiction, which Samuel L. Jackson performs admirably, is nothing more than a trinket openly inspired by kung-fu movies. Interpretation may make you feel better, but it won't make you wiser." Rosenbaum, Jonathan (October 21, 1994). "Allusion Profusion". Chicago Reader.

Bathrooms and services

The toilets and services occupy a significant part of the film's plot and involve characters who at different times have the need to go to these places. This element is not as present in other Tarantino films. At Jack Rabbit Slim's, Mia Wallace goes to the ladies' room to "powder her nose." Butch Coolidge and Fabienne star in a scene in the motel bathroom, in which he showers while she brushes her teeth; the next morning, Fabienne appears again brushing her teeth. When Jules and Vincent retrieve the briefcase from Brett and the boys' apartment, a fourth young man is hiding in the bathroom. Vincent and Jules also use Jimmy's bathroom, where they have an argument over a bloody towel. Finally, Yolanda is surprised in the Mexican duel when Vincent comes out of the bathroom.

In addition, and as described by Peter and Will Brooker, these types of scenes end up being the most significant in the film. Vincent Vega goes to the toilet three times during the film and, when he leaves, he finds a world radically transformed and upon which he plans death. This threat increases as the plot progresses and finally materializes the third time. The first time he goes to the bathroom —the last time according to the order of the film—, when he leaves the bathroom, Vincent finds himself in a robbery. The second time he goes to the bathroom to convince himself not to mess with Mia and, when he returns to the living room, he finds her with an overdose. Finally, the third time he stops to read in the bathroom at Butch's apartment and is murdered right on his way out. For the Brookers, "we see through Vincent the contemporary world as totally contingent, disastrously transformed while one is not looking".

Susan Fraiman finds especially relevant the fact that Vincent reads the pulp spy novel Modesty Blaise in two of these scenes. Thus, she connects with the traditional ridiculing vision of women as consumers of magazines and sofa literature. In her opinion,

"by locating popular fiction in the toilets, Tarantino reinforces the association with shit, already suggested by one of the definitions pulp that open the film, as a “soft, pasture and shapeless sustance”. We have here then a series of derogatory associations —pulp, women, shit—it takes away not only those who produce this universal fiction, but also their male consumers. Sitting in the retrete with the novel, Vincent is feminized both for his position and for his tastes. In addition, it is implicitly childish and homosexualized and the inevitable result is that it is filled by Butch with its shrapnel. The association between Vincent's destiny and his reading habits is strongly rooted in Butch's gaze, which slowly goes from the book lying on the ground to the body collapsed on the toilet."

Susan Fraiman

Sharon Willis, for her part, takes the opposite position. She estimates that "Tarantino's global project is to turn shit into gold. It's a way of taking on and recycling popular culture, particularly that of childhood, which is both a habit and a goal for Tarantino."

Criticism

Henry Giroux, professor and director of the Waterbury Forum in Education and Cultural Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the theorists of critical pedagogy, explains in his book Cinema and entertainment, elements for a political critique of film the following, among other arguments:

[...] how Tarantino articulates in these films an amorality that legitimizes the neo-conservative ideology of the 1990s, consistent with what Ruth Conniff has called a culture of cruelty; that is, the growing contempt of American society for the poor, those who are deprived of civil rights and those disinherited. Pulp Fiction it appropriates crime and violence as a daily presence that converts into popular cinema but, with this, Tarantino produces a racially codified, culturally reactionary politics and a pedagogy that transforms neo-conservative insensitivity and the contempt of the lower classes into a fashion representation of the artistic vanguard.

On FilmAffinity it is number thirteen of the best films of all time, while on IMDb it is in seventh position. It is part of AFI's 10 Top 10 of the American Film Institute in the category Gangster Movies, and in this one included in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).

Later Legacy

Due to its eclectic dialogues, its ironic combination of humor and violence and its multiple aesthetic references to pop culture, which were so widely used later, it definitely influenced the vision and work of directors such as Bryan Singer, Paul Thomas Anderson and Danny Boyle.

Awards

1994 Oscars

1994 Golden Globe Award

BAFTA 1994

Cannes International Film Festival

Stockholm International Film Festival

National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) Award

Soundtrack

The title of the album is Music from the Motion Picture Pulp Fiction.

1. Misirlou - Dick Dale & His Del-Tones
2. Royale With Cheese - Samuel L. Jackson Dialogue and John Travolta
3. Jungle Boogie - Kool " The Gang
4. Let's Stay Together - Al Green.
5. Bustin' Surfboards - The Tornadoes
6. Lonesome Town - Ricky Nelson.
7. Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield.
8. Bullwinkle Part II - The Centurians
9. You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry.
10. Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - Urge Overkill
11. If Love Is A Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags) - Maria McKee
12. Comanche - The Revels
13. Flowers On The Wall - The Statler Brothers
14. Personality Goes A Long Way - John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson Dialogue
15. Surf Rider - The Lively Ones
16. Ezekiel 25:17 - Fragment Samuel L. Jackson