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Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film by director Quentin Tarantino, who cowrote the film with Roger Avary. A crime drama with a nonlinear storyline, the film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, its ironic mix of humor and violence, and its host of cinematic and pop culture references. The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture; Tarantino and Avary won for Best Original Screenplay. It was also awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. A major commercial success, it revitalized the career of its leading man, John Travolta, who received an Academy Award nomination, as did costars Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman.

The film's title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue. Pulp Fiction is self-referential from its opening moments, beginning with a title card that gives two dictionary definitions of "pulp". The plot, in keeping with most of Tarantino's other works, is presented out of chronological sequence. The picture's self-reflexivity, unconventional structure, and extensive use of homage and pastiche have led critics to describe it as a prime example of postmodern film. Pulp Fiction is viewed as the inspiration for many later movies that adopted various elements of its style. The nature of its development, marketing, and distribution and its consequent profitability had a sweeping effect on the field of independent cinema. A cultural watershed, Pulp Fiction's influence has been felt in several other popular media.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Pulp Fiction - Marvin Shot 3 Plot 3.1 Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife 3.2 The Gold Watch 4 Notes 5 Sources 6 External links

[edit] Overview

Directed in a highly stylized manner, employing many cinematic allusions, 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 and perspectives on life. Considered by some critics 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 nor 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 calls it "more gangland camp than neo-noir".^[4] Foster Hirsch also suggests that its "trippy fantasy landscape" characterizes it more definitively than any genre label: Set "in a world that could exist only in the movies", Pulp Fiction is "a succulent guilty pleasure, beautifully made junk food for cinéastes".^[5]

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—in Tarantino's conception, mob hitman Vincent Vega is the lead of the first story, prizefighter Butch Coolidge is the lead of the second, and Vincent's fellow contract killer, Jules Winnfield, is the lead of the third.^[6] 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 Vincent, Jules, Butch, and several other important characters, including mob kingpin Marsellus Wallace, his wife, Mia, and underworld problem-solver Winston Wolf. It finally returns to where it began, in the diner: Vincent and Jules, who have stopped in for a bite, find themselves embroiled in the hold-up. 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 Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
3. "Vincent Vega and Marsellus 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 partially overlap and are presented from different points of view; the same is true of sequences 2 and 6. The narrative course, with all its detours, is virtually circular, as the final scene overlaps and resolves the interrupted first scene. Reflecting on the film, Tarantino says, "One thing that's cool is that by breaking up the linear structure, when I watch the film with an audience, it does break [the audience's] alpha state. It's like, all of a sudden, 'I gotta watch this...I gotta pay attention.' You can almost feel everybody moving in their seats. It's actually fun to watch an audience in some ways chase after a movie."^[7]

[edit] Pulp Fiction - Marvin Shot

[edit] Plot

"Pumpkin" (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer) are having breakfast in a diner. They decide to rob it after realizing they could make money off not just the business but the customers as well, as occurred during their previous heist. Moments after they initiate the hold-up, the scene breaks off and the title credits roll.

As Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) drives, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) talks about his experiences in Europe, from where he has just returned—the hash bars in Amsterdam; the French McDonald's and its "Royale with Cheese." The dress-suited pair are on their way 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. Vincent says that Marsellus has asked him to escort his wife while Marsellus is out of town. They conclude their banter and "get into character," which involves executing Brett in dramatic fashion after Jules recites a baleful "biblical" pronouncement.

[edit] 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 his upcoming match. Butch and Vincent briefly cross paths as Vincent and Jules—now inexplicably dressed in T-shirts and shorts—arrive to deliver the briefcase. The next day, Vincent drops by the house of Lance (Eric Stoltz) and Jody (Rosanna Arquette) to score some high-grade heroin. He shoots up before driving over to meet Mrs. Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and take her out. They head to Jack Rabbit Slim's, a 1950s-themed restaurant staffed by lookalikes of the decade's pop icons. 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. Mistaking it for cocaine, she snorts it and overdoses. Vincent finds her and fearfully rushes her to Lance's house for help. Together, they administer an adrenaline shot to Mia's heart, reviving her. Before parting ways, Mia and Vincent agree not to tell Marsellus of the incident, fearing what he might do to them.

Television time for young Butch (Chandler Lindauer) is interrupted by the arrival of Vietnam veteran Captain Koons (Christopher Walken). Koons explains that he has brought a gold watch, passed down through generations of Coolidge men since World War I. Butch's father died in a POW camp of dysentery, 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, startling the adult Butch out of this reverie. He is in his boxing colors—it is time for the fight he has been paid to throw.

[edit] The Gold Watch

Butch flees the arena, having won the bout. Making his getaway by taxi, he learns from the death-obsessed driver, Esmarelda VillaLobos ( Angela Jones), that he killed the opposing fighter. Butch has double-crossed Marsellus, betting his payoff on himself at very favorable odds. The next morning, at the motel where he and his girlfriend, Fabienne ( Maria de Medeiros), are lying low, Butch discovers that she has forgotten to pack the irreplaceable watch. He returns to his apartment to retrieve it, although Marsellus's men are almost certainly looking for him. Butch finds the watch quickly, but thinking he is alone, pauses for a snack. Only then does he notice a 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.

Butch drives away but while waiting at a traffic light, Marsellus walks by and recognizes him. Butch rams Marsellus with the car and another automobile then collides with his. After a foot chase the two men land in a pawnshop. Butch is about to shoot Marsellus, when the shopowner, Maynard ( Duane Whitaker), captures them at gunpoint and ties them up in a half-basement area. Maynard is joined by Zed ( Peter Greene); they take Marsellus to another room to rape him, leaving a silent masked figure referred to as "the gimp" to watch a tied-up Butch. Butch breaks loose and knocks out the gimp. He is about to flee when he decides to save Marsellus. As Zed is raping Marsellus on a pommel horse, Butch kills Maynard with a katana. Marsellus retrieves Maynard's shotgun, shooting Zed in the groin. Marsellus informs Butch that they are even with respect to the botched fight fix, so long as he never tells anyone about the rape and departs Los Angeles forever. Butch agrees and returns to pick up Fabienne on Zed's chopper.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Sources

• Bart, Peter (2000). The Gross: The Hits, the Flops—The Summer That Ate Hollywood (New York: St. Martin's). ISBN 0-312-25391-5
• Bell, David (2000). "Eroticizing the Rural", in De-Centering Sexualities: Politics and Representations Beyond the Metropolis, ed. David Shuttleton, Diane Watt, and Richard Phillips (London and New York: Routledge). ISBN 0-415-19466-0
• 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
• Charyn, Jerome (2006). Raised by Wolves: The Turbulent Art and Times of Quentin Tarantino (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press). ISBN 1-56025-858-6
• Christopher, Nicholas (2006). Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City (Emeryville, Calif.: Shoemaker & Hoard). ISBN 1-59376-097-3
• Conard, Mark T. (2006). "Symbolism, Meaning, and Nihilism in Pulp Fiction", in The Philosophy of Film Noir, ed. Mark T. Conard (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky). ISBN 0-8131-2377-1
• Constable, Catherine (2004). "Postmodernism and Film", in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism, ed. Steven Connor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-64840-8
• 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
• Dargis, Manohla (1994). "Pulp Instincts/Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction", Sight & Sound vol. IV, no. 5 (May). Collected in Quentin Tarantino: Interviews, ed. Gerald Peary (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998). ISBN 1-57806-051-6
• Dawson, Jeff (1995). Quentin Tarantino: The Cinema of Cool (New York and London: Applause). ISBN 1-55783-227-7
• Dinshaw, Carolyn (1997). "Getting Medieval: Pulp Fiction, Gawain, Foucault", in The Book and the Body, ed. Dolores Warwick Frese and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press). ISBN 0-2680-0700-4
• Fraiman, Susan (2003). Cool Men and the Second Sex (New York: Columbia University Press). ISBN 0-231-12962-9
• Fulwood, Neil (2003). One Hundred Violent Films that Changed Cinema (London and New York: Batsford/Sterling). ISBN 0-7134-8819-0
• Giroux, Henry A. (1996). Fugitive Cultures: Race, Violence, and Youth (London and New York: Routledge). ISBN 0-415-91577-5
• Gormley, Paul (2005). The New-Brutality Film: Race and Affect in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (Bristol, UK, and Portland, Ore.: Intellect). ISBN 1-84150-119-0
• Groth, Gary (1997). "A Dream of Perfect Reception: The Movies of Quentin Tarantino", in Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from The Baffler, ed. Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (New York: W.W. Norton). ISBN 0-393-31673-4
• Hirsch, Foster (1997). "Afterword", in Crime Movies, exp. ed., Carlos Clarens (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo). ISBN 0-306-80768-8
• Hoffman, David (2005). The Breakfast Cereal Gourmet (Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel). ISBN 0-7407-5029-1
• King, Geoff (2002). Film Comedy (London: Wallflower Press). ISBN 1-903364-35-3
• Kolker, Robert (2000). A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press). ISBN 0-19-512350-6
• Miller, Stephen Paul (1999). The Seventies Now: Culture As Surveillance (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press). ISBN 0-8223-2166-1
• 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
• Polan, Dana. (2000). Pulp Fiction (London: BFI). ISBN 0-85170-808-0
• Rabinowitz, Paula (2002). Black & White & Noir: America's Pulp Modernism (New York: Columbia University Press). ISBN 0-231-11480-X
• Real, Michael R. (1996). Exploring Media Culture: A Guide (Thousand Oaks, Calif., London, and New Delhi: Sage). ISBN 0-8039-5877-3
• Reinhartz, Adele (2003). Scripture on the Silver Screen (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press). ISBN 0-664-22359-1
• Rubin, Nathan (1999). Thrillers (Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-58839-1
• Silver, Alain, and James Ursini (2004). Film Noir (Cologne: Taschen). ISBN 3-8228-2261-2
• Tarantino, Quentin (1994). Pulp Fiction: A Screenplay (New York: Hyperion/Miramax). ISBN 0-7868-8104-6
• Thomas, Brian (2003). VideoHound's Dragon: Asian Action & Cult Flicks (Canton, Mich.: Visible Ink Press). ISBN 1-5785-9141-4
• Tincknell, Estella (2006). "The Soundtrack Movie, Nostalgia and Consumption", in Film's Musical Moments, ed. Ian Conrich and Estella Tincknell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). ISBN 0-7486-2344-2
• 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
• Willis, Sharon (1997). High Contrast: Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood Film (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press). ISBN 0-8223-2041-X

[edit] External links

• Pulp Fiction bibliography (via UC Berkeley)