Pulp Fiction

This article is about the film. For other uses, see Pulp fiction.

Pulp Fiction
File:Pulp Fiction cover.jpg
Directed by	Quentin Tarantino
Written by	Quentin Tarantino Roger Avary
Produced by	Lawrence Bender
Starring	John Travolta Samuel L. Jackson Uma Thurman Harvey Keitel Tim Roth Amanda Plummer Maria de Medeiros Ving Rhames Duane Whitaker Eric Stoltz Rosanna Arquette Steve Buscemi Christopher Walken and Bruce Willis
Cinematography	Andrzej Sekula
Edited by	Sally Menke
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release dates	May, 1994 (première at Cannes) October 14th, 1994 October 21, 1994 November 24th, 1994 February 18th, 1995
Running time	154 min. (168 min. deluxe edition)
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$8 million

Pulp Fiction is an Academy Award-winning 1994 film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote the screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is structured around a fragmented storyline and includes eclectic dialogue, heavy arthouse and independent film influences (although it was reasonably well-financed by Miramax Films), ironic and campy influences, unorthodox camerawork, and numerous pop culture references. Tarantino and Avary won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and the film was nominated for seven Oscars in total, including Best Picture; it also took home the Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes.

The plot, in keeping with most other Tarantino works, runs in nonlinear order. The unconventional structure of the movie is an example of a so-called postmodernist film. The film's title refers to the pulp magazines 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 other works of "pulp" fiction, that is to say bits of other, less acclaimed, works.

The film had a significant impact on the careers of many of its cast members. It provided a breakthrough role for Samuel L. Jackson, who became an international star in a part Tarantino wrote especially for him. It revived the fortunes of John Travolta, whose career was slumping at the time, and allowed Bruce Willis to move away from the action hero reputation he had gained through films such as Die Hard. It raised the profile of Uma Thurman and led to greater recognition for character actors such as Ving Rhames and Harvey Keitel. Eric Stoltz was also acclaimed for his role as Lance, the bathrobe-clad heroin dealer.

Structure

Template:Spoiler Pulp Fiction is divided into six distinct and yet interrelated stories. As is common in Tarantino's films, they are not arranged in chronological order. This use of non-linear structure is one element of the film which identifies it as part of the neo-noir tradition. At certain moments where the tales intersect, the theme of the uncanny and destiny arises, for example, where Butch and Vincent pass each other at Marsellus' bar. They exchange hostile glances and comments for no apparent reason. The sequence is mysterious, and the reaction of Vincent—whom the scene proceeds to focus on—goes unexplained. Later on, in the story concerned with Butch and his escape from the L.A. mob, he comes across Vincent and kills him. The narrative structure as a whole is nearly circular, the final scene continuing from and concluding the interrupted first scene.

Cinematic order:

• The Diner (first part)
• Vincent & Jules
• Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife
• The Gold Watch
• The Bonnie Situation
• The Diner (second part)

Chronological order:

• Vincent & Jules
• The Bonnie Situation
• The Diner (first part)
• The Diner (second part)
• Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife
• The Gold Watch

Plot

Template:Spoilers Essentially a black comedy directed in a highly stylized manner and employing many pop culture touches, Pulp Fiction weaves through the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles gangsters, fringe characters, petty thieves, and a mysterious attaché case. In keeping with Quentin Tarantino's directorial trademark of nonlinear story telling, Pulp Fiction is written out of sequence, telling several stories concurrently that intersect as the film progresses. Characters are introduced and killed, only to later return as the film's narrative jumps back and forth in time.

Pulp Fiction is strongly character driven, with considerable screen time devoted to conversations and monologues, often remarkably eloquent, that reveal the characters' sense of humor, philosophical perspectives, and poignant secret histories. The film starts out with a hold-up in a restaurant with armed entrepreneurs "Pumpkin" and "Honey Bunny," then picks up the stories of mob hitmen Vincent Vega and Jules, Mia and Marcellus Wallace, prizefighter Butch Coolidge, and finally returns to where it began, in the restaurant, where Vincent and Jules stop for a bite, foil the hold-up, and set the robbers on a more righteous path.

The Diner (first part)

Small time crooks "Pumpkin" (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer) decide to rob the diner in which they are eating after realizing they could make more money from customers - by confiscating wallets and purses - than the business as had happened at their last liquor store heist.

Vincent & Jules

File:Pulp Fiction Vincent and Jules.jpg

John Travolta (left) and Samuel L. Jackson as Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, respectively. Here, they are depicted in Tarantino's signature trunk shot.

Hitmen Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) head to a Los Angeles apartment to retrieve a briefcase that was involved in a failed deal for their boss, gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). On their way to the apartment, they discuss the differences between American and European culture, including what they call cheeseburgers in France; where it is called "Royale with Cheese"; and Amsterdam hash bars. They also talk about how Mia Wallace was on TV pilot that never went anywhere and that Marsellus Wallace threw a character named Antwan "Rocky Horror" through a greenhouse for giving her a foot massage. Their witty and philosophical banter is a striking juxtaposition against the scene's end, in which they kill Brett (Frank Whaley) and his cohorts in a dramatic fashion, after calling one of the characters Flock of Seagulls and quoting the Bible sparing only their informant, Marvin (Phil LaMarr).

Vincent Vega And Marsellus Wallace's Wife

File:Pulp Fiction Mia.jpg

Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace.

At Marsellus Wallace's request, Vincent Vega escorts Mrs. Wallace, Mia (Uma Thurman), to Jackrabbit Slim's, a slick 1950s-themed restaurant with look-alikes of the decade's top pop culture icons as staff. They are served by a Buddy Holly look-alike (Steve Buscemi, appearing in a cameo role.)

Mia recounts her experience as an actress in a failed television pilot, "Fox Force Five." Mia's character, Raven McCoy, was a knife expert raised by circus performers who knew "a zillion old jokes."

After stealing the trophy from the twist contest (later mentioned when Butch is walking through the yards to his apartment building - there is a radio playing which says that a trophy from Jackrabbit Slim's was stolen, implicating that Vincent and Mia did not win the contest but rather stole the trophy), they return to the Wallace house where Mia finds Vincent's stash of heroin in the pocket of his coat. Mistaking it for cocaine (due to it being in a Ziploc baggie, since the dealer was out of balloons, the traditional mode of transportation for heroin), she snorts it and overdoses. When a fearful Vincent finds her, he rushes her to his local, bathrobe-wearing drug dealer Lance (Eric Stoltz) for help. Together, they administer an adrenaline shot to Mia's heart, reviving her. Vincent then takes Mia home, but before the two part ways, they agree not to tell Marsellus of the incident, each fearing personal repercussions from their boss/husband. (The extent of these repercussions had been previously discussed during the movie, regarding the alleged punishment of an employee for giving Mia Wallace a foot massage.)

The Gold Watch

File:Pulp Fiction Butch.jpg

Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) in the pawnshop.

Aging prizefighter Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) accepts a large sum of money from Marsellus, agreeing to "take a dive" in the fifth round of his upcoming match. Butch double-crosses Marsellus, instead betting the money he received from Marsellus on himself (with favorable odds). 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 a death-obsessed taxi-driver, Esmeralda Villalobos (Angela Jones).

There is a flashback in which a young Butch Coolidge (Chandler Lindauer) receives his father's watch from Vietnam veteran Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) while watching Clutch Cargo on the television. Butch's father died in a Vietnam War POW camp and at his dying request, Koons hid the watch in his rectum for two years from the Viet Cong to give to Butch. The gold watch, passed down from father to son since World War I, is of great sentimental value to Butch.

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 moves quickly to retrieve the watch, 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, pulling the trigger at the point when the toaster pops up.

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.

File:Marcellus and butch in trouble.jpg

Marsellus and Butch tied up in the basement.

Maynard and his accomplice Zed are sexual predators, and they tie the two captives with red ball gags strapped in their mouths. They take Marsellus into the back room to sodomize him, leaving a gimp to watch Butch. Butch breaks free from his bonds and knocks out The Gimp, and is prepared to flee when he hesitates, deciding to save Marsellus. As Zed is raping Marsellus on a small wooden 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 leaves Los Angeles forever. Butch agrees, leaving town on Zed's chopper with Fabienne.

The "dungeon scene" is believed to be an homage to John Boorman's Deliverance. Also, it is believed that Butch's weapons of choice (bat, chain saw and katana) are homages to "Walking Tall", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and samurai films; and Zed was the name of Sean Connery's character in Boorman's follow-up - the sci-fi film Zardoz. "Zed's dead" was one of the last lines spoken in that film. These are also the last words spoken in Pulp Fiction if you go through each scene chronologically.

The Bonnie Situation

The story now flashes back to Vincent and Jules. After Vincent and Jules shoot Brett, 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, and as they drive he asks their informant, Marvin, for his opinion, 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 the help of professional cleanup man 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 run by Raquel (Julia Sweeney). When Wolfe and Raquel leave for breakfast, Jules and Vincent decide to do the same.

The Diner (second part)

File:Pulp Fiction Pumpkin and Honey Bunny.jpg

"Honey Bunny" (left) and "Pumpkin" hold up the diner.

While Jules and Vincent eat, 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 "Ringo," holding him at gunpoint. "Honey Bunny" becomes hysterical, and trains her gun on Jules just as Vincent emerges from the restroom with his gun trained on her in a Mexican standoff. 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 valuables in exchange for the case and their departure.

Story elements

Homage as style

Like Tarantino's other works, Pulp Fiction is full of homages to other films and television shows, particular in the gangster genre, as well as many other pop culture artifacts. The movie has been described as a pastiche of "popular culture since 1950." In the sole overt example of literary pulp fiction in the movie, Vincent Vega is seen in several scenes 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 cereal that Lance is eating when Vincent comes to his house with Mia is called Fruit Brute, which was discontinued in 1983. 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. The movie itself was originally going to be titled Black Mask, the name of the magazine largely responsible for popularizing hardboiled detective fiction in the 1930s. Butch's double cross of Marsellus is possibly an homage to the 1929 Dashiell Hammett crime novel Red Harvest, whose protagonist challenges an organized crime operation by blackmailing a boxer into "unfixing" a fixed fight.

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 and Reservoir Dogs. The Red Apple cigarettes that Butch buys inside Marsellus's bar also appear in various ways in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Volume 1, and Four Rooms. (A Red Apple billboard also appears in the background of a scene in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. Tarantino was dating Mira Sorvino, one of the film's stars, at the time.) Iconic items of Tarantino's also appear: Jules uses a STAR model B 9mm-caliber pistol, and Vincent uses an Auto-Ordnance Colt 1911A1 model .45 ACP-caliber pistol. Both weapons—each chrome plated with a custom mother-of-pearl grip—are owned by the director.

Main article: Pulp Fiction in Popular Culture

In a suitable twist, Pulp Fiction has itself become something of a pop culture icon. Several films, TV shows, and video games have referenced the movie, most memorably an episode of The Simpsons entitled 22 Short Films About Springfield, in which one of the stories is an almost dead-on parody of Pulp Fiction from the "Royale with Cheese" scene to the "dungeon scene".

The mysterious briefcase

The only indisputable observations about the stolen attaché case recovered by Jules and Vincent are that its latch lock combination is "666", the "Number of the Beast", and that the contents of the case either glow orange or are highly reflective. ("Fox Force Five" may also be a play on the 666 phenomenon as "F" is the 6th letter of the English alphabet.) The only acknowledgments of its contents are the captivated stares of Vincent and Pumpkin and their exclamations "Is that what I think it is?" and "It's beautiful."

Whenever asked, director Tarantino has replied 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 explanation, many theories have been proposed for the contents of the briefcase, for instance that it contains Marsellus' soul.

The glowing briefcase is an intentional echo of the 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly, in which a briefcase glows from its nuclear contents. When Tarantino learned of the similarity, he said it was purely accidental but that he liked the idea. The 1984 film Repo Man also contains an item held in a car trunk that glows with radioactivity (and kills people whenever the trunk is opened).

Jules' Bible passage

File:Pulp Fiction-Bible.jpg

Jules delivering the famous quotation.

In the final diner scene, Jules explains that he recites a Biblical passage, Ezekiel 25:17, each time he kills someone. Jules's version of the passage reads as follows:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will 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.

In the last scene of the movie, Jules repeats the passage to Pumpkin, phrasing the last sentence differently: And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

This is, in fact, not an actual passage from the Bible, but a collage of several passages. Ezekiel 25:17 in the King James Version reads:

And I will execute great vengeance upon thee with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

Jules's pronouncement is a typically obscure Tarantino reference to Karate Kiba/Chiba the Bodyguard, a 1976 film starring Sonny Chiba, whom the director would later cast in Kill Bill. Karate Kiba opens with a nearly identical misquote, likewise attributed to Ezekiel 25:17:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, 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 would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee! (Ezekiel 25:17)

Shot to the heart

Despite certain claims, injecting adrenaline into the heart will not save someone suffering from a heroin overdose. The proper antidote is Narcan, an opioid antagonist, injected intravenously, intramuscularly, or sprayed intranasally. The specific shot in which Vincent injects the adrenaline into Mia was filmed backwards.

Toilet motif

Tarantino uses the toilet or bathroom as a plot device:

• When Jules and Vincent are shooting Brett and his companions, a fourth man is hiding by the toilet, waiting to fire.
• When Mia comes back from 'powdering' her nose at Jackrabbit Slim's, their quiet dinner turns into them competing in a dance contest, and they become more and more attracted to each other.
• Whenever Vincent goes to the toilet, things are about to change drastically:

• A fun and romantic evening out with Mia turns into a nightmare when Mia mistakes Vincent's heroin as cocaine and overdoses.
• Vincent goes to the toilet on a quiet morning, during a stake-out at Butch’s apartment; when he comes out, Butch is pointing Vincent's own MAC-10 at him, and eventually kills him with it.
• After Vincent and Jules wipe their hands in Jimmie's bathroom after a wash to remove blood stains, Vincent's towel is saturated with blood whereas Jules' isn't.
• Vincent and Jules’ breakfast and ethical conversation in the diner turns into an armed robbery while Vincent is in the bathroom.

Redemption and Conversion

When Jules experiences a miracle, he undergoes a transformation; the film culminates with him paying the price to save another man's life. The melodramatic quote from Ezekiel that he recited during his executions, for little reason other than it sounding cool, suddenly took a twist, as he became the shepherd instead of the vengeance. On the other hand, his partner Vincent, who did not believe in the miracle, putting it down to mere coincidence, consequently finds himself, through another series of coincidences, at the wrong end of another shooting - this time fatal. He learnt neither from his previous mistakes (this was his third time in the bathroom as something major happened), nor the enlightenment of others, and finally paid for it with his life.

The other common theme is that of forgiveness. One of Pulp's sub-plots, The Gold Watch, sees Butch returning to save Marsellus from two sado-masochistic rapists, even after double-crossing him. Their previous desire to kill one another is temporarily set aside, as Butch steps in to deliver his personal enemy from a common enemy. Butch's choice of a samurai sword as the weapon of vengeance is more than just another of Tarantino's little post-modern film-maker in-jokes; Tarantino is strongly influenced by the moral code of many of the Japanese samurai classics, and by forsaking the door to Tennessee to save his enemy, he not only receives forgiveness from Marsellus (who would have previously tracked him to the ends of the earth), but also finally earns the right to wear his father's gold watch.

Redemption is the central motif of the entire film. Every main character is offered some form of redemption, and every character (except Vincent) accepts the redemption opportunity. Based on the out-of-chronological order of the scenes and the "bookending" of Pumpkin and Honey Bunny as the first and last scenes, the redemption of these two characters as a result of the redemption of Jules Winnfield appears to be the main thrust. Through the twisted curious intertwining of stories, we are able to answer the question, "what led to the redemption of Pumpkin and Honey Bunny?" the answer involving the redemption of a number of related characters, chiefly Jules Winnfield.

Cast

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Vincent (left) and Jules (right)

Out of the $8 million it cost to make the movie, $5 million went to the star-studded cast. The film is known for revitalizing the career of John Travolta and helping establish Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman as major stars. The characters of Pumpkin, Honey Bunny, and Winston Wolfe were written specifically for Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, and Harvey Keitel, respectively.

Other actors considered for the film included Daniel Day-Lewis as Vincent; Paul Calderon as Jules; Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon, and Sylvester Stallone as Butch; Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, Joan Cusack, Isabella Rossellini, and Daryl Hannah (later cast in Kill Bill) as Mia; Johnny Depp and Christian Slater (previously cast in True Romance) as Pumpkin; and Pam Grier (later cast as the lead in Tarantino's Jackie Brown) as Lance's wife, Jody. Tarantino has also said that he originally wanted to cast Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love as Lance and Jody, respectively.

• 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. 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. 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. Jules was originally scripted with an Afro; due to a mix-up in wardrobe, he wears Jheri Curls. For his performance, Jackson received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

• 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.

• Ving Rhames as Marsellus Wallace. Rhames gained considerable acclaim for his dynamic portrayal of the sadistic Marsellus Wallace. 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.

• 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 of 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. Thurman's outfit reappears in two of Tarantino's later films, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill, Volume 2.

Harvey Kietel as "The Wolf"

• Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe, or simply "The Wolf". Keitel agreed to be in the film as he had previously starred in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs where he plays Larry Dimmick the cousin of Jimmy Dimmick in Pulp Fiction. The name "Winston Wolf" was borrowed from a regular customer named "Winston Wolff" who frequented the video store where Quentin Tarantino worked. Later on, Wolff gained real world notice as a video game programmer at LucasArts, working on Dark Forces and Jedi Knight.

• Tim Roth as "Pumpkin" or "Ringo". 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.

• Amanda Plummer as "Honey Bunny" or "Yolanda." 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.

• Christopher Walken as Captain Koons, the Vietnam War veteran. Walken delivered 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 played a small role in the film as he had done previously in Reservoir Dogs. The part was more than a cameo proving the director could act. He was following a long line of directors that have played small parts in their films, most famously Alfred Hitchcock, who appeared briefly in thirty-seven of his own movies.

Reception

Made on a budget of just $8 million, the film was a major success, earning $107,928,762 at the U.S. box office and $213,928,762 in total.

Pulp Fiction is found at the top of critics' lists and in popular rankings, placing consistently in the top 8 on the IMDB Top 250 List. It boasts a 95% certified fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a Metascore of 94 on Metacritic. As of December 29, 2006, Pulp Fiction is #5 on Metacritic.com's list of All-Time High Scores. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the 18th greatest comedy film of all time. In Britain (2001), it was voted as the 4th greatest film of all time in a nationwide poll for Channel 4, beaten only by The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather and Star Wars.

In 2005, Time.com named it one of the 100 best movies of the last 80 years. It won the 1994 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It was named Best Picture by the L.A. Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, saying it's "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.'" He added Pulp Fiction to his Great Movies list in June of 2001. Pulp Fiction is in Time magazine's 100 best films.

The movie was moderately controversial at the time of its release, partly due to the graphic violence and partly due to its perceived racism, as Jackson and Travolta played moderately sympathetic characters, the former of which freely used the words "motherfucker" and "nigger", along with variations of the words. Also, white characters were repeatedly shown harming black characters (ie, the pawnshop rape, Vincent shooting Marvin, Butch running Marcellus over with a car). However, it should be noted that several white characters are harmed or murdered by other white and black characters as well. Some examples are everyone else killed in the apartment besides Marvin and Butch shooting Vega. Some felt the film glamorized violence while others thought Tarantino was criticizing excessive violence through a "twisted sense of morality".

The success of Pulp Fiction spurred studios to release a slew of "copycat" films that tried to duplicate the film's formula of witty and offbeat dialogue, an elliptical/non-chronological plot and unconventional storyline, and gritty subject matter. Most of these films fared poorly at the box office and were dismissed by critics as inferior and derivative, though the raver film Go did receive critical acclaim, as did Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; the latter being a particularly successful transplant of Pulp Fiction's basic premise into the underworld of London.

Awards

Pulp Fiction has both won, and been nominated for, many awards.

It has won the following accolades:

Year	Award	Category — Recipient(s)
1994	Academy Award	Best Original Screenplay — Quentin Tarantino
1994	BAFTA	Best Supporting Actor — Samuel L. Jackson
1994	BAFTA	Original ScreenPlay — Quentin Tarantino/Roger Avary
1994	Palme d'Or	Quentin Tarantino
1994	Edgar Award	Best Motion Picture Screenplay — Quentin Tarantino

It was nominated for the following Academy Awards:

• Best Actor (John Travolta)
• Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson)
• Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman)
• Best Director (Quentin Tarantino)
• Best Film Editing (Sally Menke)
• Best Picture (Lawrence Bender, producer)

It was nominated for the following BAFTA awards:

• Actress in Leading Role (Uma Thurman)
• Director (Quentin Tarantino)
• Michael Balcon Award (Lawrence Bender and Quentin Tarantino)
• Actor in Leading Role (John Travolta)
• Cinematography (Andrzej Sekula)
• Editing (Sally Menke)
• Sound (Stephen Hunter Flick/Ken King/Rick Ash/David Zupancic)

Soundtrack

File:PulpFictionSoundtrack.jpg

The soundtrack album cover.

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. Notable songs include Dick Dale's rendition of "Misirlou", which is played during the opening credits. Some of these 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" the 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' "Ezekiel 25:17" and "Royale with Cheese". The album peaked on the Billboard 200 at No. 21. The single, Urge Overkill's cover of the Neil Diamond song, "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon", peaked at No. 59.

A two-disc collector's edition of the album was issued in 2002, which had five additional music tracks, including Link Wray's "Rumble" and a spoken-word interview with Tarantino.

References and footnotes

External links

• Pulp Fiction at IMDb
• Pulp Fiction at Rotten Tomatoes
• Roger Ebert's review of Pulp Fiction
• Full script (not the actual version)
• Uma Thurman interview
• Sonny Chiba "Ezekiel" prologue on YouTube