Pulp Fiction

This article is about the movie. For the literature, see Pulp magazine.

Pulp Fiction
Cinema cover
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 Bruce Willis
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Running time	154 min. (168 min. deluxe edition)
Budget	$8 million

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film directed by Quentin Tarantino and written by Tarantino and Roger Avary. It was released to critical and public acclaim and is regarded by many as a milestone in movie history, helping to establish an ascendant independent film movement in the United States. Its fragmented storyline, eclectic dialogue, irony and camp influences, unorthodox camerawork, and numerous pop culture references have since colored countless movies. The movie is a homage to many older classics that influenced writer and director Quentin Tarantino to make movies and despite its superficial presentation of violence contains a strong element of theism and redemption. The movie's cultural significance was such that film critics, including Siskel and Ebert, immediately drew a comparison between the great success that Tarantino enjoyed with Pulp Fiction, and the similarly swift recognition of Citizen Kane, directed by the then-young Orson Welles

The name of the film takes reference from the pulp magazines popular in the 1920s for their strong graphic nature, similar to that of the film (the inspiration from these magazines can be clearly seen in the movie poster here).

Pulp Fiction was originally titled Black Mask.

Reception and influence

Pulp Fiction is perennially found on both critics' lists (such as the AFI's One Hundred Years, 100 Movies List) and in popular rankings, placing consistently in the top 20 on the IMDB Top 250 List. It won the 1994 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) 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.

The movie was moderately controversial at the time of its release, partly due to the graphic (though largely off-screen) violence and partly due to its perceived racism, as Jackson and Tarantino played moderately sympathetic characters who freely used the words "nigger" and "motherfucker". Later, in response, director Spike Lee made a point of challenging Tarantino's attitude towards race relations in his movie Bamboozled.

The success of Pulp Fiction spurred studios to release a slew of 'copycat' films soon after 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, if not all of these films, did not fare well at the box office and were dismissed by critics as inferior and derivative, though the raver film Go received some acclaim, and Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was a successful transplant of the film's basic premise into the underworld of London.

The unconventional attitude of the movie, in particular its lack of a standard structure of chronology, has often lead the film to be cited as an example of a postmodernist film.

Storylines

Half film noir and half black comedy, Pulp Fiction weaves through the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles gangsters, fringe characters, petty thieves and a mysterious attaché case. Following Quentin Tarantino's more traditional crime movie, Reservoir Dogs, the storyline is chopped up, rearranged and shown out of sequence, a technique borrowed from French nouvelle vague (New Wave) directors such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut and from low-budget American crime films such as Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956) and Don Siegel's The Killers (1964). The highly stylized and fluid action sequences and deadpan dialogue were inspired by Italian neo-realist director Sergio Leone's famed spaghetti western pictures of the 1960s.

There are four main storylines in Pulp Fiction: Vincent and Jules; Mia Wallace; Butch Coolidge; and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. All four are intertwined, though Butch never meets Jules or Mia, and Mia never meets the diner robbers.

Vincent & Jules

File:Pulp Fiction Vincent and Jules.jpg

John Travolta (left) and Samuel L. Jackson as Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, respectively

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 queered deal for their boss, gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames); and to kill Brett (Frank Whaley), the one who was supposed to have set up the deal. The briefcase is a classic MacGuffin, whose contents are never revealed except indirectly as a glowing yellow light (a homage to the 1955 Robert Aldrich film Kiss Me Deadly and the 1984 Alex Cox project Repo Man). There has been speculation among fans that the case contains something of supernatural origin, possibly Marsellus' soul; see The mysterious briefcase.

After a long and bizarre conversation led by the Scripture-spouting Jules, the pair shoot and kill Brett and two of his accomplices, quickly departing with the last of the gang, who in fact is Jules' informant, Marvin. Shortly afterward, while in Jules's car, Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the head, killing him, and the two hitmen quickly try to find a place to hide and clean up the mess in the car with the aid of snotty suburbanite Jimmie Dimmick (Quentin Tarantino) and the associate/henchman of Marsellus, the dapper and mysterious Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel). Jackson's and Travolta's characters had been reportedly inspired by the pair of hitmen played by Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager in Don Siegel's 1964 film The Killers and the obscure 1965 French actioner Je vous salue, Mafia! starring Henry Silva and Jack Klugman.

Mia Wallace

File:Pulp Fiction Mia.jpg

Uma Thurman plays Mia Wallace.

At Marsellus' request Vincent Vega shows his wife Mia (Uma Thurman) a good time while he is out of town. They head to a (fictional) restaurant by the name of Jackrabbit Slim's, a slick 1950s-themed restaurant with lookalikes of the decade's top pop culture icons as staff (e.g., television impresario Ed Sullivan as the maitre d', and servers such as singer Buddy Holly and actress Marilyn Monroe), an option for patrons to eat at a booth or a replica of a period car, and the famous five-dollar milkshake. Vincent and Mia make small talk, and then Mia demands that Vincent dance with her in the Jackrabbit Slim's twist contest (possibly a homage to John Travolta's dancing prowess in "Saturday Night Fever"). Back at the house, she is seen carrying the trophy they won. Mia overdoses after snorting heroin, believing it to be cocaine, and a fearful Vincent tries to save her life with the aid of the small-time drug dealer (Eric Stoltz) who had previously sold him the heroin. Mia is finally revived after Vincent, at the climax of a painfully comic and suspenseful scene, stabs her in the heart with a syringe full of adrenaline.

Butch Coolidge

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" (deliberately lose a fight) by allowing himself to be knocked out in the fifth round of his upcoming match. However, Butch double-crosses Marsellus, instead betting the money he received from Marsellus on himself (with, due to the fight's being fixed, presumably very favorable odds) and winning the bout, accidentally killing his opponent in the process. Although now flush with cash, Butch must quickly leave town, as a vengeful Marsellus is hot on his trail. (Butch's character and his situation appear to have been inspired by a similar character previously played by Robert Ryan in the 1949 film noir classic The Set-Up.)

There is also a flashback at the beginning of the "The Gold Watch" storyline (Butch's story), in which the child Butch Coolidge receives his watch from a buddy of his father's (Christopher Walken), his father having died in a Vietnam War prison camp. This gold watch, which has been passed down from father to son since his great-grandfather fought in World War I, is understandably of great sentimental value to Butch.

Compelled to return to his apartment to retrieve the wristwatch, which his girlfriend (Maria de Medeiros) has forgotten to pack, he comes across Vincent Vega. Butch grabs a silenced submachinegun on the kitchen counter left by Marsellus, who had left to get coffee for himself and Vince. (Although it is never shown that Marsellus was at Butch's apartment there are clues in the scene. One is that after Butch leaves his apartment he will find Marsellus walking across the street holding two cups of coffee, one for himself another for Vince. This would also explain why Marsellus is in that area at all. Also one would wonder why a professional such as Vincent would not keep his gun on him: the answer is that it was Marsellus' gun. And yet another clue is that Vince does nothing when the door to Butch's apartment opens: he thinks he knows who it is.) Butch picks up the gun just in time to encounter Vincent coming out of the bathroom. The Pop Tarts in the toaster pop up, startling Butch into firing and killing Vincent.

While driving back to the motel from the apartment complex, Butch accidentally (and literally) runs into Marsellus himself. (The scene of Marsellus crossing the path of Butch is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.) Following a scuffle replete with car collisions, gunplay and fisticuffs, Butch and Marsellus are captured and tied up by a couple of hicks (a pawnshop owner and a security guard) who turn out to be sexual predators and sadists. They take Marsellus into the back room and rape him; Butch escapes his bonds and in a disturbing, comic, and somewhat surreal scene, he is faced with the choice of saving himself or aiding Marsellus. He chooses the latter and attacks the rapists with a katana while Marsellus frees himself. Marsellus allows Butch to keep his money, as long as he never returns to Los Angeles and keeps the whole affair to himself.

Pumpkin & Honey Bunny

File:Pulp Fiction Pumpkin and Honey Bunny.jpg

Pumpkin (Tim Roth, right) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) hold up the diner.

Over a late breakfast in a diner, a pair of petty thieves (Roth and Plummer) discuss the merits of robbing restaurants instead of their usual targets, small banks and liquor stores. After establishing that restaurants are far easier and more lucrative to rob (the employees are less invested in the business, and there are plenty of customers with fat wallets), they spontaneously decide to hold up the diner, demanding all the patrons' money and valuables. Vincent and Jules (fresh from Jimmie's house, wearing a couple of "dorky" borrowed T-shirts) happen to be among the diner patrons. When Ringo demands that Jules hand over the case, Jules holds him at gunpoint in a Mexican standoff with Yolanda (and Vincent, who emerges from the restroom with gun drawn and pointed at Yolanda). Jules explains his ambivalence toward his life of crime, takes his wallet back from Ringo, and lets the pair go free.

It is interesting to note that the Biblical quote which Jules recites does not actually appear in the Bible.

Theme

The main themes of the movie are redemption and divine intervention. In the movie death is the punishment to the characters who don't redeem themselves. Many of the major characters - Pumpkin, Vincent Vega, Jules and Butch - have committed crimes in the movie; Vincent Vega and Jules are hitmen, Pumpkin and Yolanda rob liquor stores and Butch swindled Marsellus to make more money. During the movie each of them experience distinct divine interventions and some of them redeem themselves.

Divine Interventions

The first divine intervention is when Vincent Vega and Jules are miraculously saved from the bullets of a magnum pistol when an accomplice of Brett shoots at them. Later on when they are driving on the road, Vincent accidently shoots Marvin in his face covering the whole car in blood. They barely make it out of 'The Bonnie Situation', which is the second divine intervention. Chronologically at a later point in time, Vincent Vega experiences a third divine interventiona when Mia Wallace is saved from an overdose by an adrenaline shot.

Butch conceived a plan in which he will make money by cheating on Marsellus Wallace, leave the country with his girlfriend and live happily ever after. He is planning on going to Mexico which is not far from United States. He does not realize that Marsellus Wallace is fully willing to track him down to the end of the world and kill him. Wallace says "If Butch goes to Indo-China, I want a nigger waiting in a bowl of rice, ready to pop a cap in his ass". It was by divine intervention that Vincent Vega was in the bathroom when Butch enters his house. It is yet another divine intervention that he encounters Marsellus Wallace on the street and happen to the antique store of Maynard and Zed. If he did not see Wallace he would have left the country and Marsellus would have killed him eventually.

Pumpkin and Yolanda are living a very dangerous life by robbing liquor stores. The movie starts with Pumpkin complaining that robbing liquor stores is as dangerous as robbing banks and he profess that he is going to quit robbing stores. Yolanda mentions that Pumpkin has been saying this frequently but never actually stopped robbing banks. It was again by divine intervention that a redeemed Jules was present in the store at that point in time. Jules says "Normally, both your asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I'm in a transitional period so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you". Jules does not kill them and actually helps them. If Jules was not in a transitional period, he would have killed them both and if were not in the shop that day, they would have killed themselves somewhere later on.

Redemptions

Jules, after the first divine intervention, realizes that he is happy being alive and decides to quit his criminal life. He was saved once more during 'The Bonnie Situation' and it is expected that he lives a happy life after the breakfast in the coffee shop. Hence, the movie ends at this point when Jules redeems himself and he saves the lives of Pumpkin and Yolanda. Vincent does not listen to Jules even after the latter tells him to stop his evil ways. Vincent dismisses the incident in Brett's house as a freak occurence and mocks Jules' decision by telling him that he is going to be a 'bum'. He is later killed by Butch. Pumpkin, who was always in two minds, is assumed to redeem himself and quit his criminal life of robbing shops. Brett also swindled Marsellus Wallace and dies since he didn't redeem himself. Character of Brett is evident in that he does not realize that he should change himself to the situation around him. When Jules repeateadly tells him not to say "what", he fails to learn from his mistakes and meets his end. Butch redeems himself at last, when he decides to save Marsellus Wallace from the rapists without knowing what the consequences might be. Marsellus Wallace forgives him for cheating him and Butch leaves the country as planned.

The mysterious briefcase

The only obvious observations about the stolen attaché case recovered by Jules and Vincent are that its latch lock combination is "666", the "number of the Beast" (Satan) as given in the Biblical Book of Revelation, and that the contents of the case glow. Whenever asked, director Tarantino has replied that there is no explanation for the case's contents: it is simply a MacGuffin. The case is most likely a nod to Robert Aldrich's 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly, in which a similar briefcase glows because it contains a small nuclear device. Originally, the Pulp Fiction case was to contain diamonds, but this was seen as too mundane.

That said, fans have offered up several theories, the most popular of which says that Brett had made a deal with Marsellus Wallace for Marsellus's soul. According to this theory, the exit point of Marsellus' soul was in the back of the neck, explaining the conspicuous band-aid on that spot. (The bandage's actual purpose was that actor Ving Rhames wanted to cover up a visible keloid scar.) When Brett is killed, a golden light similar to the briefcase's glow flares across the screen; according to the theory, the light is Brett's soul departing from his body. The lock combination of "666" also suggests a spiritual explanation, and that the contents are bound up in evil deeds.

Other theories involve the golden Elvis Presley jumpsuit from True Romance, the severed ear from David Lynch's Blue Velvet, the stolen diamonds from Tarantino's earlier film Reservoir Dogs, or the Sankara Stones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Some suggest it was a would-be present from Marsellus to his "party girl" wife Mia: a stolen Academy Award. The fact that Tarantino sensed beforehand that he might be "robbed" of his Best Picture Oscar adds a tiny speck of credibility to this last theory.

The Urban Legends Reference Pages have a page on the contents of the Pulp Fiction briefcase here.

Time setting

Pulp Fiction lends itself a timeless quality by drawing themes from most of the 20th century:

• Mia Wallace looks something like a silent film character from the 1920s or earlier. However, some of her scenes and the look of her character directly reference Anna Karina's character in Jean-Luc Godard's film My Life to Live, which was made in 1962.
• Jackrabbit Slim's is a homage to the 1950s.
• Many of the cars are from the 1970s, or possibly 1960s.
• The Wolf drives the only really 'new' car in the movie, which does indeed look like it's from the 1990s.
• Both World Wars and Vietnam are referenced.
• The sign outside Butch Coolidge's fight ("Wilson vs. Coolidge") references Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge.
• Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield appear to be a nod to the 1970s.
• Mia Wallace has a reel to reel tape player.
• Marcellus Wallace makes reference to Indochina.

Jules' Bible passage

As explained by Jules in the final scene in the diner, he recites a passage from the Bible — Ezekiel 25:17 — every time right before he kills someone. The passage goes 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.

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

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.

Connections to Reservoir Dogs

In Tarantino's 1992 mainstream directorial debut Reservoir Dogs, Michael Madsen plays a character named "Vic Vega"—suspiciously close to Travolta's "Vincent Vega." Tarantino would later confirm that the two are brothers.

Tarantino's Jimmie Dimmick character in Pulp Fiction has the same last name as Harvey Keitel's Reservoir Dogs character Larry Dimmick (Mr. White); however, the two characters are apparently not related in the universe of the films, especially as Tarantino and Keitel appear in both movies, in different roles (Tarantino in Dogs as Mr. Brown and Keitel in Pulp Fiction as Winston Wolfe).

There are some who think that the briefcase contains the diamonds from Reservoir Dogs. Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink in Dogs) in a cameo as a surly waiter at Jackrabbit Slim's is also interesting—could it actually be Mr. Pink, who escaped from the police and went to a place where no-one would look for him (in Dogs, Mr. Pink refuses to tip waiters)? Tarantino, however, confirms that Reservoir Dogs is meant to end with Mr. Pink's capture by the police.

Cast

Actor	Role
John Travolta	Vincent Vega
Samuel L. Jackson	Jules Winnfield
Uma Thurman	Mia Wallace
Harvey Keitel	Winston Wolfe
Tim Roth	Pumpkin (Ringo)
Amanda Plummer	Honey Bunny (Yolanda)
Maria de Medeiros	Fabienne
Ving Rhames	Marsellus Wallace
Eric Stoltz	Lance
Rosanna Arquette	Jody
Christopher Walken	Captain Koons
Bruce Willis	Butch Coolidge
Quentin Tarantino	Jimmie Dimmick
Phil LaMarr	Marvin
Steve Buscemi	Surly Buddy Holly Waiter
Lawrence Bender	Long Hair Yuppie Scum

External links

• Pulp Fiction at IMDb
• Pulp Fiction page at the "Everything Tarantino" fan site
• What's in the Briefcase? From the Urban Legends Reference Page
• Jules' Bad Mother Fucker Wallet from Pulp Fiction