#94 - Pulp Fiction (1994) - Quentin Tarantino

The title of Pulp Fiction refers to the type of stories written in old-fashioned novels and magazines printed on cheap paper (wood pulp paper) best known for their lurid, sensational, and exploitative subject matter. With titles such as Dime Detective, Startling Stories, Weird Tales, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Spicy Detective, the stories dealt with the darker, seedier side of society, and usually involved crime, criminals, and violence. Pulp Fiction deals with the dark and seedy side of society, involves crime, criminals, and violence, and is often Startling, Weird, Thrilling, and even a little Spicy. It pays homage to the pulp tradition and revels in its messiness, rolling around in the muck like a pig – but a loveable pig enjoying the muck for the muck’s sake.

And there is plenty of muck. Hitmen, gangsters, drug dealers, petty criminals, and rapists; overdoses, torture, robberies, murders, back stabbings, and actual stabbings; sex, foul language, racism, and bloody, bloody violence. But it is done in a tongue-in-cheek, ironic way that makes all the filth fun and often very funny. Some of it is over-the-top, as it incorporates a comic, wacky style of violence common in pulpy superhero stories and animation. But it also includes the serious violence of gangster movies and crime stories. The movie plays with the smut and grime using the full bag of tricks it inherited from the variety of pulp genres. It’s funny but it’s not a comedy. It’s dark but it’s not a noir. It transcends genres as it incorporates and pays tribute to the variety in the pulp tradition, and it has generated tributes and copycats as one of the most influential films of the 1990s.

One of the things Pulp Fiction is best known for its narrative structure. The movie tells three interconnected stories deliberately out of order, giving pieces of each story here in there, just a little at a time, cycling back around and adding a little more until it all comes together. The first story involves a hitman (John Travolta) escorting his boss’s wife (Uma Thurman) out for a night out at a 1950s-style restaurant when she accidentally overdoses on his potent stash of heroin. His frantic efforts to revive her with the help of his drug dealer are darkly funny. The next story follows the efforts of two hitmen (Travolta again, and Samuel L. Jackson, who is the highlight of an excellent cast) stuck with a bloodied car when one of them accidentally shoots an associate in the face while they’re driving in broad daylight. A cleanup man is dispatched to Quentin Tarantino’s house and they frantically clean up the car and the hitmen and leave before Mrs. Tarantino gets home from her graveyard shift at the hospital. It’s absurd and darkly funny again. And the last story involves a boxer (Bruce Willis) hired by the gangster boss (Marsellus Wallace, played by Ving Rhames) to throw a fight. He double-crosses Wallace, bets on himself, and tries to flee the country. But a watch handed down through generations (explained in a flashback by an incredible Christopher Walken cameo) that he left at his apartment brings him face to face with Wallace. The two of them eventually end up in a dungeon of sadomasochistic redneck rapists.

Everything is episodic and chronologically out of order. We are left in the dark for a long time about why the movie starts with couple of lunatic robbers, Honey Bunny and Pumpkin, planning a coffee shop robbery, or how dead characters show up alive later, or why the hitmen show up in beach clothes after a hit. But Tarantino leaves no strings loose and everything fits together in very satisfying ways.

It’s all a little gross, but the movie knows it’s gross and it’s having fun. And this fun is made obvious through the film’s use of language. The Oscar-winning script is known for its dialogue. At his best Tarantino can create nerve-wracking tension and suspense entirely on the strength of his characters’ conversations (one of my favorite examples, from Inglorious Basterds). And in Pulp Fiction Tarantino is at his best. He’s able to create that tension through mundane conversations about ordinary life that ordinary people would have. Putting those ordinary conversations in unusual situations heightens the awareness of the unusual situation and puts us on edge. As the hitmen drive to a building, get their guns, ride the elevator, and walk down the hall, they discuss the differences between the US and Europe (the well-known “Royale with cheese” – Paris’s take on the Quarter Pounder) and whether a foot massage is on the same romantic spectrum as certain other sex acts. The conversations are funny, but they’re the kind most people have with friends over lunch or while hanging out. You don’t expect such talk on the way to a hit. It continues even when they reach their target and the tension rises with Jackson’s voice as talk of burgers leads to a Biblical call-to-arms, pre-hit speech.

The dialogue is brilliant throughout the movie, as it powers and provides the electricity behind it. It’s like a new kind of action movie, with no need for high-octane stunts and explosions, as all the action is done in the language. Such language makes the characters and situations vibrant and memorable. It’s a big reason it became a cult classic and the favorite of fanboys around the world.

Like the tradition that gave rise to it, Pulp Fiction revels in the seedy and the profane. What passes for uplifting or moral is covered in a layer of dirt: redemption, resurrection, forgiveness, and honor happen among hitmen, addicts, gangsters, and murderers. But it all fits, and in fitting it all together, Pulp Fiction pays tribute to the pulp tradition, stacking up all its elements and splattering them all over the place.