Jack Nicholson
Mr. Emilio
English 1102
23 March 2016
“Pulp Fiction as a Postmodern Film”
“With
movies as an art form, I think twenty percent of that art form is supplied by what the audience brings…As
far as I’m concerned, what [the audience] comes up with is right, they’re one
hundred percent right.”
-
Quentin
Tarantino, Toronto International Film Festival
Around the time Pulp Fiction was released in 1994, there was controversy about the
amount of violence onscreen and Hollywood’s negligence to put an end to it.
Despite this growing issue, Quentin Tarantino traveled to Amsterdam, where he
spent three months in a one-bedroom apartment to write what would become a film
about burgers and “coke,” black suits and miracles, a boxer and his gold watch,
and one special briefcase. Although
every major studio passed on the finished script due to the amount of violence
and vulgarity, others, including Danny DeVito and Harvey Weinstein, found it “fucking brilliant.”
Tarantino’s film immerses the audience into an exhibit
of exaggerated images and violent action. While the audience members see everything
from two hit men accidently blowing the head off of a teenage boy in the back
of a car to a gang boss being raped by two hillbillies, the extravagance of the
film is overshadowed by its intertextual references between past pop cultural
elements, confusion of space and time, and lack of morality. It is then that Pulp Fiction defines American pop
culture by not only drawing connections between other well-known films, but
also by fulfilling our wants for a postmodern film that allows us construct our
own meaning and escape from our politically correct world with limitations.
The
film begins in a diner. Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, who we see are irrelevant as
the film progresses, are sitting in a booth, smoking cigarettes while
discussing why banks and restaurants are easier to rob than liquor stores or
local businesses that have a Jewish “Grandpa Irving sitting behind the counter
with a fucking Magnum in his hand.” After Honey Bunny makes the call that she
wants to rob the diner right there, right now, they stand up on the table,
holding out their guns and outcry, “Everybody be cool! This is a robbery!” Then,
the audience members hear the 1993 hit “Miserlou” by Dick Dale and the Deltones
play as the screen fades out into the credits. Once the credits are finished,
we hear the well-known, 1973 song “Jungle Boogie” by Kool and the Gang
introducing “The Bonnie Situation.” Now, we are riding in the car with two men
in black suits, one with gangster Jheri curls and another with long, straight
black hair. The one with the straight hair, Vincent Vega (John Travolta), has
just returned from Amsterdam after three years. He’s having colloquial dialogue
with his partner, Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), who is amazed by how
different the popular culture in Amsterdam is. “You know what they call a
Quarter Pounder in France?” Vincent says. “A Royale with cheese.”
In just the first nine minutes, Pulp Fiction draws connections between
pop culture elements of various time periods and locations that audience
members had not seen in other movies, such as Lion King and Ace Ventura:
Pet Detective, that were released that year. As the film progresses, we
continue to be exposed to pop culture through intertextuality as Tarantino
alludes to texts, films, and music that he knows the audience is familiar with.
In the story “Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife,” for example, Vincent
and Mia Wallace go to Jack Rabbit Slims where Tarantino references Amos and
Andy, Martin and Lewis, James Dean, Jerry Lewis, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn
Monroe, and even reference to Travolta’s early role in Urban Cowboy and Saturday
Night Fever. Throughout the film, the audience members see Tarantino
recycle famous lines from several movies including Charley Varrick (1973) and School
Daze (1988), reenact similar scenes and shots as those in Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly and A Clockwork Orange, and allude to his love for Asian culture and
films through the metaphorical use of black and white as seen with Vincent and
Jules suits to represent Yin Yang.
Tarantino’s use of intertextuality as a
postmodern technique not only allows him to pay homage to cinema and display
his film obsession, but it also allows his audience members to be entertained
as they are encouraged to look for references and connections in order to draw
a conclusion of their own. Although many believed that Tarantino’s film would
receive damaging blowback, Erik Tóth argues that the cult film’s success is based
upon its use of intertextuality in “[crediting the audience] with the necessary
experience to make sense of the author’s allusions and [offering] them the
pleasure of recognition.” This recognition granted to the audience by Pulp Fiction allows it to be one of the
most influential movie of the 90s, therefore defining our postmodern desire for
a film in which the significance is not based upon an absolute meaning granted
by the artist, but rather defined by the intertextual references we do or do
not perceive.
Another prevalent characteristic of
Tarantino films involves his use of a nonlinear plot structure. Rather than
having a definite beginning and ending, Pulp
Fiction tells three stories that the audience progressively see intertwine
with one another. For example, the film begins with Honey Bunny and Pumpkin
discussing their plans to rob the diner, only to fade out and be re-introduced
in the last scene of the movie where the audience discovers Jules and Vincent,
who we know will be shot to death by Butch (Bruce Willis) as seen in “The Gold
Watch,” eating after “The Bonnie Situation.” While this type of circular structure
is intended to create suspension as we are exposed to certain scenes and events
when we least expect it, Tarantino’s technique embraces the postmodern idea of confusion
of space and time in order to increase audience participation. In creating three different stories instead of
one narrative, Tarantino rejects the modern art of Hollywood filmmaking and the
social construction that films must follow a logical plot, while also eliminating
the straight-forward, linear narrative that passive viewers were growing tired
of seeing. Pulp Fiction fulfills out
demand for increased audience participation, leaving it us to become an active
audience that must construct the story and its meaning for ourselves.
Additionally, this film takes place in its own
universe: a place where Red Apple cigarettes and Big Kahuna Burger exist. We
never truly seem to find out what year it is because the movie embraces pop
culture of different periods, and we never know where exactly the movie takes
place. Although many assume the film is set in Los Angeles as in other film noirs,
the film does not take place in the real or imaginary world of Hollywood films.
According to John McAteer, “[Pulp
Fiction] takes place in a cartoon world in which
Hollywood clichés are exaggerated so far
they take on a reality of their own.” This
universe Tarantino creates, or “Tarantino’s World” as it has been come
to known, submerges us into a world where the characters and scenes are given
life in a way that relates to the audience members. Within his world, Tarantino
places emphasis on small conversations, which can be seen when Jules and
Vincent step aside from entering the apartment to continue their conversation
on foot massages. Rather than eliminating dialogue that is typically seen as
non-essential to the plot by other directors, Tarantino allows the irrelevant
dialogue to drag on in order for his audience to learn about the lives of the
characters and also find a way to relate to them beyond their bad deeds.
These bad deeds essentially emphasize the last element
of postmodernism seen in the film which addresses a loss of morality. In the
second scene of the film, Vincent and Jules are discussing Quarter Pounders in
France with as much seriousness as they are discussing Marsellus throwing a man
out the window. Additionally, when Jules is asking Brett why he is “trying to
fuck [Marsellus] like a bitch,” he recites Ezekiel 25:17 from the bible, although it is rewritten
to borrow lines from the 1976 Kung Fu film, Karate
Kiba (Bodyguard Kiba). Essentially, in presenting a lack of character
morality, Tarantino presents a resemblance to our postmodern, post-religious
society.
Ultimately,
Tarantino defined that a film does not
have to follow the standards created by Hollywood. Rather than addressing the desires of a
studio chairman, he fulfills the wants of an audience who are not seeking
something new, since the stories are inspired by 1930s pulp fiction
magazines, but something that is real.
It is then that Pulp Fiction remains
ambiguous because its meaning is not given by the artist, but determined by
which elements of postmodernism the audience chooses to perceive. And so, by
the end of the movie, we are left to decide which definition of “pulp,” given
at the beginning of the film, we prefer the most. The meaning is up to us.
Works
Cited
McAteer,
John. "Three Stories About One Story: Postmodernism and the Narrative
Structure of
Pulp
Fiction" Tarantino and Theology. Ed. Jonathan L. Walls and
Jerry Walls. Los
Angeles, CA: Gray Matter, 2015. 240-57.
Print.
Pulp
Fiction. Dir.
Quentin Tarantino. By Quentin Tarantino. Prod. Lawrence Bender. Perf. Uma
Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Travolta.
Miramax, 1994. Film.
"Reservoir
Dogs Press Conference." Quentin Tarantino: Interviews, Revised and
Updated. Ed.
Gerald Peary. N.p.: U of Mississippi, 2013. 31. Print.
Seal,
Mark. "The Making of Pulp Fiction: Quentin Tarantino's and the Cast's
Retelling." Vanity
Fair.
Condé Nast, 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
Tóth,
Erik. "Intertextuality in the Cinematic Production of Quentin
Tarantino." Thesis. Masaryk
University Faculty of Arts, 2011. Intertextuality
in the Cinematic Production of Quentin
Tarantino. 14 Dec. 2011. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
