Pulp Fiction (1994): The Forbidden Apple of Film

     Quentin Tarantino’s famous movie, Pulp Fiction (1994), starts off with the definition of “pulp /‘pəlp/ n. 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter.  2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed on rough, unfinished paper”  from the American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition.  The film itself lives up to both of these definitions, as its various narratives and genres do not give the film a definitive place in the norms of cinema while its presentation of extraordinary clippets from each character’s day to day life are ultimately left unfinished.  The key to Tarantino’s film is its ability to touch on several different genres in a new, exciting, and unnerving light, all surmounting to a major hybrid genre.

     In the very first scene, the film employs in medias res, showing viewers a crime drama surrounding a couple who appear to be the archetypal Bonnie and Clyde.  The couple both tease and praise one another, finally resolving to rob the diner where they are currently eating.  However, before the result of this spontaneous crime can be discovered, the film turns to Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega.  As Winnfield and Vega discuss burgers, the metric system, and Europe, the pair seem like normal partners, possibly law enforcement or body guards.  Once the pair get out of the car and move to the trunk, the audience realizes that Winnfield and Vega are actually assassins for an allegedly possessive and powerful man named Marsellus Wallace.  The film has now taken on that of a dark comedy with this new addition of the gangster genre.  The assassins, the mysterious suitcase with gold inside of it, Wallace’s seeming power of persuasion with Butch, along with Wallace’s properties–a night club and a humongous mansion–are all patterns and icons of the gangster film genre.  Furthermore, the first appearance of Wallace mirrors that of Don Vito in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972).

    The film goes on into the depths of addiction as Vincent Vega both begins and ends his night accompanying Mia Wallace, the boss’s wife, with drugs.  Sandwiched between the addiction is a touch of romantic comedy as the two get to know one another.  The iconic imagery of the past that encompasses the nostalgic restaurant where the two have dinner, reiterates Tarantino’s film as a tribute to past cinematic classics, but ultimately holding within it something new and inventive: Vincent and Mia.

    In the very next narrative, Butch’s past is explored in the light of the war genre, with a notable nod to animation in the television show young Butch is watching.  As Captain Koons takes the young Butch through Butch’s ancestry of warriors and the importance of his great grandfather’s golden watch, dark comedy reappears once again in the awkward inclusion of where Butch’s father hid the watch during his imprisonment in a prisoner-of-war camp.  As the film moves into Butch’s present situation, the sports genre including the determined and prideful boxer–reminiscent of On the Waterfront (1954), Rocky (1976) and The Raging Bull (1980)–take hold as Butch defies Wallace and not only wins the fight but kills his opponent in the process.

    After Butch safely retrieves his great grandfather’s watch, killing Vega in the process, he feels that he has achieved a clean getaway.  However, after seeing Wallace on the street and subsequently running him down, Butch and Wallace are both physically injured from the iconic, action-movie car crash.  Ending up in a pawn shop, the plot takes a dark turn into the horror genre with the iconic image of a rapist hillbilly that had been previously reinforced by horror films such as Deliverance (1972).  Butch ends up rescuing Wallace, which resolves their dispute on the terms that Butch must never return to Los Angeles.

     Once again, the movie turns back to dark humor, going back in time, as Vega accidentally shoots Marvin.  The two assassins now face the threat of imprisonment, since their car is covered in brain matter and blood.  Taking safe haven in the home of Jimmie, Winnfield and Vega face yet another problem: Bonnie.  Bonnie, Jimmie’s wife, is coming home soon and will divorce him if she finds out Jimmie is harboring his friend, Winnfield, a murderer, in their home.  Through mise-en-scène, the reputation of the pair of assassins is transformed from its former, professional state to bloody suits that show their sloppy imperfections, ultimately dressed in comical and dorky clothes of Jimmie.

    Finally, the ending scene shows Winnfield and Vega having breakfast at a diner…the same diner that the Bonnie and Clyde couple are about to rob.  After discussing and disputing divine intervention and its role in Winnfield and Vega’s miraculous survival of five gunshots, the story is brought full circle.  As Winnfield believes the event was God’s doing, he states that he will now quit the business and let God guide him into his proper place.  On an overall scope, the final moments of the movie make Winnfield the central character, who goes through trials and finally finds redemption through sacrifice.  As Tarantino works in this hero aspect, Winnfield does not die, but gives the criminal couple mercy–something he never does–while putting down his pride, willingly giving the couple fifteen hundred dollars.

     Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film, Pulp Fiction, strings together several different plots and narratives through dark comedy and other genres, creating a hybrid genre.  If one had to name this hybrid genre, it could simply be called the film genre.  Tarantino’s goal in Pulp Fiction is to show the effects of film on the audience; how viewers continually care about and are entertained by, situations regenerated in new and astonishing ways, which is the essence of film.