Today I am going to talk about Quentin Tarantino’s
pulp fiction and what makes it so great.
The plot involves lives of two mob hit men,
a boxer, a gangster's wife and a pair of diner
bandits intertwine in three tales of violence
and redemption.
Every Normal film involves a plot like this.
Character setting
Rising action
Progressive complication
Twist as an option
And the final climax
Pulp fiction is set in a Non-linear structure
with three story timelines.
The story would seem weirdest of all.
Even his characters agree to it.
"Honey, since I left
you, this has been without a doubt
the single weirdest fucking day ever."
Having a great concept or story is one thing
and the way you present it shows your ability
as a master storyteller.
Being a master storyteller is what the audience
want eventually not the story.
Audiences love the feeling part, the part
where they dwell into the character’s life
and the thinking part, the part where they
figure out the puzzle of a story but Tarantino
wants us to sit back and go with his flow
in his own new way.
He diverts the audience from an existing plot
into a totally new plot that would probably
not guessed by any of the audience as there
are no loose strings hanging around to guess
and build a climax by themselves.
The three timelines easily show a clear structure.
When Vincent and Jules are driving, Vincent's
gun goes off in Marvin’s face, This is the
subverting element in the plot
leading them to "The Bonnie situation" where
Jules rings his only friend in the valley
Jimmie and heads to his house to cover and
clear the mess before Jimmie’s wife Bonnie
comes back to her house.
In Vincent Vega and Marseilles Wallace's Wife
situation, Vincent discusses himself in the
bathroom whether he tries to overcome of what
he thinks as a seductive situation with Mia.
The turning subverting element is introduced
as soon as he comes out of the bathroom, when
he finds Mia Overdosed and rushes to Lance’s
house concerning that both of them are into
much deeper trouble than before.
Similarly in the Golden watch situation, the
Subverting element arises when the
owner, Maynard, captures Butch and Marseilles
at gunpoint prior to their fight and ties
them up in the basement followed by sexually
torturing Marseilles.
Tarantino induces problems for both the conflicted
characters in a Timeline and both characters
resolve the concealing problem and get into
conciliation for their conflict.
At the end, we
see that Butch has a resolved deal with Marseilles,
Vincent and Jules are cleared out of the mess
by wolf and Mia promises Vincent to keep the
incident as a secret.
There are actually four timelines but the
movie shows us only three.
This is because fourth timeline ‘Tony Rocky
Horror’ takes place through dialogues along
with two timelines.
The “Tony Rocky Horror” timeline is a false
foreshadowing technique to distract the audience
and build tension in both the “The Bonnie
situation” and “Vincent Vega and Marseilles
Wallace's Wife situation.”
The timeline is subtle and clean yet Tarantino
keeps up the story weird through his valiant
yet vibrant dialogues which would hide the
timeline from the audience.
It is the well threaded dialogue that shapes
the story’s progression not the dynamics
of structure.
It is colloquial, realistic and at times full
of non-sequiturs.
"That makes this a
pretty successful little score.
huh?"
"Jules, if you give this nimrod fifteen
hundred Dollars, I'm gonna shoot 'em on
general principle."
The dialogue oscillates between a short speech
and surrealism through the characters in the
story.
This element is known as Digression where
the dialogue makes temporary shift of subject;
the digression ends when the speaker returns
to the main topic.
In this scene, Tarantino digress both the
audience and Jules to emphasize the problem
he will be facing when Bonnie comes home.
This sets the pressure point for the timeline
as “The Bonnie situation.”
This technique is employed to build tension
between the characters that contribute to the
story’s progression.
This would strengthen the character’s point
of view and storyline strongly in an entertaining
way.
Another major literary technique used is the
Reverse speech metaphor.
it describes a unique aspect of personality
or behavior that the metaphor represents
As each character's overall function and purpose
in the movie is defined, another aspect of
behavior is isolated.
An accurate picture is presented to the audience
that Butch’s subconscious mind is focusing
on escaping from Marseilles rather than worrying
about a dead boxer thus taking the story forward.
Tarantino shows a different ways in which
he puts weight to the character’s path.
One such way is the use of “Gestic” Language
by Mia.
Mia wants Vincent to be more down to earth
and at ease with her rather than maintaining
a certain distance from her in a ‘bossy’
obeying attitude.
Mia also does a Reverse speech metaphor about
“Uncomfortable Silences”
But we still don’t know what are Mia’s truest
intentions are…
Not even the script reveals it.
This is how Tarantino plays with our mind.
He also shows us a unique way of building trust
between the conflicted characters to end the
timeline.
When Vincent curiously asks Mia in the diner
about the Fox Force Five joke in the pilot
series, she simply says.
But after the incident.
This is same in the “Golden Watch Situation”
for Butch and Wallace.
A recent study by researchers at U.C.
Berkeley suggests that the display of embarrassment
may increase others’ perceptions of you
as a trustworthy individual.
There are a dozen of symbols used throughout
the movie.
But this one is just marvelously notable.
"Come on, Let's get into Charcter."
It shows that Gangsters are merely normal
human beings who hide behind their mask with
certain attributes.
But Jules clearly accepts the fact that he
is wearing the mask.
All these occur by Jules transcending from
a calm voice to a fierce tone by evoking fear
and drawing the victim into a tricky and mockery
conversation with intended pun.
When the victim is totally emotionally destabilized,
Jules and Vincent kill him.
But later Jules’s mask falls off as soon
as he witnesses god’s revelation.
Thus, making a moral choice to choose God
as his authoritarian instead of Marseilles
Wallace.
There are a lot of underlying concepts in
the movie which clearly draws the line from
each aspect of the society.
And in the same scene, Jules quotes from
the bible with a strong tone.
He thinks of himself as a god who would do
anything to harm who disturbs his “brother”
- Marseilles Wallace but he is actually “the
tyranny of evil men.”
But at the end of the movie, while he is in
a transitional period.
He quotes from the bible by juxtaposing himself
through different contexts of the quote with
a calm tone.
"You see, now I am thinking, Maybe it means you're the evil man and I am the righteous man."
The calm tone clearly implies that Jules understood
the word of god.
This scene gives an ethical stance of each
other’s lives that has been tied around
by the sin of humans which is the GUN in this
case.
And the morality of each person is channeled
towards equilibrium as both JULES and HONEY
BONEY strike down their evil within themselves
by getting into a silent agreement.
"You are the weak,.."
"..And I am the 'tyranny of evil man'.."
.."But I am trying Ringo.."
"I am trying Really Hard to be 'the Shepherd'"
It is clear that Jules wants to become “the
shepherd” but he has not become “the shepherd.”
This is again a retrospective look at the
character and how it is going to envelope.
Tarantino displays the essence of each character
in the story and sets him in a new equilibrium.
This is where he really differentiates between
other movies giving a more vivid picture to
the audience to use their imagination to improve
and foresee the personality changes of the
characters involved.
Usually, a movie has a never-ending story
which is left to the choice of the audience
but in Pulp fiction, each timeline is decided
by the audience even in the stream of Vincent
who is clearly shot down by butch.
It all depends upon the mindset of the audience
who can simply view it as Vincent’s mistake
by leaving the gun in the kitchen.
or this is how good will
eventually win the bad
or you can also say that
God took him out of the world because he was actually the ‘weak’.
Throughout the movie, Tarantino etches each
scene with well threaded underlying concepts
such as Narcissism, Karma, Morality, Miracles,
Epiphany, Mysteries and to Macro concepts
such as history, capitalism, society, war,
drugs, societal misconception, exploitation
etc.
You can also relate more Bible verses with
the theology of pulp fiction in many ways.
That’s why Pulp Fiction will be studied
for millennia.
Ultimately the audience is the decider of
the story through their own perspective of
how the story has taken them through.
Tarantino has said “I made Pulp Fiction
to be entertaining.
I always hope that if one million people see
my movie, they saw a million different movies.”
That’s why at the beginning Tarantino shows
us.
It is up to the audience to clear the moist
and take the “lurid subject” into the
kind of context they want to frame it for
their satisfaction.
