Pulp Fiction (1994)

You know, it’s movies like this that make me realize how much I need a “Top 10 Movies of All Time” list on this site.  What qualifies a movie for that list?  A spot-on script, top notch performances, flair without being too flashy, no moment wasted, unending rewatchability, and a smile on my face the whole way through.

My friends, Pulp Fiction delivers the goods, as securely as if Jules Winnfield himself were the bagman.

I’m reviewing this movie now because I recently had the opportunity to watch the movie with someone who’d never seen it before, and it helped me to recapture a lot of what I love about Pulp Fiction without simply resorting to Nostalgia Glasses that allow me to effectively tune out the movie and revel in the reminiscence of the dozens of times previous that I’d seen this film.  (I’m also reviewing it in the context of being Quentin Tarantino’s second, and perhaps best, film, in the run-up to December’s Django Unchained.)

What, then, is Pulp Fiction about?  Many things, really.  It’s a nonlinear narrative about a group of Californians who lead lives dominated or surrounded by violence – Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson), a pair of hitmen; their boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames); his wife Mia (Uma Thurman); boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis); and Pumpkin & Honey Bunny (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer), the two robbers and lovers who frame the piece.  Pulp Fiction is about these people and the meaningful – and often surprising – ways their lives intersect, but it’s also about how these people are confronted by opportunities to change their lives before the violence gets them, too.  In strange ways, it’s about the importance of love, about divine intervention and the power of miracles, about how much pop culture matters to us, and about following codes that make no earthly sense but have a ring of the divine to them.

It’s about so many things that some critics have charged Pulp Fiction with being about nothing.  Perhaps they’re right – perhaps Pulp Fiction is just the Seinfeld of the movie world.  But for a multiplicity of reasons – philosophical, aesthetic, existential, etc. – I refuse to believe that a movie this sublime, this enjoyable, this... perfect could be an exercise in nihilism.  What about Pulp Fiction merits so much revisiting?

Much of the film’s strength comes from the stellar cast of once-was and would-be-yet stars.  As one of only three characters to appear in all three segments of the film (Marsellus and Mia Wallace being the other two), John Travolta is a fantastic “leading man” for an ensemble cast such as this.  His role as the “comeback kid” in the behind-the-scenes mythos of the film takes a backseat to his perfect fit as an accessibility point for the audience; he shepherds us through the film, feeling dread when we’re supposed to feel dread, breaking the tension when it needs it, and entering the film as a kind of outsider who needs to relearn the game after a stint in Amsterdam.  And, boy, can he dance.  The impromptu dance sequence with Uma Thurman is a real treat – for better or for worse the film’s most recognizable moment – a spontaneous and exuberant indulgence in the film’s own pop sensibility.  The two dance for no other reason than Mia’s “I wanna dance” logic, a perfect analogue for why I still watch this movie:  because I wanna.

Travolta’s counterpart is Samuel L. Jackson, the devout Protestant to Travolta’s lapsed Catholic.  (There’s no specific invocation of religious denominations here, but I contend that the whole movie comes down to miracles and how the characters respond to them – the subject, perhaps, for another article on here.)  Jules Winnfield is a career-making role for Jackson, establishing his trademark hybrid of the sacred and the profane with the almost lyrical way in which he drops an F-bomb.  Yet Jackson is gifted enough to oscillate between irreverent comedy (“I’m a mushroom-cloud layin’ motherf--ker, motherf--ker”) and intense introspection (“I felt the touch of God”), making Jules perhaps the most human of the film’s characters.  His quiet monologue in the film’s concluding diner scene is almost chilling for its earnestness; it ought to be difficult to believe that the same cheeseburger-gobbling gangster from the first ten minutes has become a contemplative amateur theologian, but Jackson makes that transition palpable and cues himself for the well-deserved success he’s enjoyed in his career thus far.

Then there’s Bruce Willis, the star of the film’s middle third.  It seems odd to say it, but I always forget that he’s in this movie until I start watching it.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Butch Coolidge section isn’t exclusively Tarantino’s script (co-written with Roger Avary), or perhaps it’s that “The Gold Watch” is such a traumatic and trippy piece that I psychologically block it out.  It’s not that I actively dislike “The Gold Watch” – indeed, Willis does some great work here as the sympathetic boxer, and the unforgettable Christopher Walken monologue that opens this chapter is equal parts touching, spooky, and weird (meaning it’s yet another Christopher Walken performance).  But “The Gold Watch” veers so hard and fast into disturbing territory that moviegoers likely won’t be prepared for where the film takes them.

“The Gold Watch,” though, is often underrated because it’s sandwiched between two classically Tarantino pieces – Travolta’s dance number with Thurman and the infamous bloody car cleanup.  But as with Inglourious Basterds, “The Gold Watch” is a segment where Tarantino displays his impeccable gift for generating tension; danger is around every corner in this portion of Pulp Fiction, with death or worse fates awaiting Butch and ensnaring those close to him.  The sensitive scenes with Maria de Medeiros (as Butch’s naïve lover Fabienne) are haunted by her question, “We’re in a lot of danger, aren’t we?”  Honey, you don’t know the half of it; “The Gold Watch” is dogged by the sense of impending and unrelenting doom.  It makes for uncomfortable viewing, especially when you find out what Zed and Maynard are really up to, but aesthetically it’s genius filmmaking as Tarantino pulls back on his trademark peppy dialogue and lets the visual language – long takes and intimate close-ups – do all the talking.

But lest you get the wrong idea, Pulp Fiction really is a barrel of laughs.  (Or, if it’s not, I’ve just outed myself as some kind of nut.)  It’s either genius or bizarre filmmaking when Tarantino turns an exploding head into one of the most riotous scenes in the film, allowing that trademark snappy dialogue to take over as Travolta and Jackson degenerate into a shouting match.  The film is told out of chronological order, which allows some of the more difficult bits to go down easier – as when a deceased character returns to the film in scenes from before his death – and it allows the film to reach a comfortable happy ending without sacrificing the danger that still waits for violent men who continue to act violently.

Though Inglourious Basterds concluded with the not-so-subtle intimation that it was Tarantino’s masterpiece, but I argue that Pulp Fiction retains that place in his oeuvre.  It’s quite simply a perfect film.

Pulp Fiction is rated R “for strong graphic violence and drug use, pervasive strong language and some sexuality.”  Where do we begin?  This film is unflinching in its depiction of shootings and their oh-so-bloody aftermath; profanity flows liberally with almost 300 F-words and nearly every other indecent verbiage included.  Drugs include alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, with numerous nicknames given.  Butch and Fabienne share an extremely intimate but fully clothed rendezvous which runs for a very long time, and there’s a scene of semi-graphic nonconsensual homosexual intercourse (everything seen but the body parts in question) that might be the film’s most disturbing scene of all.

Thanks for sticking with us all week, and have a very Happy Thanksgiving with your near and dear ones!  Come back here next week for our regularly-scheduled “Monday at the Movies,” as well as a review of Denzel Washington in Flight for Wednesday.