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| Pulp Fiction (1994) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Background
The self-indulgent low-budget film, a modern B-movie cult classic, with production costs of $8 million, became an immensely popular, major independent hit for its distributor Miramax, earning $108 million (domestic), and $214 million (worldwide). It was the 10th highest-grossing (domestic) film of its year, when it was competing against Forrest Gump (1994), The Lion King (1994), True Lies (1994), and Speed (1994). It helped open the doors for film school graduates and other independently-made films (from the likes of Bryan Singer with The Usual Suspects (1995), UK director Danny Boyle, and Paul Thomas Anderson with Boogie Nights (1997)), and changed the direction of contemporary cinema. However, it was indirectly criticized and cited, by Republican Presidential candidate Senator Bob Dole in the mid-1990s, as an example of the perverse and immoral direction that the Hollywood film industry was taking - with displays of casual violence and sex, "nightmares of depravity," and for promoting "the romance of heroin." Originally, 'pulp fiction' referred to tawdry and cheap 'pulp' magazines in the early part of the 20th century, mostly of escapist hard-boiled detective stories, serial novels or science-fiction tales, that provided entertainment for the masses. Tarantino provided rampant references to hard-boiled fiction, to TV shows, Hong Kong action films, and to other films from The Killers (1946) to Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and Psycho (1960) - and many others. Many of the long dialogue sequences in the film were not there to advance the plot, but just to entertain (and show off). The unpredictably shuffled, post-modern film shocked with its hip combination of violence, sex, drugs, and profanity (including 269 F-words), and a body count of 8 dead (the three that were executed for stealing the briefcase, the two in the pawn shop, Butch's boxing opponent, Vincent in the bathroom, and Marvin in the back-seat, not including Zed's future off-screen death). It also contained an inordinate number of bathroom scenes with hitman character Vega - in each case, he returned to difficult situations: the diner robbery, Mia's overdose, and at Butch's place when he was murdered. When the influential neo-noirish crime film opened in May of 1994 at the Cannes Film Festival, it won the "Best Picture" or prestigious Palme d'Or, snatching the top award from Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy swansong Three Colors: Red (1994). It was also honored with seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman), and won one Oscar - Best Original Screenplay (Avary and Tarantino). John Travolta was brought from has-been obscurity to fame (and a revived career) as the off-beat quirky character of hit-man Vincent Vega, for which he received his second Academy Award nomination. (Travolta had most recently been delegated to a talking baby screen voice in the Look Who's Talking series.) And he was able to allude to his pop-icon past when featured in a memorable dance sequence with co-star Uma Thurman, as the pair entered a Jack Rabbit Slims contest and recreated the Batusi (a dance invented for the mid-60s Batman TV series), to the tune of Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell," as they made hand movements (horizontal arm movements across their faces). [Note: The dance sequence was actually inspired or influenced by Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave film Bande a Part (1964, Fr.) (aka Band of Outsiders) and its "Madison Dance" scene.] The main characters were low-life criminals, thugs, drug-dealers, hitmen, a washed-up crooked boxer, and restaurant-robbing English lovers. In most of the tales, a very simple activity went very wrong - a diner robbery, a fixed boxing match, a dinner date, and the return of the boss' dirty laundry. The two hitmen called on gangland cleanup specialist The Wolf (Harvey Keitel) when their job became messy. Specifically, the stories involved a number of couples:
The pop oriented film has become legendary, with a number of very quotable lines, including:
Add to the fragmented story a great soundtrack, the mystery of the contents of a glowing suitcase (a prominent MacGuffin, and originally filled with diamonds in the script) with the devil's '666' as its combination, the story involving a gold watch, a philosophical discussion on French names for American fast food, and many flashbacks, flash-forwards, plot twists and unexpected turns. Four different short-story tales were interwoven together
to tell a non-linear, non-chronological, and intricate story of nihilistic
criminal activity in LA's sleazy underworld. The skewed script structure
was revolutionary in the way the vignettes were told. The three primary
storylines were preceded by identifying inter-titles on a black screen
- [Note: the 3-story structure was borrowed from Black Sabbath
(1963).]
The Story The pre-credits sequence is itself preceded by two American Heritage Dictionary definitions of 'pulp' - both cheap:
PRE-CREDITS SEQUENCE The film opens in an LA coffee shop or diner, the Hawthorne Grill, where two English lovers - Ringo or "Pumpkin" (Tim Roth) and Yolanda or "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer) - sit in a booth for breakfast. The two neophyte hotheads frantically debate about how their lives of hold-up crime had to change. Robberies of multi-cultural Asian family stores, bars, gas stations and liquor stores are becoming too risky and dangerous and not very profitable, and banks are not feasible. They impulsively decide to rob the patrons of the coffee shop. They stand up with their .32 caliber weapons. Pumpkin yells: "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!" and Honey Bunny shouts: "Any of you f--kin' pricks move, and I'll execute every motherf--kin' last one of you!" The credits are accompanied by surf guitarist Dick Dale's version of the Greek song "Misirlou." |
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Pulp
Fiction (1994) brought director Quentin Tarantino, a B-movie
fanatic and ex-video store clerk, to mainstream attention with
this stylish and inventive episodic thriller about corruption and
temptation. It featured guns, femmes fatales, deadly hit-men,
and drugs. This non-formulaic, defining film of the 1990s was known
for its violence, ensemble cast, and pop cultural references. Writer/director
Tarantino had co-written the screenplay with Roger Avary, after
his earlier first feature Reservoir Dogs (1992) - a preparatory
film for this R-rated energetic work, with the same kind of rich
and witty dialogue, blood-letting, vulgarities, 'sick' and dark
humor, an AM radio pop music soundtrack, and startling action.