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Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994) - Coggle Diagram
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
Key scenes
Opening scene
- Mid, twin shots of Pumpkin and Honey Bunny represent their unity, the camera is in line with them so they appear non-threatening at the beginning of the scene
- However once the robbery begins there is a power shift and the camera moves to a low angle shot
- The film begins in media res - in the midst of the narrative
- The guns act as symbolic codes to introduce the crime genre of the film - extreme close up of the gun and the canted angle contrasts the normality and verisimilitude of the scene - coffee cups, plates of food etc
- Pumpkin and Honey Bunny represent a 'Bonnie and Clyde' archetype - links to intertextuality and homage
- Tarantino rejects an equilibrium and establishing shot, plus the characters we are first introduced to are not relevant to the rest of the plot
- Juxtaposition between innocuous discussion and the characters' criminal history - emphasised by flippant manner of discussing their crimes as something casual
- The venomous declaration from Honey Bunny challenges Propp's character stereotype of women as passive 'princesses' - she is instead aggressive, criminal, assertive and powerful
Tarantino's style and aesthetic in the opening scene
- Long takes - the opening shot
- Wide angle cinematography
- Build up of rich characterisation
- Flippant approach to violence and profanity
- Use of freeze frames
- Iconic 'Americana' music - Dick Dale and the Del Tones
Closing scene
- Cyclical structure - both Pumpkin and Jules discuss leaving the life of crime - mirrored conversations
- Yolanda screams a different line in the closing scene to the opening scene - fragmentation of time and space and suggestion of parallel universes
- References to the Western genre - Mexican standoff, use of guns - links to genre hybridity
- The final scene is not the resolution of the narrative - exploration of temporality
- The film cuts as Jules and Vincent comically leave the diner wearing oversized t-shirts and walking in unison
- It appears that every criminal in the film fails to fulfil stereotypical expectations
- Tarantino's auteur feature or convention of the failed bank robbery is featured - also appears in Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown
Jack Rabbit Slims scene
- Presented as a timeless location - mixture of references to 1950s/60s/70s/80s American culture
- The restaurant is a heavily constructed amalgamation of American pop culture - highly visually appealing but lacks depth or substance (postmodern artifice or style over substance)
- Represents the postmodern hyperreality - the restaurant is full of 'representations of reality'
- Biker gangs, Western outfits and cowboy hats, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean impersonators, and B-movie posters are all depictions of Hollywood and America - all of this is featured in the long tracking shot which follows Vincent
- Continual pop culture and Old Hollywood references throughout the scene - Durward Kirby burger, Douglas Sirk steak - use of intertextuality and homage
- Extended use of diegetic sound and music - Tarantino's auteur style
Postmodernism
- Critical theory that became prominent in the 1970s
- Motivated by a sense of distrust over the role of reason in cultural life
- Concerned with the uncertainty of contemporary life
- Rejects the ideologies of modernism and is typified by a sense of cynicism and irony - suggests that in a world driven by consumerism originality no longer exists
- Postmodernism is anti-theory - it opposes all traditional structural theories and claims that the nature of modern life is so complex and fragmented that no theory can address all of these elements
- Postmodernism refers to the state of culture where media is produced in such staggering qualities that it has crossed the boundaries into reality itself and hyperreality prevails
- Jean Baudrillard developed an account of postmodern society - in which consumer and electronic images have become more real (or hyperreal) than physical reality, and in which simulations of reality have displaced their originals
Postmodern film
- Intertextuality - references other cultural products such as films
- Self-referential - referencing the filmmaking process through techniques such as breaking the fourth wall
- Abrupt juxtapositions or non-sequiturs
- Artifice/style over substance - depth of meaning is lost beneath technique
- Playfulness/surfaces of depth - a reluctance to treat the project seriously
- Fragmentation of time, space and personal identity - people and places become transferable or unhinged from temporality and notions of concrete identity - the film becomes ahistorical, existing beyond any specific cultural context
- Pastiche or homage - explicit recreation of cultural products such as scenes or lines from films, at its extreme form this can result in parody
- Irony - tongue-in-cheek approach to the narrative, character and theme
Hyperreality
- Hyperreality is an ability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies
- Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so there is no clear distinction between them
- Hyperreality tricks consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead oping for artificial simulation
- Simulation is characterised by a blending of reality and representation - Baudrillard suggests that simulation no longer takes place in a physical realm, it takes place in a realm not categorised by physical limits
- Baudrillard argued that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is a simulation of reality
- Baudrillard argued we take films and television to be more real than our actual lives - these simulacra or hyperreal copies precede our lives
- Baudrillard argues in a postmodern culture dominated by TV, films, the internet and media all that exists are simulations of reality, which aren't any more or less 'real' than the reality they simulate
- Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality is closely linked to his idea of simulacrum - which he defines as something which replaces reality with its representations
Intertextuality
- Tarantino continually pays homage to other films in Pulp Fiction - the Jack Rabbit Slims sequence references both 8 1/2 (1963) and Bande À Part (1964)
- Butch's deliberation over which weapon to choose references multiple films and genres - the chainsaw references 1970s slasher films and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and the samurai sword references Asian kung fu films
Esmarelda sequence
- Esmarelda's sequence with Butch references Night On Earth (1991) and her character is lifted from the 1991 short film Curdled, in which the actress Angela Jones starred
- The scene is highly stylised compared to the rest of the film
- The scene is shot in a studio using rear projection, it is clear to the audience the scene is constructed and has a high level of artifice
Context
Social, Political and Cultural Contexts
- Pulp Fiction depicts a non-specific, almost timeless Los Angeles
- The film is best located in a postmodern cultural context
- The film has a rootless quality that does not allow for explicit historical, social and cultural analysis
- Pulp Fiction is one of the texts that began the trend for ever increasingly postmodern 'play' in the media as a whole
- It culminated in concepts of post-truth and its implied combination of notions such as 'fact' and 'fiction'
Institutional Context
- Pulp Fiction remains as Tarantino's defining film - he announced his postmodern style with Reservoir Dogs and the script for True Romance, but he achieved mainstream success with Pulp Fiction
- Pulp Fiction was the first American independent film to earn over $100 million at the US box office and heralded the arrival of Indiewood as a production phenomenon
- The film won the Palm d'Or and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1994
- Even though it was only Tarantino's second film, his cinematic signature was strong enough to refer to it in the marketing
- The film's marketing also plays on the film's pulp (cheaply made), B-movie, low budget influences - the film itself had a budget of $8.5 million
- Uma Thurman is styled as a femme fatale therefore referring more to the genre of film noir rather than her status as an actress
- Pulp Fiction could be described as a portmanteau film (a film that consists of loosely related but largely distinct storylines) and has no central star, as evidenced by the many Hollywood actors credited
Narrative
- One of the film's most obvious postmodern traits is its narrative playfulness
- The narrative can be best described as episodic, circular and broadly in the three acts with a preface (a sequence which sets the scene but may not concern the dramatic focus of the film) and coda (the final narrative resolution in a film which may not be primarily concerned with the film's main protagonist)
- The film's treatment of time is unusually convoluted and experimental - this unusual plotting device was arguably behind Columbia's refusal to fund the film, but it is surprisingly effective from a spectator's viewpoint
- This is represented in the way we are pleased to meet Vincent again - the shock of his death is ameliorated and his character is given something of a mystical status
To what extent is the narrative structure postmodern?
- The film has disturbed our notion of genre and narrative in its off-kilter characterisation and odd circularity
- The spectator experiences a satisfying denouement in that Jules and Vincent leave the scene of a crime in possession of the moral high ground
- The ending is in many ways a conventional resolution to a noir-themed film - the anti-heroes complete their job and leave morally and physically intact
- However the fact we know that Vincent will subsequently die forces the spectator to revisit the film and search for a comforting resolution that doesn't exist - making the film both satisfying and disconcerting
Auteurship
Music
- Often includes songs in their entirety (often accompanied by long takes and tracking shots) - Jackie Brown opening and Jack Rabbit Slims scene
- Juxtaposing music and contrapuntal sound - Mr Blonde's torture scene in Reservoir Dogs
Cinematography
- Low angle shots, the 'corpse shot' and his signature 'trunk shot'
- Long takes - enables the development of tension and character - scene of Jules and Vincent before meeting Brett
- Tracking shots - the scene where Butch walks to his apartment to retrieve his father's watch
- Top lighting and close ups (often of women's lips and feet)
- God's eye view shot - used to convey something bigger than the character is watching them - a cinematic inner conscious
- The mirror shot - characters often speak and look at themselves in a mirror, literally reflects the intimate moments of being alone - Vincent in Mia's bathroom
- Extreme long shots - opening scene in Inglourious Basterds
Narrative
- Constant disruption of spectator's expectations
- Non-linear and experimental approach to narrative and storytelling, also seen in Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs
- Ironic tongue-in-cheek approach to dialogue
- Stock characterisation
Characters
- Many anti-heroes such as the Bride in Kill Bill - Pulp Fiction is set in a criminal world with no police or law enforcement, the film aligns themselves with the criminals
- Tarantino casts aging actors as a tribute to the roles played as younger men and women
Mise en scene
- Vibrant colour palettes
- Hyperreal approach to set design
- Use of retro clothing
Extreme violence
- Particularly during scenes of violence, Tarantino will switch between realistic and stylistic sound design, depending on the tone he's aiming for
- In his later films Tarantino's violence is often hyperreal and extensive, especially in use of fake blood - he often aims for a comic book style of violence in films such as Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds
Can Tarantino be considered an auteur in a postmodern landscape?
- In a postmodern landscape, originality no longer exists and directors are forced to take influence from existing art and film - resulting in intertextuality, homage and pastiche
- Therefore arguably Tarantino cannot be considered an auteur as his films lack originality or personal style - everything is either borrowed or stolen
- However Tarantino's many identifiable traits such as extreme violence and extended, humorous dialogue still give him auteur status, despite use of reference or homage/pastiche
- Tarantino's rich film background and knowledge mean his films take place in a filmic world unrooted in reality - this still gives them individuality and personal style