It's hard to believe it's already been 25 years since Quentin Tarantino took Hollywood by storm with his second feature film, Pulp Fiction. Everything that worked so well in his first directorial effort is amped up to 11 this time around - with even more 1970's pop tunes, an unrelenting swell of tension, captivating dialogue from damaged but suave characters, and an even more impressive ensemble cast highlighted by a career resurrecting performance from John Travolta and a star making breakout role for Samuel L. Jackson. Not to mention the nonlinear narrative structure being even better utilized by telling multiple stories within the same universe, like a comic book anthology - Pulp Fiction is a cinematic achievement that not only pays tribute to the gritty 1970's crime capers it derives from but also introduces a modern lens of filmmaking by and for film lovers. A revelry in pop culture and a nonstop assault on the senses.
Much like Reservoir Dogs' basic re-telling of a familiar story, Pulp Fiction's 3 act structure tackles three very common story lines in a very unique and compelling fashion. A hit gone wrong, a heavyweight boxer throwing the big fight and an arranged date with the boss' wife. But again, Tarantino paints all of these stories in such an incredibly grounded and realistic light that the stories resonate in a deeply engrossing way. And while there are plenty of violent occurrences within Pulp Fiction, it's the focus on the characters that endure the violence that makes it carry that much more weight. These aren't faceless stuntmen being casually discarded like a Jean Claude Van Dame film, that was John fucking Travolta being gunned down. The violence in Pulp Fiction is also made so shocking because of the nonchalant attitude its treated with. Rather than framing the moment with melodramatic music and an over-choreographed stunt crew, the violence in Pulp Fiction happens pretty randomly. A bump in the road fills a windshield with brains, a hitman gets caught coming out of the bathroom at the wrong time, heroin mistaken for cocaine induces an overdose, etc. There are themes of good and evil sprinkled throughout Pulp Fiction but most of all, Pulp Fiction is an examination of chance and the universal randomness we encounter on a daily basis.
Samuel L. Jackson's Jules and John Travolta's Vincent are just going through the motions of another day at work when suddenly they're under fire from an unaccounted for gunman springing out of the bathroom and yet somehow, every shot misses them. Then moments after narrowly escaping death, they find themselves in a crisis trying to cover up an accidental broad daylight murder that occurs as Jules and Vincent are arguing over divine intervention and Jules' new found righteous path. Then we have Butch, played by Bruce Willis - the Nakitomi king of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - deciding not to throw the fight he's been ordered to by crime boss Marsellus Wallace and instead bets on himself and plans to leave town. But who should Butch happen to run into that following morning at a cross walk? Marsellus Wallace of course. Jules, like Tarantino, has been trying to extract some kind of higher meaning from his scripture, yet doesn't quite understand it. Jules' scripture being actual bible verses and Tarantino's being television, movies, music and pop culture. And the overall message for both of them is that maybe there is no destined path for any of us. We take what we need from it as it fills the time in between. Gives us something to read in the bathroom. Something to watch in the hotel. Something to listen to as you wait for your date. There is no one set path or message for anyone. Just trying to be a better person is good enough.
Good or bad, things typically tend to even themselves out. Vincent has all the pressure in the world on him to take care of his boss' wife and yet to no fault of his own, she ends up going into his jacket and snorting his heroin. When the anxiety inducing climax of Mia Wallace's drug overdose is finally resolved with a literal adrenaline shot to the heart, everything slowly falls back into place and as long as the secret never slips out - their nearly catastrophic evening ends without any lasting evidence of how horribly things almost ended up other than a casual "Thanks for dinner" placed later in the film. It's a footnote to an otherwise uneventful evening. Tarantino is injecting some adrenaline into an otherwise boring night out.
Tarantino's style in this film is at it's absolute peak. The pacing, the framing, the pitch black humor - it's all just so well crafted that you feel like you're peeking in on a place that's existed already for decades. The film's littered with obvious nods to Scorsese and Leone but overall, this is Tarantino's love letter to the first generation that grew up on television. The non sequential plot, while commonly compared to pulp comics or novels, has more in common with the lost art of channel surfing than anything else. Who doesn't remember that odd sensation of catching the opening to a film you've never seen before only to finally stumble upon the conclusion re-aired sometime later that day or even week? That's what Tarantino gives you by choosing to meander away from stories he begins in the opening sequences of the film and conclude them later down the line. It's as if you're flipping through basic cable with Tarantino himself. And with the modern day television renaissance under way, I think if Tarantino started his career today, he might have been more inclined to take the path towards television than trying to fit into tent-pole filmmaking - especially with independent films finding less and less outlets. It was in large part Pulp Fiction that brought independent filmmaking into the mainstream and showed Hollywood that taking chances on bright new voices could pay off.
It would be easy to write off Tarantino as someone just mimicking the styles of his childhood but it's what he adds to those formulas and how he infuses his own voice that has made him a postmodern genius. He carefully chooses the best tropes to convey his story, like Bruce Willis in the pawn shop perusing his options for revenge. And besides, if anyone could simply copy movies from their youth and produce something as prolific as Pulp Fiction, why hasn't anyone else been able to do so in the last 25 years? Pulp Fiction is undoubtedly Tarantino's masterpiece, a perfectly infused recipe of nostalgia and modern day world building, without the mandatory franchise that would follow in today's Hollywood. A perfect encapsulation of the Los Angeles zeitgeist and all the chaos that accompanies it; sometimes good, sometimes bad.
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