The first time I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the opening felt like plunging over the first peak of a roller coaster. It was the sort of vivid and visceral movie-going experience I’ve had only a handful of times—Scorsese’s Goodfellas, Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, Eastwood’s Unforgiven—one of those times when you know full well that you are seeing a special film for the very first time. And you just don’t want it to end. [continued after the break: click "read more"]
But there is something very different about Pulp Fiction once we give it a second viewing…or even a second thought. What I mean is that in Goodfellas, Scorsese demystifies the mythology promoted by Coppola in The Godfather saga. After all, Harry Hill’s punishment is a life as an ordinary schmuck. In Full Metal Jacket—by starting with basic training—Kubrick emphasizes the psychological damage of military indoctrination as opposed to merely focusing on the experience of war. And in Unforgiven Eastwood produces a reflexive and reflective film; it is a film in which the western’s primary modern icon reexamines the genre and undermines its enjoyment of violence by asking a very serious question: what does it mean to kill? And what does it mean to lionize murderers in our mythology? As such, Unforgiven is the last western…at least the last one that matters….
But what is the importance of Pulp Fiction? What does it mean?
After seeing the film, our little clique headed over to Carrow’s—a family restaurant not unlike the one knocked over by Ringo and Honeybunny in the movie—to rehash the film. More than just getting into the spirit of things, we went to Carrow’s coz Erick, our only friend with a real job, waited tables there; the rest of us were piss-poor college freshman, and when we’d show up Erick would groan and roll his eyes coz he knew we’d take up a table waiting for scraps. Also, we were always loud…and sometimes, some of us weren’t entirely clear head. “Be cool, everybody! This is a party!” Well, we thought it was a party…
This night we immediately all started shouting at each other re: the significance—or lack thereof—of Pulp Fiction’s nonlinear narrative. I’m pretty sure I was on the side of ‘significance’ whereas Robin Todd, a filmmaker himself these days, took the side of ‘lack thereof.’ And I’m also pretty sure that I won just coz I tend to yell more. But I digress...
Some viewers like to make the narrative more complicated than it really is. Essentially, Tarantino removes a large and significant portion of the story—a section bounded by Jules’ two recitals of adapted biblical verses that he calls “Ezekiel 25:17”—and places it AFTER the final chronological event of the story, Butch and Fabian riding off into the sunset on dead Zed’s chopper.
Now, one would assume that such narrative manipulation occurs for thematic purposes—some insight offered by the missing piece lends meaning to story that the film would not otherwise so forcefully express. Michael Corleone’s announcement to his family that he has joined the army in 1942 dissolving to his monstrous solitude in the final shots of The Godfather Part II comes to mind. In fact, the whole parallel structure of GFII serves as a good example of what I mean here.
So, let’s get to work.
Now, not many student writing ticks drive me up the wall more than a reference to “hidden meanings” in a text. I detest the idea that students equate poetry to CIA encryption or something. I should show them Pulp Fiction: there’s not much hidden here, but it is quite poetic. And the interpretation doesn’t involve decoding so much as it merely asks that we use our noggin for a sec.
Jules recites Ezekiel 25:17 and mercilessly assassinates Brett—he’s a hit man: that’s his job. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. When Rosanne Arquette’s little brother (er…sister) pops out of the bathroom guns a-blazing and entirely misses Jules and Vincent, the dynamic duo blow him away, much to our cinematic delight. Significantly, Jules attributes their survival to divine intervention. Later, when Jules confronts Ringo and Honeybunny in the diner, Jules recites Ezekiel 25:17, but this time he spares Ringo. It seems that Jules has decide to quit “the life,” decided to “walk the Earth like Cain,” a decision that Vincent ridicules. Of course, Vincent gets killed coming out tha shitter by the boxer he had earlier insulted, Butch Coolidge. So, the apparent ‘message’ of the film supports some simplistic and undefined spirituality over the self-centered gratuitous gluttony and violence of thug life. Okay.
Now does anyone really believe for one second that that sentimental crap is the point of the film? Of course not. To a significant degree, Pulp Fiction exhibits an ideological sleight-of-hand akin to that invoked by James Cameron in both Titanic and Avatar—two godawful films that have somehow managed to make a shit-ton of money. Ostensibly, the ‘message’ of Titanic is that women should seek out—in fact, they deserve—the authentic love offered by the working class male. Of course, Jack has to die in the end to avoid what Slavoj Zizek has identified as the real catastrophe offered by the film, the spectre of Rose’s actually having to live a life of poverty in 1910’s New York. No one wants a rich girl to suffer.
Similarly, Avatar thieves the story and themes of Dances with Wolves to promote some hodgepodge of back-to-nature, anti-corporate, anti-militaristic environmentalism. Did Cameron even bother to notice the Left’s appalled reaction to Kevin Costner’s revision of the White Man’s Burden?
 |
| Screen shot from Avatar, a crappy movie. |
Of course not. Ya see, the story and the themes…and even the actors themselves persist as secondary concerns, necessary evils if you will. Coz quite clearly the whole point of Avatar is to unthinkingly immerse one’s self in a technologically generated 3D spectacle. The ultimate enjoyment of the film comes in its culminating battle, a synthesis that is even better than the real thing. Isn’t that the goal of CGI? to make the synthetically generated even better than the real thing? Well, that, and to make a shit-ton of money for Rupert Murdoch….
But the real insult is that we took Avatar (and Cameron and Titanic) so seriously. Do you recall any controversy surrounding a film that allows to feel that we would do something about the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, the imperial use of our military, the subordination of our environment, and on and on…without doing anything more than paying[1] to see the film?
Ya see, I do recall quite a bit of controversy surrounding Pulp Fiction. Hell, Bob Dole cited the film as an example of our moral decay without even having even seen it! And it wasn’t just the Family Values folks that were out trying to Sister Souljah the film because…gasp…it makes us laugh at killing! And, yet, no one seemed to offer that the violence undermined the film’s ‘core message.’ Hm. Suspicious. Like most of my friends, I had already seen Reservoir Dogs. We were all anticipating the follow up. Why? Two words: straight razor. So, if the film hadn’t been exceedingly violent we would have demanded our money back. We knew better than to take the film seriously…at least in any conventional sense.
Among the many controversies I recall surrounding the film was its lack of “realism.” Particularly, some criticized Vincent’s use of an antiquated syringe, one no ‘real’ heroin addict would use. Such a complaint fails to realize that anachronisms—from Jules Jheri curl to Mia’s reel-to-reel 4-track player to the entire scene at Jack Rabbit Slim’s—form a developed motif in the film. In fact, the anachronisms are part of a larger priority of placing style over substance, and never has a film found more justification in prioritizing style. In fact, the film consciously undermines any attempt on our part to ‘take it seriously.’ For example, when POW camp survivor Captain Koons (played by Christopher Walken) brings Butch his father’s watch, he does so with the tale of the sentimental importance of the watch.
The gold watch was purchased from the very first company to make wristwatches in Knoxville, TN by Butch’s great-grandfather, Doughboy Ryan Coolidge. And of course the watch came home to accompany each succeeding generation of brave Coolidge men in their turn at patriotic service. The watch is an heirloom passed down the line of patriarchy. The watch is meaningful…that is until Koons reveals how the watch returned from Vietnam. Here, Walken’s diction shifts from sentimental and wistful to downright crass. Ya see, Butch’s father hid the watch the only place he could: his ass. “He’d be damned if any slope was gonna get their greasy hands on his son’s birthright.” And when he died—of dysentery no less—Dooley hid the “uncomfortable hunk of metal” up his own ass. Now that sounds like a keeper.
On a similar note, what is truly great about Butch’s rescuing of Marcellus Wallace? If you don’t recall, we all know very well that Maynard and Zed are perverts who are going to rape Butch and Marcellus? I mean, does “bringin’ out the Gimp” leave us in any doubt? So, Butch’s decision to go back and save his enemy offers the possibility for all sorts of meaningful explorations of forgiveness and moral hierarchies and such. But, come on, this is Tarantino.
Ya see, Butch needs the right weapon to do the job in style. A hammer? Nah. What else do we have here? A baseball bat. Hm. Oh, wait, here’s a chainsaw. Can I use this? Hm. Wait a minute. Awwwww, sheeiit! Is that a fuckin’ samurai sword? Oh, hell yeah! And then Butch is going back down the stairs. We see the door. We see his hand moving toward the door. What’s this? No. No! You’re not going to show it. You are not seriously gonna show it! And, of course, Tarantino shows the unshowable. And not only that: he has Ving Rhames bent over a pommel horse or something.So what does it all mean? Well, above all, Pulp Fiction is a film made by a man who just loves guy movies. Gangster movies and Kung Fu movies and Blaxpoitation films and Action movies and Film Noir and Caper films and Buddy movies and Horror shows. Shaft, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Guns of Navarone, and The Seven Samurai are just around the corner, bound to just show up in any Tarantino film. And Pulp Fiction is a film the reuses the glowing briefcase and the three-way standoff featured in such films (and he’d already used the latter in Reservoir Dogs). And so why does the film feature a nonlinear narrative? Because it’s fuckin’ cool. That’s why.
So rather than the narrative structure supporting a theme, the theme is mere ideological sleight-of-hand used to support an enjoyable narrative structure. I mean, come on. He’s gonna walk the Earth like Cain? So, why is it that anyone with any taste can recognize that special quality in Tarantino’s film whereas Cameron’s opus reeks[2] worse than a land fill? Wherein lies the difference between a film that prioritizes style over substance and a film that strikes us as merely devoid of substance? Well, what we like most about the 'messages' of Cameron’s films is that they are just. And what we like least about them is that that they inconvenient. As such Cameron’s films kill two birds with one stone: we get to feel just without having to do a damn thing about it. I don't call that style. I don't call that substance. I call it substance abuse.
But what we like most about the 'messages' of Tarantino's films is the form thy take--their style.
Pacifism? Meh. But “walking the Earth like Cain” sure sounds like some badasssss shit….
Saving one’s enemy? Maybe. Do I get to use a samurai sword?
Showing respect to the Big Man’s wife? So long as she doesn’t Disco on to me too much.
Passing down family traditions? Birthrights? Um. You hid that where?
Hey, in the end, it’s ugly as sin…
…but you just can’t look away.
Placed linearly, Pulp Fiction is a five-act Shakespearean tragedy about the hubris of Vincent Vega.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall this conversation. Haha!
ReplyDelete