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Mastering Pulp Fiction Cinematography: A Path to Success in the Film Industry

• Published: July 21, 2023
• By: Yellowbrick

Pulp Fiction, the iconic film directed by Quentin Tarantino, is known for its non-linear storyline, compelling characters, and unique cinematography. The film’s cinematographer, Andrzej Sekula, used a variety of techniques to create an immersive experience for the viewer. In this article, we will explore the different elements of Pulp Fiction’s cinematography and how they can be applied to your own filmmaking career.

One of the most striking aspects of Pulp Fiction’s cinematography is its use of lighting. The film features a mix of natural and artificial lighting, which creates a sense of realism and depth. For example, in the scene where Vincent and Mia dance at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, the lighting is soft and warm, creating a romantic and intimate atmosphere. In contrast, the scene where Vincent and Jules confront Brett is lit with harsh, bright lights, which creates a sense of tension and danger.

To apply this technique to your own filmmaking, experiment with different types of lighting. Don’t be afraid to mix natural and artificial lighting, and use lighting to create a specific mood or atmosphere.

Camera Movement

Pulp Fiction’s cinematography also makes use of dynamic camera movement. The film features a variety of camera angles and movements, including tracking shots, close-ups, and wide shots. This creates a sense of movement and energy, and helps to keep the viewer engaged.

To apply this technique to your own filmmaking, experiment with different types of camera movement. Try using a handheld camera for a more documentary-style feel, or use a dolly or crane for smoother, more controlled movements.

Composition

Another key element of Pulp Fiction’s cinematography is its composition. The film uses a variety of framing techniques, including close-ups, medium shots, and wide shots. This creates a sense of depth and perspective, and helps to draw the viewer into the scene.

To apply this technique to your own filmmaking, experiment with different types of framing. Try using close-ups to emphasize emotion or detail, or use wide shots to establish a sense of location or setting.

Finally, Pulp Fiction’s cinematography makes use of color to create a specific mood or atmosphere. The film features a mix of muted and vibrant colors, which creates a sense of contrast and depth. For example, the scene where Vincent and Mia dance is lit with warm, golden light, which creates a romantic and intimate atmosphere.

To apply this technique to your own filmmaking, experiment with different color palettes. Use color to create a specific mood or atmosphere, and don’t be afraid to mix and match different colors for a more dynamic look.

Key Takeaways

• Pulp Fiction’s cinematography makes use of lighting, camera movement, composition, and color to create a unique and immersive experience for the viewer.
• To apply these techniques to your own filmmaking, experiment with different types of lighting, camera movement, framing, and color.
• Consider taking the NYU Film and TV Industry Essentials online course and certificate program to further develop your skills and knowledge in the film industry.

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Structure of pulp fiction: method in the madness.

By Keaton Ziem · October 3, 2011

“Pulp /’pelp/ n. 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter. 2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed on rough, unfinished paper.”

That’s it. That’s all the pre-requisite information you’re allowed to bring in with you before the movie begins. Don’t worry; you don’t need any more than that to start with.

This is how Quentin Tarantino opens his second and greatest film, Pulp Fiction (1994); telling us upfront, in plain English (do you speak it?) courtesy of the American Heritage Dictionary, what to expect. By Tarantino’s admission, he compares it to ‘soft, moist, shapeless masses of matter’; names it ‘Pulp’, thus  calling it a film ‘containing lurid subject matter’; crediting its acclaim to the ‘rough’, ‘unfinished’ veneer.

Yet even as the definition of pulp fades, it won’t take long before we forget the significance of pulp’s meaning. We’re swept away by Tarantino’s methodical building of tension, shown scenes of abrupt violence impeccably accented by the application of Tarantino’s jazzy breed of iambic pentameter. The dialogue is as humorous as the violence is venomous, making ‘pulp’ the last thing on our minds.

The structure of Pulp Fiction is nothing short of complex. It meticulously balances each violent act of depravity with positive and admirable virtues (the depraved sexual fetishes of Zed & Maynard balanced by Butch’s bravery in rescuing Marsellus). It has a clearly defined beginning, middle and end for each of the three major characters: Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), Vincent Vega (John Travolta) & Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis). It’s a film that does exactly the right things at precisely the right times.

Sounds a little contradictory to the American Heritage Dictionary’s thoughts on ‘pulp’, doesn’t it?

Despite the definition Tarantino throws at us, the proof is in the pudding: Pulp Fiction , for all its supposed ‘softness’ or ‘shapelessness’, stands as a shining gold testament to the validity of the 5 Plot Points  because of how stridently it adheres to the 5 Plot Point structure and because it uses the 5 Plot Points to tell each of the three major stories. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 15 total Plot Points to go around. The trick is finding where they go and how they fit together.

Tarantino quotes the dictionary to tell you how pulpy his fiction will be, but another quote could be borrowed from Aristotle who coined the phrase, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Pulp Fiction is made better than it would have been if Tarantino had made any one of the three stories within it into its own solo feature-length film. The fact that the stories of Vince, Butch & Jules revolve around one another like the spokes of a wheel around a center (with Marsellus Wallace being the hub of the Pulp Fiction wheel) is what makes the movie endlessly endearing to watch and allows all those multiple viewings of to be so rewarding, time and time again.

So, let’s break Pulp Fiction down into its basic parts to see how a film, trademarked as Tarantino’s mish-mash-masterpiece and defined as ‘pulp’, can still fit seamlessly into the 5 Plot Point Structure . To do this, we’ll need to examine each of the three film’s segments separately, starting with…

VINCENT’S STORY: Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife

We are introduced to Vincent Vega; back from a long vacation in Europe and enjoying a conversation with friend and business associate Jules Winnfield, carpooling their way to work. Sounds nice, right? Like a conversation we’d have with our carpool buddies. We like these guys; we see ourselves as these guys. We might even say ‘Royale with Cheese’ aloud just to see if it sounds as good. Then out come the guns.

Jules & Vince’s banter shifts to Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), the wife of their boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and the foot massage she received from Antwan Rockamora that supposedly got him thrown off a balcony. Good to know; but it’s not until we’re told that Marsellus has asked Vince to take Mia out while Marsellus is out of town that the full weight of Antwan’s four story fall really crashes down. This is Vince’s Inciting Incident (Plot Point #1); when he confides to Jules, and to us, that he’s agreed to take Mia out upon Marsellus request; trying to assure Jules (and himself) that it is not a date (0:13:43).

Tarantino follows Vince to the home of friendly neighborhood heroin dealer, Lance (Eric Stoltz). We’re shown the deal but what’s most important is presented as a trifle; Lance says he’s out of balloons and asks Vince if his heroin can go in a bag. It’s said with an air of such casual coolness that we don’t notice its significance, but oh how things might have been different if there had been even one balloon left…

We watch a heroin purchase turn to heroin indulgence before Vince’s Lock In (Plot Point #2) occurs; arrival at the home of Marsellus & Mia Wallace. At this point Vince makes the commitment to take Mia out; the choice that will carry Vince to the finish-line of his tale (0:31:19).

Even if it’s “not a date” the evening continues with a stifling first-date feel complete with incompetent waiters and awkward silences. It’s not until the subject of Antwan Rockamora and the foot massage is broached that Vince reaches his Midpoint (Plot Point #3), even if all he discovers is that no one knows why Marsellus threw Antwan off the balcony ‘except Marsellus and Antwan’. This doesn’t justify or denounce Vince’s fears of overstepping his bounds with Mia, but it does break the ice, and the two are noticeably more comfortable with each other afterward (0:43:08). And now with the ice freshly broken, the two are free to dance.

Vince and Mia return to her house. The temptation to do more than just dance is unspoken, though palpable; but Tarantino has other plans. The Main Culmination (Plot Point #4) occurs when Mia mistakes the heroin in Vince’s coat for cocaine. If only Lance hadn’t run out of balloons, such a mistake might have been averted (even if other mistakes might have taken its place). This brings the sexual tension that had grown between Vince and Mia to an end and begins a new obstacle for Vince; to rescue Mia and himself from certain death (0:52:33). Mia may die from overdose but Vince’s death may involve a balcony.

Back to Lance, our friendly neighborhood heroin dealer. The Third Act Twist (Plot Point #5) comes when we learn that in order to save Mia, Vince needs to stab her in the heart with a long, sharp syringe full of adrenaline. Will it kill her or save her? Only one way to find out… (0:57:27)

It’s not long before Vince’s story comes to a close. We see him again in The Gold Watch and later in The Bonnie Situation, but the segment of the film that deals exclusively with him ends at 1:03:22. Tarantino has let Vincent Vega off the hook, at least for now.

BUTCH’S STORY: The Gold Watch

Enter Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), who approaches a young Butch to give him the gift (or curse) of his father’s Gold Watch, along with the dark tale of how it came to be his. Butch takes the watch and wakes up a middle-aged boxer in a cold-sweat, alone in a locker room before a fateful fight. This is his Inciting Incident (Plot Point #1), the moment he makes the choice not to take a dive; instead incurring the wrath of Marsellus, the man who paid Butch off. This decision will dictate the rest of Butch’s story. (1:08:01).

Butch wins the fight decisively after killing Floyd Wilson in the ring. He takes a cab to a downtown phone booth where he is soon talking to his connection about the money Butch stole from Marsellus to bet on himself to win. Butch’s Lock In (Plot Point #2) is made clear when he agrees to meet his connection in Knoxville (the same place where Butch’s great-grandfather bought the Gold Watch, ironically), committing to both skipping town for good and remorselessly screwing over Marsellus Wallace (1:14:29).

Well, that’s the plan. The next day, Butch finds out his girlfriend Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) forgot to pack the Gold Watch from his apartment. The Midpoint (Plot Point #3) occurs when Butch decides to return to his home, where Marsellus Wallace is likely waiting, in order to get his Gold Watch back (1:26:55).

And Butch does get his watch back, while also managing to issue some personal revenge against Vincent before finding himself on his way back to Fabienne. But Tarantino has other plans for Butch.

By sheer coincidence, Butch and the audience find themselves face-to-face with Marsellus Wallace himself, who chases Butch into a back-alley pawn shop where the two are kidnapped by Maynard (Duane Whitaker) and Zed (Peter Greene). This Main Culmination (Plot Point #4) ends Butch’s previous story and begins a new obstacle, escape from rape and torture (1:36:23).

Butch manages to escape his shackles and is about to leave Marsellus to his doom, but his conscience prevents him. Butch’s Third Act Twist (Plot Point #5) occurs when he decides to save the man who wants him dead (1:43:01). Butch selects his weapon – a samurai sword – and descends back into the basement to free Marsellus. In return, Butch’s life is spared, bringing The Gold Watch to a close at 1:51:30.

JULES’ STORY: The Bonnie Situation

Jules’ story began while he and Vincent discussed Royale’s With Cheese before making the acquaintance of Brett (Frank Whaley) and given Jules’ Inciting Incident (Plot Point #1): the collection of Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase (0:17:51), the object that motivates all of Jules’ actions until its delivered. We are treated to a zealous, fire-and-brimstone interpretation of Ezekiel 25:17; the speech that the ending note of the film will echo. Don’t worry, you’ll recognize it when it comes back around; despite that the speech’s recitations are separated by two full hours, you’ll practically have it memorized after you’re first viewing of Pulp Fiction .

However, unknown to both Jules & Vincent, there was another man hiding in the bathroom who suddenly reveals himself by unloading six shots at the hit men; all of which inexplicably miss. Jules & Vincent are somehow saved from certain death, even though the two men have strikingly different observations on what exactly had occurred. Jules is certain it was God himself who stopped the bullets while Vince chalks it up to little more than a freak-occurrence.

As Jules & Vince wax theology, Vince asks Marvin (Phil LaMarr) his opinion before accidentally shooting Marvin in the head; painting the inside of their getaway car in brains and skull. This obviously changes everything for Jules, acting as his story’s Lock In (Plot Point #2); committing him to the situation (1:55:50).

They find their way to the home of Jimmy Dimmick (Tarantino himself), a safe-house where they can get cleaned up and on the road again. However, time is a factor and Jimmy’s patience is thin; if Jimmy’s wife Bonnie (Vanessia Valentino) comes home from the graveyard shift to find Marvin’s dead body and two bloody hit-men, Jimmy’s guaranteed a divorce (at best). The Midpoint (Plot Point #3) occurs when Ergo; Winston “The Wolf” (Harvey Keitel), a problem-solving pro, is called in to instruct the team on what to do (2:07:46).

With The Wolf’s help the crisis is averted and the car cleaned. Jimmy’s marriage remains intact even if Marvin’s head is not. To celebrate the day’s bi-polar fortunes, Jules & Vincent deign to dine together at breakfast.

But even if Jimmy Dimmick’s part is done, Tarantino’s job isn’t finished. Jules is suddenly confronted with the dynamic duo of Pumpkin (Tim Roth) & Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer), two love-sick bandits who decide they’re done with liquor stores and banks; robbing diners and coffee shops will do just fine. This is Jules’ Main Culmination (Plot Point #4); the previous tension of his story now over, the diner’s robbery begins a new tension that must be solved before Jules can retire and be free to ‘walk the Earth’ (2:17:30).

When Pumpkin comes for Marsellus’ suitcase, the Third Act Twist (Plot Point #5) arrives as Jules turns the tables by taking charge and putting Pumpkin (a.k.a. “Ringo”) at gunpoint (2:22:08). This action of course leads us to that infamous retelling of Ezekiel 25:17. As Jules recites, however, we relearn the passage; hearing the same words but the meaning behind them changed somehow. Both Jules and the audience discover his new role as “The Shepherd”, moving him in a new life direction and leading us to assume that Jules will come to a better ending than Vincent did. And yes, maybe the bullets were the deciding factor; regardless of whether they were guided by God, or blind chance.

Shortly afterward, the film is over. No American Heritage Dictionary definition of ‘fiction’ required. As the credits roll, while we’re left to put together the pieces we’ve been shown and make as much sense of them as we’re can.

‘Soft’? ‘Moist’? ‘Shapeless’? The definition of ‘pulp’ is only a slight of hand; like a magician diverting your eyes to look a certain way so he can pull a fast one, Tarantino uses smoke & mirrors to disguise three stories that individually aren’t complicated in structure and puts them together in a way that gives them the semblance of pulp; makes them appear to us as soft, moist, and shapeless stories. Tarantino colors chaotically outside of the lines, and in so doing, seamlessly bends together these stories, laughing in the face of normal filmmaking and storytelling conceits all while making it look so easy. Yet, even if the magician’s audience can’t immediately say how a trick is done, they still know a trick when they see one. This is the fine line any magician must tread; the trick cannot be so seamlessly performed that the audience isn’t aware of the trick at all, but it can’t be so obvious as to deprive the audience of the magic of something unexpected occurring right before their eyes.

What can be said of one storyteller’s masterpiece might be said of another’s: In Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Polonius says of the titular character’s ranting; “Though this be madness, there’s method in it.” At a glance Tarantino seems to shoot from the hip in his writing and structuring choices in Pulp Fiction ; yet there clearly is a method to the madness. Under the guise of a filmmaker’s smoke & mirrors and movie-magic, an ardent code of conduct is employed from the opening frame unto the final name of the credits. So strictly adhered to that it seamlessly appears to be nothing more than ‘pulp’ fiction.

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remix :: data

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::, timeline of pulp fiction: actual version and chronological edit.

During the Fall of 2013, I analyzed Pulp Fiction with my students in my Video Art Class for the School of Visual Arts at Penn State. One of their assignments was to produce  a video and then re-edit it to tell the same story but in different order, and therefore explore how aesthetics play a role in experiencing a narrative.   We went over a few examples that would give them ideas, some of the links I provided as resources included Pulp Fiction and Memento . I share them below:

Infographic of Pulp Fiction in Chronological order: http://visual.ly/pulp-fiction-chronological-order

What Watching ‘Memento’ in Chronological Order Can Teach About Story Structure: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/06/watch-memento-in-chronological-order-story-structure/

Timeline for Memento: http://www.thehighdefinite.com/2012/02/the-timeline-for-memento/

Memento Chronological Order (make sure to watch the original film before viewing this): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ishi0TyiBrs

We also viewed a chronological version of Pulp Fiction which was available on line but, unfortunately, was taken down. And I also presented in class a two column set of still frames of the two versions of the film (figure 2) of the way it was edited by Tarantino (left), and the chronological order version (right). We discussed how the film has a particular open-endedness  due to the fact that its beginning and ending  appear to be the middle of the story. This is fairly well known but it  becomes more than evident in the two column visualization I provide below that the editing of the film is not as simple:

Figure 2: Pulp Fiction, original on left, chronological on right.

To generalize that the ending is the middle is a misconception, once we take a careful look at the visualization above, because we can notice that  both versions of the film are actually almost in the same order for the first 10 minutes more or less. Notice that the early crime scene in the apartment happens almost at the same time in both versions. It is when Wallace’s wife is introduced that real changes can be noticed. But this is a bit difficult to grasp  because the two opening scenes for the original and chronological versions provide diverging intertextual framings to engage with the characters as they are introduced throughout the film: to view a scene at a coffee shop and a scene of a boy and a Captain offer contrasting contexts for the next scene of Jules and Vincent.

One can argue that these scenes are different because in the chronological version the scene with Captain Koons is taken out of the original order in which the film was edited. This is important to note because aside from this scene, all that Tarantino appears to have done when he edited the film to have the middle  as its beginning and ending is to develop a conventional story that is told chronologically. It is Captain Koons’s scene, then, that appears to stand out in the chronological order, because it functions as a flashback of Butch’s early childhood–notice that  in the original version of the film the very next scene is Butch waking up from a dream before his boxing match (hence linking him to the flashback).

To stay true to a chronological timeline the scene with Koons  has  to be moved to the beginning of the film because this moment happened much earlier than all the other events.  And this makes Koon’s scene the only exception to an otherwise minimal shift in the middle becoming both the beginning and ending of the film. But the flashback could be considered part of the chronological order because it is really Butch who is reliving something in his dream, and this reliving can also be considered part of his present. This then complicates the basic premise of the middle of the film being the ending and beginning of an otherwise chronological edit. What follows shows how the film would appear if we took the now conventional notion that the middle is the beginning and end:

Figure 3: Pulp Fiction, original on left, chronological on right. Sequences visualized to trace the chronological ending of the story.

Figure 4: Pulp Fiction, original on left, chronological on right. Actual editing of chronological sequences  for both original and chronological versions.

We can see that the original film does not fully follow a chronological order that was simply edited to make the middle of the chronology the beginning and ending. The chronological ending of the film takes place about two thirds of the way into the film, while the ending of the original does fall more or less around the middle of the chronological version. But even when this happens we can notice that parts of the chronology are moved around to enhance the experience of the story. For instance, the opening of the original takes place just before we reach the middle of the film, meaning that this part of the story is part of the ending, of course.  We can look at each of the other segments and notice have they are shifted to tell the story in a way that will be more interesting than it being simply chronological.

If we number the order of the original edit and juxtapose it with the chronological version, we get this:

1 | 4 2 | 2 3 | 6 4 | 1 & 6 5 | 3 6 | 5

I numbered 1- 6 the chronological sequences of the original version (left column), and repositioned them into the chronological version of the film (right column). We can notice that the two opening scenes are different (diner and Captain Koons), but the very next scene is the same (Jules and Vincent in the car on their way to do a job). The second sequence in the original version is then split in order to turn it into the final chronological sequence (6,  Jules and Vincent finishing the job to end up back in the diner), this is why 3 and 6 match about a third of the way into both film versions. Notice that six  then comes together with sequence 1 to end at the very middle of the chronological version and match sequence 4 (Vincent and Mrs Wallace) in the original edit. It is sequence 5 (Butch fighting, escaping, running into Vincent, and Mr. Wallace,  confronting the gimp, and the eventual get away) that is the actual chronological ending of the story, but we see that in the original edit this one is followed by section 6, which is the scene of Jules and Vincent at the diner, this is also sequence 1, as we know.

So, to say that Tarantino merely took the chronological development of the story and split it for the middle to be the beginning and ending is really not correct–this is what appears to be commonly assumed by some people when they think of the middle of the story being the ending and beginning of the actual film. There is  much editing at play which makes this film more complex formally speaking.

But the editing is not so radical because going back and forth between closely related timelines is quite common in films. What is peculiar of Pulp Fiction and some other films by Tarantino is that they are edited as though things are happening now, there is no clear hint for the audience to acknowledge that we are going back and forth in time.  Viewers must acknowledge this as they try to make sense of the story. This approach by Tarantino challenges the cinematic aspect, because the audience must remind themselves that they are viewing a film and they must make sense of its sequences. The audience must try to make them fit so that the story comes together; but this must take place in the viewers’ minds. Pulp Fiction , arguably, is a reflective exploration of how we come to engage with films, how the process of editing can become a form of communication that also questions how we try to make meaning of the content being experienced.

Another challenge of the film is the cultural stereotypes it presents, and how viewers must question them as well. This aspect of the film is more open ended, and Tarantino has been accused of promoting certain stereotypes, particularly of African Americans. Those questions are very important to discuss, and must be.  And I take the time to discuss them in actual class. For this post, however, I focused on the formal aspects of Pulp Fiction .

Beyond The Frame: Pulp Fiction

Cinematographer Andrzej Sekula's richly hued, pin-sharp, widescreen images added a Pop Art quality to the alternately gritty and darkly comedic onscreen action in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 crime anthology.

American Cinematographer

When Pulp Fiction hit movie screens in 1994, it marked one of those rare moments in film history when a motion picture becomes a worldwide sensation.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino had already caught some heat with his debut feature, Reservoir Dogs (1992), in which a group of fast-talking hoodlums engage in a black-comic bacchanal of gunplay and wordplay. But Pulp Fiction , with its vivid characters, nonlinear narrative structure, ultra-cool musical soundtrack and memorable, machine-gun dialogue, elevated Tarantino to a level of celebrity and notoriety that all filmmakers dream of, but few ever achieve.

Greatly aiding in Tarantino's efforts on both pictures was Polish cinematographer Andrzej Sekula , whose richly hued, pin-sharp, widescreen images added a Pop Art quality to the alternately gritty and darkly comedic onscreen action, which contributes greatly to its cinematic impact.

In the top image, Sekula (far left) and his camera crew dances along with actors Uma Thurman and John Travolta in a crowd-pleasing dance number that helped Pulp Fiction become a major success.

The cinematographer would later shoot such pictures as American Psycho, Hackers, Vacancy, Armored and, most recently, USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage.

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Cinema, Race and the Zeitgeist: On Pulp Fiction Twenty Years Later

For many in Generation X, there is the time before Pulp Fiction (1994) and there is the time after Pulp Fiction . The shift in consciousness – personal, cultural, cinematic – was seismic. As the story goes, Gen X was the first self-consciously postmodern generation, hyper-aware of its place in history and obsessed with popular culture: the movies, television, music, fads and ads ever-proliferating in the age of mechanical and, increasingly, digital reproduction. As such, we were primed for a movie like Pulp Fiction . Its narrative and visual and aural pastiche, spitting pop cultural allusions like sparks from a grinding wheel, spoke a language we instinctively understood. Pulp Fiction didn’t define us so much as it revealed us, by dramatizing our sensibilities to the world.

Quentin Tarantino

The media had already deemed Gen X cynical and ironic, which was true enough, though we were never only that. Nor were we just subversive, obsessed with retro-cool, foul-mouthed, quasi-philosophical, directionless or relentlessly self-conscious, although, like the characters in the movie, we were all those things too. Perhaps we could best be described as wryly knowing . The aggregation of knowledge by that point in history had made us hyper-aware of – as well as cynically complacent about –the crappy socio-economic/historical/cultural hand we had been dealt, at least compared to our Boomer parents. But we weren’t earnest about it. We were nonchalant and never sentimental. Our generation was not the type to freak out. We were as cool and as untroubled by the world around us as Pulp Fiction ’s Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) calling for the Wolf (Harvey Keitel) to clean up poor Marvin’s brains after they’d been accidentally blown all over the back seat of the getaway car.

Secretly, we were panicked that the best opportunities had passed us by. As the first post-Cold War generation, Xers lacked the clearly defined ideological enemy/purpose that had sustained previous generations – as well as Hollywood in the 1980s. We had no Soviet Empire to fear/hate, Vietnam War to protest, or Civil Rights movement to engage. Our inheritance was George H.W. Bush’s vague “New World Order,” as well as an economic recession – the fallout of the ‘80s grotesquerie of greed and consumerism. Given all this, we no longer had any use for the square, slick and earnest cinema of the 1980s on which we had grown up. Obviously, the conservative action pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger failed to speak to us, but so did the upper-middle-class teen movies of John Hughes, and even the liberal demagoguery of Oliver Stone, who was way too serious. And needless to say, non-whites, women and GLBTG folk were beyond fed up with Hollywood representations that consistently marginalized, stereotyped and vilified them.

In this context, Gen Xers were hungry to both produce and consume an alternative cinema, which they began to do in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pulp Fiction came along at the height of this indie film renaissance – one that Quentin Tarantino himself had helped define and perpetuate with his 1992 no-budget crime flick Reservoir Dogs (1992)– and it become the apotheosis of the movement. While the movie was not the first expression of our generational personality – for white kids at least, Seattle Grunge had articulated it, as had Daria and Beavis and Butthead on MTV, to name just a few examples – it could be argued that it was the most complete expression. (As I discuss below, African-American Xers, had a different world to worry about in the early 90s, and different cultural expressions.)

Of course, you can also find many of Pulp ’s Gen X qualities in Reservoir Dogs , or in other badass subversive films of the movement, such as The Player (1992), The Crying Game (1992), The Living End (1992), The Bad Lieutenant (1992), and Deep Cover (1992), to name a few. But Reservoir Dogs is a nihilistic cinematic exercise. It is sadistic and nasty and childish. Its characters are literally paint-by-number: Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Mr. Brown and so on. Even back then, you could admire it, think it was cool, and get off on the violence, the way Tarantino had, watching so many exploitation flicks growing up. But you could never love it.

Pulp Fiction

We loved Pulp Fiction . Not just because it’s uproarious or filled with classic dialogue or outrageous situations, but because it is sympathetic to its characters and cares about their fates. Because Tarantino had worked out compelling themes about sin and redemption. Seeing it for the first time, the biggest shock of the movie was not Marvin’s head exploding (“You’re the motherfucker who should be on brain detail!”) or Vincent Vega (John Travolta) plunging a giant syringe into the chest of Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) to revive her from a heroine overdose. The biggest shock was that the story had been building toward such a moving, thoughtful climax without us ever realizing it.

When Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) departs the diner to walk the earth like Caine in “Kung Fu,” fully intending to leave behind a life of crime to help people and get into adventures, it was more than just a satisfying conclusion – it was wish fulfillment. Certainly a 21-year-old in 1994 with a nebulous idea of his future, coming of age during a recession, could appreciate it. Like A bout de soufflé ( Breathless , 1959) or Bonnie and Clyde (1967) before it, Pulp Fiction was a movie about cool losers and it appealed to an audience both branded and self-identified as such. But unlike those earlier films with their hard undercurrent of nihilism, Pulp Fiction delivered the possibility of a way out of the malaise – through spiritual awakening, of all things. Some of us walked out of the theatre thinking there might be hope for the world’s outcasts and misfits after all.

Prelude to The Changing of the Guard

After premiering at Cannes in May of 1994, where it won the Palm d’Or, Pulp Fiction opened in the US in October of that year. The buzz had been building all summer but the shock of it was still visceral and immediate and the movie became a polarizing sensation. Along with the mostly stellar reviews – Rolling Stone ’s Peter Travers called it “indisputably great,” while Roger Ebert compared its narrative to Citizen Kane (1941) – and fabulous box office (108 million dollars on a budget of about eight million) (1), the movie also provoked controversy about its depictions of drug use and violence, scenes of anal rape, and flagrant use of the ‘N-word.’ Perhaps the truest measure of its success was that, like The Godfather (1972) or Ghostbusters (1984), it was instantly quotable – a rarified status achieved by only a few films per generation.

The early ‘90s produced a number of good to great crime films: Goodfellas (1990), Bugsy (1991), New Jack City (1991), The Grifters (1990), One False Move (1992) and Carlitos’ Way (1993), among others. One could even argue that the era was a high point for the genre. But those movies had played it straight. When Pulp Fiction hit, it exploded the genre. Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avery lampoon crime movies by creating characters whose identities as gangsters are derived largely from movies and television they had watched. On their way to shake down some kids who had ripped off their boss, for example, Jules and Vincent talk about “getting into character.” Once there, Jules makes intimidating speeches while Vincent stands around glowering. This was standard stuff, but Tarantino’s brilliant joke was to make the dialogue between the crimes play like something out of Seinfeld – then at its popular peak – as if George and Jerry were gangsters in their day jobs, then retired to the coffee shop to discuss such minutiae as the etiquette of giving a woman a foot massage and the of pros and cons of eating bacon.

Perhaps, in terms of the capturing the cultural zeitgeist – and in terms of transforming both the genre and the industry – the crime film with which Pulp Fiction has the most in common is Bonnie and Clyde , which had had a similar impact during another moment of generational transition 27 years earlier. Both movies took a fresh approach to the genre, appealed to young moviegoers, were cool, sexy, subversive, outrageous and graphically violent (which in 1967, at the sputtering end of the Motion Picture Production Code, was unheard of). And both movies changed the paradigm of American cinema. As has been often chronicled, perhaps most famously in Peter Biskind’s tell-all tome, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls , the success of Bonnie and Clyde with the counterculture helped usher in the so-called “New Hollywood” of younger, risk-taking filmmakers who had come of age on European and Japanese post-war cinema and who were fed up with behind-the-times Hollywood.

Similarly, a perfect storm of cultural, economic and industry elements coalesced to produce an independent golden age in the early 1990s. The ground was laid in the mid to late 1980s, when a handful of independent filmmakers, such as John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and Gus Van Sant made independent films that began to garner high profiles, largely as a result of home video, by then a fixture of many U.S. households. Recognizing the new audience for them, the Sundance Film Festival and savvy new distributors began launching independent films to national attention, providing audiences with a more easily accessible alternative to the mainstream. Filmmakers from the era include Steven Soderberg, Richard Linklater, Allison Anders, Todd Haynes, Gregg Araki, The Hughes Brothers, Kevin Smith, David O’ Russell, Bryan Singer, Robert Rodriquez, James Mangold, Nicole Holofcener and Wes Anderson.

As with the New Hollywood directors, these young filmmakers were primed to rebel against the status quo and the tired assembly line product of the studios. Their films’ low budgets, general lack of movie stars, formal experimentation, self-conscious homage to cinema and popular culture, and subversive content, made them attractive to Xers. True to their era, many of these films (including Clerks (1994), Kids (1995), Slacker (1991), My Own Private Idaho (1991) and The Doom Generation (1995), among many others) feature non-linear or non-existent narratives, are character rather than plot-driven, and revel in ironic, sarcastic, glib or nihilistic tones.

One crucial difference between Bonnie and Clyde and Pulp Fiction – and perhaps in some ways the two eras – was that the former was determinedly political, a reaction to the churning events and injustices of the 1960s (director Arthur Penn has talked about how the Depression-era desperation was meant to act as a call for action and resistance). Pulp Fiction , on the other hand, was happily apolitical. Tarantino took his passions and influences not from real life but from movies he had seen. In this way, the two films also mirrored the two generations – one that was passionately clamoring for change, another that was ambivalent toward it.

Like Bonnie and Clyde , which earned 10 nominations, Pulp Fiction ’s mainstream legitimation blossomed at the Academy Awards. It was nominated for seven Oscars and Tarantino and Avery shared the award for Original Screenplay. Best Picture that year came down to a horserace between Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump (1994) . (2)Not surprisingly, Forrest Gump won. Like Pulp Fiction , Forrest Gump was also a cultural phenomenon and a pastiche, but unlike Pulp Fiction it is a gentle and sentimental liberal fantasy that whitewashes difficult history: honey to Oscar voters. Again there were parallels to the earlier era, when Bonnie and Clyde lost Best Picture to In the Heat of the Night (1967), another whitewashing of history (the even more egregiously faux-liberal dreck Guess Whose Coming to Dinner (1967) was also nominated). In both cases, the counterculture had elbowed into the mainstream, but it remained the counterculture.

The Race(ism) Situation

Many remember Pulp Fiction as a massive comeback for John Travolta, and it was, launching him into huge commercial stardom in the second half of the 1990s in films that included the indelible Get Shorty (1995) (and the less delible Phenomenon (1996) and Michael [1996]). Travolta also became an action star of sorts (as did virtually all male leads in the 1990s) in such fare as John Woo’s Broken Arrow (1996) and Face/Off (1997). Travolta’s subtle performance anchors the movie, and he got much of the press. There was a great deal of excitement surrounding the fact that Tarantino showcased his dancing, which had immortalized the actor in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978)a generation earlier. His slow twist with Uma Thurman to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” certainly doesn’t blaze up the screen the way his disco dancing as Tony Manero had in Saturday Night Fever , but it makes sense both for the older, doughier actor, as well as the character, who was perpetually high on heroin. Tarantino, ever a student of the movies, had the good sense to display the dancers’ entire bodies for at least part of the number, showing that Travolta was still charmingly light on his feet despite the added pounds.

Fewer remember that the movie was also a comeback for Bruce Willis, who had run his post- Die Hard (1988) career into the ground with a number of high profile bombs, including The Last Boy Scout (1991) , The Colour of Night (1994), and the infamous Hudson Hawk (1991). Tarantino gave Willis a can’t miss cool part as a boxer, Butch, who rode a Harley (or, as he insists, a “chopper”) and had a cute as a button Portuguese girlfriend, although some would argue that the extended scene between the two set in a shabby motel – “the blueberry pancakes” scene – is the movie’s one weakness. On the other hand, the sequence in which hillbilly bikers torture Butch and Marcellus, who then gruesomely dispatch them, remains among cinemas most memorable.

The actor who skyrocketed into popularity and has more or less stayed there ever since is Samuel L. Jackson, who has now appeared (or been heard) in almost all of Tarantino’s movies, as well as some 75 other post- Pulp Fiction feature films, plus numerous shorts, television programs and video games. By the time of Pulp Fiction , Jackson’s stock had been on the rise for several years. He had small but pivotal roles in high-profile films leading up to his break out role as Jules, including in Do the Right Thing (1989), GoodFellas and even Jurassic Park (1993). He had also played Wesley Snipe’s crack-addicted brother in Jungle Fever (1991), a role that many felt should have brought him a supporting Oscar nomination in 1992. Jackson would have to wait a few years for Pulp Fiction to bring him that nomination, although there was some grumbling that he had been marginalized in the supporting category and that he should have been nominated for Best Actor, as his co-star Travolta had been.

But Oscar glory is fleeting while Jules is a part for the ages: Jackson got many of the best lines in the movie and he got the character arc of moral growth and redemption. With his giant hand cannon, his dripping jerry curl wig, his existential philosophizing and black suit with skinny tie, he was a hybrid of Blaxploitation hero and Godard anti-hero. This made sense, given that Blaxploitation and Godard were two of Tarantino’s greatest influences. He had named his production company after Godard’s Bande à part (1964) and his next movie after Pulp Fiction would be Jackie Brown (1997), which cast Blaxploitation heroine Pam Grier ( Foxy Brown [1974]) in the title role.

Of course, one can’t discuss Tarantino cinema without discussing the representation of race, and especially blackness. Tarantino’s movies, most recently Django Unchained (2012), celebrate and fetishize black people and black culture in ways that many find uncomfortable and offensive. For example, Spike Lee said of Django Unchained that slavery was “not a Spaghetti Western” and he wouldn’t “disrespect his ancestors” by seeing the film; Denzel Washington had a long feud with Tarantino over what he also felt were the director’s racists sensibilities. Whether Django Unchained and earlier Tarantino films including Jackie Brown , Kill Bill (2003)and Inglorious Basterds (2009) are racist has engendered much cultural debate. At the heart of the issue for many, going back to Pulp Fiction , is Tarantino’s incessant use of the word “nigger”.

Django Unchained

Over the years Tarantino has defended his use of the word, as well as the way in which he has rendered black characters. Regarding Django Unchained , he told Henry Louis Gates Jr. that using the word was  “just part and parcel of dealing truthfully with this story, with this environment, with this land.” In a 1997 interview about Jackie Brown , he told Charlie Rose, “As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are, all right? And to say that I can’t do that because I’m white, but the Hughes brothers can do that because they’re black, that is racist.”

Indeed, the unremitting use of the ‘N’ word in Pulp Fiction seems designed to taunt those who would object to it, as though Tarantino is saying, ‘How can I be racist when I so clearly love Black people? I’ve written this movie with great parts for them, that contains not one but two interracial marriages, and if you take objection to my use of the word, you don’t get that my movie is meant to be subversive and anti-P.C. and post-racist.’ Yet, even for those willing to grant the director some latitude, the scene in which Tarantino himself – playing a white suburbanite, Jimmie – uses the word relentlessly while delivering an angry speech to Jules and Vincent, remains hard to watch. “When you came pulling in here, did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said ‘Dead Nigger Storage?’” he chides. The word from his mouth again and again is like nails on a chalkboard. No white man would speak to a black man in this manner; it’s just Tarantino’s colourblind fantasy. It’s not an accident that he is playing the character (who also has a black wife, Bonnie). As many have suggested, he clearly wants to ‘cross over’ into blackness, to be considered what he and many American men think of as the ultimate cool. But while the characters may be able to divorce the word from its history, the viewer cannot, and the sour taste these scenes evoke undermine the good will that one has developed for the movie up to that point.

Despite his protestations, it is Tarantino’s inability to understand the subtle and insidious nature of institutionalized racism that is at the crux of things. When he “demands the right” to write characters who say ‘nigger,’ he doesn’t realize that he does have the right, as a powerful white man working in American movies, to control all the content in the way that traditionally marginalized people do not. The Hughes brothers may have the ‘right’ to use the word ‘nigger’ in their films, but, unlike white male directors, black directors have been historically restricted to certain kinds of stories, genres and points of view – that is, when white owned and controlled systems of production, distribution and exhibition have allowed them to make movies at all. The fealty that Jules shows to Jimmie as he rants (wouldn’t Jules put a cap in somebody’s ass for less?) reveals this power subtext. Similar dynamics in Django Unchained show that racial hierarchies in Hollywood haven’t changed that much in twenty years.

There is another historical context to consider as well. Yes, the Pulp Fiction of Los Angeles is semi-fictionalized, featuring invented locations and brand names such as ‘Red Apple’ cigarettes and ‘Big Kahuna Burger.’ But the real L.A. in the early 1990s was the epicenter of a race war that had sprawled across the country. The national media had perpetuated racism against African Americans by playing up the danger of gangs and black crime to middle class white parents who were already worried about the consumption of gangsta rap records by their teenage children. What went largely unreported of course was that the rise of gangs, drug dealing and violence in the inner cities was the consequence of decades of post-war economic disenfranchisement in the form of “White Flight” to the suburbs and inner-city apartheid of blacks and others, all aggravated by cruel tax policies. These realities, along with the demoralizing realization that the Civil Rights movement and the hopes of the 1960s hadn’t increased socio-economic opportunity for blacks, led to despair and crime.

This was powerfully dramatized in movies of the era such as Boyz in the Hood (1991) and Menace II Society (1993) , and even the controversial Falling Down (1993). However, none of this, or the national firestorm over the Rodney King beating and subsequent L.A. riots, found even allegorical treatment in Pulp Fiction . At its heart, the movie is an ahistorical interracial buddy fantasy in the mold of the template established 37 years earlier by The Defiant Ones (1958). In that movie, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis play escaped convicts chained together who learn mutual respect and compassion as a result of shared travails. In the movie’s liberal fantasy ending, Poitier gives up on a chance for freedom so that he can remain at the wounded side of his white buddy while the authorities come to haul them both back to prison.

One aim of the black and white buddy movie is to tame the black man under the white man’s ideological tutelage so that he no longer poses a threat and white audiences can enjoy his cultural blackness without feeling guilt or fear. Therefore the stereotypically threatening black elements embodied by Jules – his “furious anger,” his violence, his profanity, his gigantic gun, and so on – can be safely consumed by the white audience who knows that Jules is in on “their side.” And yet it would be unfair to lump Jules in entirely with his cinematic ancestors when he does, in fact, subvert many stereotypes of black men: he is thoughtful, articulate, even chivalrous. He is also the moral heart of the film and his steadying presence during the movie’s climax saves lives. Finally, unlike in The Defiant Ones , Jules – rather than staying metaphorically chained to the doomed white man – walks to freedom and, presumably, redemption.

Ultimately, Jules is kind of a perfect hybrid for white audiences – tamed but still a hugely charismatic badass and fount of ‘cool’ blackness. This combination has made Jackson a favorite among young males and led him to being cast in blockbusters aimed primarily at teens (the Star Wars prequels and Marvel’s Avenger movies, among others) and even families ( The Incredibles [2004]), something that certainly never would have happened if, instead of Jules, Jackson had played a few more frightening crack-heads like the one in Jungle Fever . Although Jackson has submitted serious performances over the years (he is brilliant and fearless playing a house slave in Django Unchained ), one could argue he has often just played a version of Jules, or what has become the Jackson/Jules persona. Much of the delight for audiences is the in-joke of seeing the actor riff on his beloved character again and again.

It’s possible that Jules was such an unforgettable character that we just can’t see past him, even when Jackson is trying to play somebody else. Either way, continued obsession with Jackson/Jules can be confirmed on the Internet, which features innumerable memes and video mash-ups of Jules supplanted into many of Jackson’s other movies (the Star Wars prequels are a favourite). There are also short films featuring the character (Jules coaching youth hockey, for example), and he appears in endless lists ranking great characters and great dialogue. He even has his own entry in the Urban Dictionary. Jackson/Jules’ massive influence and popularity is one of Pulp Fiction ’s most lasting legacies.

The Changing of the Guard

Save for a segment of the anthology Four Rooms (1995) and an episode of ER , Tarantino didn’t direct for three years after the release of Pulp Fiction . Instead, he became a celebrity presence, clearly relishing his new status as pop culture icon. Internet Movie Database lists the director as having made 175 (!) post- Pulp Fiction appearances as “himself” (mostly talk shows, awards shows and documentaries). He has also acted in a number of movies and television shows, including his own films. He became so ubiquitous in the mid-90s – including on the nascent ‘World Wide Web’ – that Siskel and Ebert broadcast a special called the “The Tarantino Generation,” in which they asked if the director was a “one man new wave or just a flavour of the month?” Ultimately, the critics praised Tarantino’s talent and urged him to make more movies and fewer public appearances.

Meanwhile, Pulp Fiction had the same effect of all novel hits: it spawned a number of imitators. Low-budget crime films featuring eclectic male-heavy casts, eccentric characters, ornate dialogue, macabre violence, and non-linear narratives became all the rage through the rest of the decade.  Among many others were Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995), CopLand (1997), Go (1999), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), Very Bad Things (1998), The Usual Suspects (1995) and the early films of Guy Ritchie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000).

Interestingly, Tarantino himself departed from his own template when he did finally bring out his next feature, Jackie Brown , in late 1997. He could have gone back to the profitable well of influences that spawned Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs , but instead he produced a more conventional film: a literary adaptation (of Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch ) with a relatively slow-paced linear narrative and even a love story of sorts (between Robert Forster’s bail bondsman Max Cherry and Jackie, played by Pam Grier). Though critically well received, the movie was not a popular success. For fans still rabid for Pulp Fiction , perhaps it was not Tarantino-esque enough.

And yet, the director’s aesthetic and interests have survived mostly intact in his subsequent films – Kill Bill , Death Proof (2007), Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained – which is more than one can say of many of his peers in the movement (as well as one of the traditional definitions of the auteur). By the late ‘90s, many of the indie film directors began to infiltrate Hollywood (or perhaps, as the Marxists might have it, Hollywood appropriated them, thereby acquiring their labour while neutralizing their subversive instincts). Tarantino is one of the few (along with Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson and Nicole Holofcener) still making movies that are recognizably related to their early work. Meanwhile, one would be hard pressed to find the germ of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises or Inception in his Memento . Likewise, Steven Soderberg (The Oceans movies), Bryan Singer (the X-Men movies, Superman Returns [2006]), James Mangold ( Knight and Day (2010), The Wolverine [2013]), The Hughes Brothers ( From Hell (2001), The Book of Eli [2010]), Robert Rodriquez ( Sin City [2005]), Jon Faverau ( Cowboys and Aliens (2011), Iron Man [2008]), Doug Liman ( Mr. and. Mrs. Smith (2005), Edge of Tomorrow [2014]) and many others have long abandoned their indie roots for studio and even blockbuster filmmaking.

Meanwhile, Tarantino, despite his much larger budgets, has remained Tarantino, partly because his narrative and formal style and influences were recognizable after only two movies, and partly because he has obsessively returned to themes (most notably, revenge) and, like many auteurs, featured reoccurring actors (Jackson, Thurman, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Michael Parks, Christoph Waltz, Zoë Bell, Julie Dreyfus, et.al). Most of his movies since Pulp Fiction have received more or less positive reviews (as well as Oscar nominations – both Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds were nominated for Best Picture) though with considerable grousing. Common complaints are that they are overlong, undisciplined, too talky, unevenly paced, racist, in need of more judicious editing, ludicrously violent, pointlessly provocative, disturbingly fetishistic, overly allusive, shallow, immature and morally compromised.

The positive reviews, then, have been on the strength of the director’s undeniable filmmaking prowess. As always he gets a lot out of actors and his dialogue is as quirky and entertaining as ever. Many still consider him a better writer than director (he won an Oscar for writing Django Unchained but wasn’t even nominated as director), but there is no doubt he’s come a long way from swirling a camera around some dudes gabbing in a diner, as he did in Reservoir Dogs . He has undeniably worked on his craft and his fluidity and facility within the medium has become striking. At his best, he can build suspense as well as Alfred Hitchcock or Brian De Palma – Uma Thurman buried alive in Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004); the opening sequence of Inglorious Basterds . Lyricism may not be his strong suit, but he can stage a fight scene as well as George Lucas, and within shouting distance of John Woo and Akira Kurosawa. Along with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, he is one of American cinema’s few superstar auteurs. Twenty years after Pulp Fiction , few new movies are more eagerly awaited or discussed than Tarantino’s.

Pulp Fiction was the apex of the indie film renaissance of the 1990s. It was also, in a sense, the movie that killed it – and not just because all the shallow rip-offs and self-conscious homages diluted its freshness. Pulp Fiction helped indie film go big business, with studios pumping more money into specialty divisions and marketing and everybody trying to ape the profitable aesthetics. By the late 90s, the box office slump was over and Hollywood – no longer needing to lean on the movement to generate revenues – went back to making the kinds of films it had always made. By the end of the decade, popular culture was bright and shiny and childish again (boy bands, Brittney Spears, Adam Sandler, Titanic (1997), The Phantom Menace [1999]) and the transformational moment of just a few years earlier, so fertile and subversive, seemed as far away as the ‘60s. Meanwhile, drowning in studio swill, we await the next movement.

And yet, it’s hard to envision a movie today seizing the zeitgeist the way that Pulp Fiction did twenty years ago – not just commanding cultural attention, but changing the way a generation talks, thinks, and what it considers cool (maybe The Matrix [1999]for a few years, but its reputation has since lost much of it’s sheen). Although Pulp ’s jagged pastiche certainly anticipated the globalized world of converging media that was almost upon us, the movie premièred just before the Internet changed human consciousness; before the media conglomerates began to lose their grip and their influence as tastemakers; before Napster and iTunes and sharing and streaming; before the splintering of tastes and the fracturing of cultures into subcultures and subcultures into micro-cultures. Pulp Fiction entered the world before the insta-news of social media, when word of mouth was slower to percolate and when it was still possible to hear first reports of a great movie from breathless friends fresh from a screening. Whatever else our generation felt like it missed out on, at least we still had that.

1. About 170 million in 2014 dollars.

2. The other three nominations went to Quiz Show , Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Shawshank Redemption .

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Pulp fiction, specialist study area 2: auteur and pulp fiction.

• the use of vibrant colours
• a hyperreal approach to set design (Jack Rabbit Slims)
• retro clothing
• violence (often treated in a humorous way)
• the theme of redemption
• long takes, creating tension and developing character
• subverting conventional uses of film form/film language
• action set pieces, such as the 'Mexican stand-off'
• anti-heroes or the blurring of boundaries between protagonists and antagonists
• an eclectic mix of musical genres and eras, with songs frequently played in their entirety
• paying homage to old films/cult films/obscure movies/genre films
• intertextual, pop-culture references
• foregrounding dialogue (which is more realistic than plot-driving dialogue in many mainstream movies)
• drawing attention to the fact that the audience is watching a 'constructed' film and breaking the fourth wall
• casting older actors as a tribute to the roles they played as younger men and women
• manipulation of narrative structure and a playfulness with audience narrative expectations

• Reservoir Dogs - the plot begins by presenting events from the middle of the story, showing the crew of thieves in a diner on their way to the robbery (which the audience never actually witness). The rest of the plot skips between the aftermath and the events leading up to the job, with some of the earliest recruiting scenes (of Mr Orange, in particular) shown towards the end of the plot (just before the end of the film)
• True Romance - Tarantino's first script delivers story events in the plot out of chronological order. When the script was made into a movie by director Tony Scott (after the success of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs ), Scott chose to present the narrative chronologically
• Natural Born Killers - the narrative structure of director Oliver Stone's movie (based on a script written by Tarantino) is really loose, with many of the film's scenes a series of obscure, seemingly unconnected experiments in style rather than causally linked, coherent events
• Jackie Brown - a film which is arguably the most linear of all of Tarantino's movies, shows moments from the film's final act from three different perspectives
• Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2 - both films employ a non-linear narrative structure with multiple story events presented out of chronological order in the plot (partly to mimic the structure and recall of human memory and partly to gradually reveal information about the Bride's past)
• Death Proof - shot and edited like an old exploitation movie from the 1970s, the narrative structure appears fractured partly as a result of 'missing reels' in the film (homage to real exploitation films that often suffered from narrative coherence as a result of missing scenes in some of the prints that were delivered to cinemas)
• Inglourious Basterds - structured in chapters, with characters (rather than story events) overlapping, though unlike many of Tarantino's films the story is presented largely in chronological order
• Django Unchained - relatively linear narrative structure apart from occasional flashbacks and flashforwards
• The Hateful Eight - the first half of the movie (the journey to the cabin) is presented chronologically but the second half of the film features multiple flashbacks and events presented from different perspectives as the characters gathered in the cabin lie and try to outwit each other
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - sticks to a largely conventional narrative structure though, as with Inglourious Basterds , the film's narrative resolution dramatically re-writes historical events

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Non-linear storytelling is challenging. Nonetheless, the payoffs are quite strong when it’s done well. Here are three benefits to using non-linear narratives.

Satisfying Complexity

While conventional storytelling is often made better by trimming complexity, non-linear stories work in a different way. Deciphering them is half the fun.

For example, you’ll remember a scene in  Pulp Fiction  in which Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) pays Butch (Bruce Willis) to lose his next fight. In that  same scene, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) enter the scene wearing faded t-shirts and boxers. It’s a little odd, especially considering the previous scene in which they wore sharp suits. We don’t discover what happened until later in the film: Vincent accidentally shot a guy in the back seat of his car, making a bit of a mess. Those nice business suits had to go.

This is one advantage of non-linear storytelling. You can present an intriguing element in your timeline, then explain how it happened later.

Intersecting Characters

In non-linear stories, the main plot can often be divided into smaller subplots. This presents myriad opportunities for character arcs to intersect.

Take, for example, Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) and Ringo (Tim Roth). They’re the first characters we encounter in the film, and by the end, we’ve almost forgotten they appeared at all. Yet when Vincent and Jules enter the diner in the film’s final scene, we realize that all four characters were in the same place all along. We just didn’t know it yet.

It’s these intersections of plot that I just love. They’re super interesting, and they create a puzzle-like wonder for the writer. Where do these plots intersect? How do the paths of these characters cross?

Time Distortion

I think one of the coolest and weirdest parts of  Pulp Fiction  is the scene in which Butch kills Vincent. Whoops, spoiler. Anyway, I love that scene.

It’s cool and weird because Vincent is kind of the star of the movie. So there’s a big “What just happened?” moment when he’s killed in such an inglorious way . And yet, as mentioned earlier, Vincent’s death doesn’t preclude him from appearing once again in the film’s final act.

This departure from the linear plays two parts. For one, you get a jolt of confusion, especially if it’s your first time watching the film. When Vincent reappears after his death, you might ask yourself, “Wait a second…didn’t he get shot?” Then, as the scene plays out, we realize we’ve actually jumped back in time. And we finally find out where the t-shirts came from.

Also, the time shuffle adds a hint of sadness to that final diner scene. Because even though the film ends with Vincent and Jules walking off into the sunset, so to speak, we know that Vincent will later be killed. Sure, he’s a hitman. But he’s a  likable  hitman.

Non-linear storytelling is endlessly fascinating, and  Pulp Fiction  proves it. If you’re looking for a master class in the form, I highly recommend it.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood , and Dark Fire Fiction . His debut novel,  Gerald Barkley Rocks ,  is available now on Amazon Kindle.

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Pulp Fiction - Experimental film - introduction and Film analysis [EDUQAS]

Subject: Media studies

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

22 September 2023

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This pack contains a 59-slide PowerPoitnt presentation and accompanying student booklet

This PowerPoint will take approx 3 lessons / hours and ends with an in class, timed assessment activity The lessons covers:

Starter - How do students interpret the term ‘experimental’ cinema? - discussion and feedback

Introduce Pulp Fiction as our focus text, reinforce student areas, etc

Show past paper questions - student read questions - Q&A session to address student’s initial concerns

Read and evaluate the ‘Indicative Content’ provided by EDUQAS

Define: Mainstream cinema

Task - students to outline conventions of ‘mainstream’ cinema

Define: Experimental Cinema

Discussion task after definition provided

Students discuss the ways a filmmaker can experiment with film form, approach to ideology and representation

Conventions of Experimental / Post-modern cinema

Intertextuality Self-referential Fragmentation of Time and Space Homage Pastiche Parody Hyper-reality Non-sequitors

Consoidation task - screen fist 5 minutes from Une Chien Andalou (this can obviously be swapped out for your own examples/texts)

Part II - Starter - re-cap conventions of EXP cinema

• Students to work in pairs/groups to find their own examples of the Experimental conventions used in Pulp Fiction (could be set as a homework task) ** Analysis of Pulp Fiction**

Part 1 - introductions - students are provided with a question ‘In What Ways Can Your Chosen Film be Considered Experimental’?

• Key points to include in the introduction to the answer are provided to students/
• Explain HIGH ART vs/ LOW ART as a convention of Post modern cinema
• Compare a scene from The Wire with a scene from Superfly * - analysis task and feedback ***
• This point links to the title card used to open the film
• Discussion of ‘Pulp Fiction novels’ and how *Pulp Fiction the film reflects the post-modern approach

Part II - Experimental Techniques

Comparison between ‘Road Wars’ scene from Fast and Furious 7, and the ‘Royale With Cheese’ sequence from PF Student’s analyse in groups then feedback

Analysis of Butch and Marcellus’ first meeting - task: analysis and feedback - breakdown of all experimental approaches used the in the scene

Part III - Representation

• Students asks to discuss their views on representation of race and gender in PF
• Introduce the view that Tarantino’s films subvert industry standard approaches to gender and racial representation
• Reading task - read section from book to refinforce and develop this argument
• students are encouraged to respond to this view and share their own thoughts on Tarantino’s approach
• Examples from PF provided to support student understanding

Assessment - timed assessment. Mark scheme included.

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Is Pulp Fiction experimental?