To celebrate the release of the long awaited Inglourious Basterds on Friday, I had planned to do a whole week of Tarantino flicks (and still do), only to have some sort of nasty shoulder problem flare up Sunday and continue through Tuesday. So we’re picking up today and I’ll be picking up the rest of the slack through the week, provided I can find all my copies of Tarantino flicks.
I’m starting out with Pulp Fiction, not Reservoir Dogs, which chronologically makes no sense. Pulp Fiction, though, was the first Tarantino film I ever saw. I was eight and my parents rented it. We made it through about fifteen seconds of the Royale with Cheese scene before my parents shut it off. They were horrified and returned it shortly thereafter, never to be brought up again. (The subject of Quentin Tarantino to my parents is one massive eyeroll, I think). Another eight years later or so, I would finally watch the whole thing.
To an eight year old, I think those first five or six minutes of Pulp Fiction were about the coolest thing you could see.
Watching Pulp Fiction for me still brings back strange thrills of being young and feeling like maybe you were watching something you weren’t supposed to watch, even though I know better since I’m a grown woman now. Instead of dissecting and analyzing Pulp Fiction since thousands of others have done so more thoroughly and better than I could ever do, I’m just going to reminisce a bit.
It’s hard to believe that we are in the fifteenth anniversary of Pulp Fiction’s release. It can’t have been fifteen years, can it? Nothing seems quite right about it.
Then again, nothing about Tarantino’s second movie feels quite right. It’s like the movie itself exists in a reality connected to ours with a few threads clipped away. The choppy timeline only serves up more disorientation. Traditional product placement is replaced with now easily recognizable Tarantino staples like Red Apple cigarettes and Jack Rabbit Slim’s (which is on its own like a retro diner ground through a bad acid trip, if you ask me).
Even after all Tarantino’s made and done since this movie, Pulp Fiction still feels new, even with the rip-offs and inspirations that followed. The juggling of storylines out of order and syncing them at the end requires an awful lot of deft handling. What required even more that’s amazing is that Pulp Fiction may be the talkiest Tarantino movie ever, which is saying something. Short bursts of action and moments of absurdity, like the Confederate flag owning boys bringing out the gimp, pulse in between long drawn out moments of hired guns waxing philosophical about life, cheeseburgers and foot massages. It’s weird. It’s strange. It is bizarre at times. Somehow, it all makes sense.
For all the accolades that Uma Thurman, John Travolta, and Sam Jackson got for their roles, I always found Eric Stoltz’s drug dealer Lance and Harvey Keitel’s Mr. Wolf to be equally interesting. In fact, I’d say the only weak link in the acting chain is Tarantino himself as Jimmie, something that felt too egotistical and had too little sense for my taste.
Tarantino himself has always presented a complex problem for me. While there’s no denying he’s one talented guy, at least in my mind, I get the sense that especially these days he’s bought deeply into his own hype. While this might be the kiss of death for other guys, in some odd fashion Tarantino’s superseded this, making movies like Kill Bill, which is probably my favorite out of all of his films. (Then again, I enjoyed the much maligned Death Proof.) He is as interesting as he is manic and for all the entertainment he provides, his enthusiastic hand waving and constant jittery manner are equally off-putting.
He lifts wholesale out of others’ films, but in a way I’ve come to accept and embrace that. I once jokingly told a friend that someone could probably make a book out of Tarantino’s films and all the references and lifts he’s put in his movies from others’ work. He takes the best bits of nostalgia and mixes them in with his own ideas to come up with movies that feel new and old all at the same time. His films always have a sense to me that for hardcore film geeks, one aspect watching them is sort of like solving the really difficult Sunday New York Times crosswords. If you can catch all the lifts, references, musical cues and every other godforsaken cinematic reference Tarantino knows into a flick, then you know a good amount about film.
Out of all of Tarantino’s movies, Pulp Fiction may be the one that’s most seared into the American consciousness, for better or worse as far as Tarantino’s merit goes. It is now an unconscious link in my mind from the movie to the rattle ‘n’ thrum of Miserlou that I don’t know if anyone my age can shake. It’s a well crafted movie for sure, but one that also marked something very big for the film world.
Pulp Fiction will always be that one movie that defines Tarantino, just as much as Tarantino defines every aspect of Pulp Fiction (subtract his keen knack for speech and dialogue and his near encyclopedic knowledge of film and I doubt Pulp Fiction would have been half as good as it is now, and that’s only counting his screenwriting credit with Roger Avary, not his work in the director’s chair at all).
It is equal parts beauty and dark grit, relics of days past and modern times, heroin and Chevy Novas. It isn’t shaken or stirred but carefully spliced and jigsawed together into a gorgeous whole.
Kind of scary when you consider Pulp Fiction was his second movie ever, huh?
I remember re-watching PF a year or so ago, and being struck by how timeless it is. There aren’t a whole lot of markers in the movie to remind you that it’s 1994…the story seems to exist in some undated plain of existence.
Contrast this to another ’94 movie, NATURAL BORN KILLERS (also written by QT). Damn near everything about that movie screams “early nineties”!
I’m not sure if he was deliberately trying to keep it timeless, or if it was just a happy accident…but it’s good to see what was a touchstone movie of my younger days aging so well.
Great post! I remember taking an Independent American Cinema class a few years ago and going on and on about how Pulp Fiction like invented independent film as we know it today, partly because it helped make Miramax a company or something. Pretty impressive stuff. I hate that Tarantino is such an egotistical dick, but so talented.
Oh also, I loved Death Proof. Grindhouse is legitimately one of my favorite movies (especially the whole double feature w/ fake trailers theatre experience).
First time i watched it, I got a phone call within the first fifteen minutes. And picking it up after that (it was on TV) was a little difficult.
Other than that, I’ve always thought of Pulp Fiction as necessary to watch in order in understand pop culture now, or maybe it’s pop culture from fifteen years ago? Then when I finally sat down to watch it again, I couldn’t find a good reason for watching it other than to watch it.
If that makes any sense at all. It just stands alone like that, as entertainment, not really as anything else.
I never realized how long this movie was until I watched it at home. In the theater it was like a thrill ride. Oddly enough I saw it with my mom and sister, who both loved it. I saw it many weeks after it was released, because I was anti-hype and had seen Reservoir Dogs opening week, and thought this sophomore effort would be a sell-out… how wrong I was. Yeah, I was in college and still a punk, gimme a break.
I remember walking out of the theater after Reservoir Dogs with my buddy Jack- my movie pal for Chinatown kung fu and crazy art house stuff- and not knowing what the hell we saw, but that it was awesome. Ironic use of music had been done 20 years earlier with Harold & Maude but he made it work again. Sure he wears his influences on his sleeve, but I mean this with the highest of compliments, that his movies exist in the same unreal world as Casablanca did. That’s one of my favorite movies, but I never once believe the characters are in Morocco or real Nazis. They exist in our imagination, in how we expect World War 2-era North Africa to be- full of characters like Lorre, Greenstreet and Claude Rains.
Same with QT- I know there are no hit men like Jules & Vincent- but I want there to be. They’re the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of noir. Over at The House Next Door there was a great back & forth about Quentin and how cringe-inducing some scenes are, such as Butch’s cab ride. It feels like something out of Coffin Joe, and it looks as faux as Sin City. But you can’t stop watching it, even if you have Esmerelda Villa-Lobos’s lines memorized.
I too enjoyed Death Proof- though I found the Jungle Julia scenes a bit tedious the first time. I’ll have to give it another go. I wish he’d find better distribution; Grindhouse was very badly promoted, and the fact that the best way to get his movies are on Japanese DVD releases is a bit of a crime.
Same with QT- I know there are no hit men like Jules & Vincent- but I want there to be. They’re the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of noir.
I agree with this by the way. Never thought of it that way before, but… yeah, that’s a really cool way of looking at it. If someone had sat me down and explained Pulp Fiction to me in that way, I would have seen it a helluva lot sooner.
PF is my 3rd favorite film of all time: hell, I named my first born after one of the main characters!
I first saw it when I was 14. I had heard all the hype from my BFF who had seen it and lent me her sister’s boyfriend’s VHS copy. I ran home and hid it under my bed so my mom wouldn’t see that I had it, though she had rented it herself a few months prior, but I knew she wouldn’t want me seeing it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to watch it without my mom finding out, but then a miracle occurred. I wasn’t feeling well and had to stay home from school, but Mom thought I was old enough to stay home by myself. And that’s how I got see what is still to this day one of my favorite films. But Mom knows I’ve seen it now:)
PF is definitely one of those unique movies – there’s not a movie out there like it. I agree, every time I hear PF I think of Quentin Tarantino. Just like every time I hear El Mariachi, I think of his buddy Robert Rodriguez. Great way to kick things off before the IB release!
Mad Hatter: You’re right… It doesn’t feel dated at all!
Contrast this to another ‘94 movie, NATURAL BORN KILLERS (also written by QT). Damn near everything about that movie screams “early nineties”!
To be fair to QT, he had virtually no control over what happened to Natural Born Killers and pretty much disowned it. My understanding is that he was extremely unhappy with Oliver Stone’s handling of the film and I think it would’ve been much better if Tarantino had directed it. That being said… yes, god, what a dated movie.
Pretty impressive stuff. I hate that Tarantino is such an egotistical dick, but so talented.
Truer words were never spoken. I learn more in five minutes from Tarantino, I think, than I’ve learned in hours from watching others talk about films. But god, you get the sense that he is such a jerk.
partly because it helped make Miramax a company or something
Pretty much. If memory serves me correctly, Pulp Fiction put Miramax on the map and I think the Weinsten Brothers (who I believe formerly owned Miramax and now helm The Weinstein Company) are banking on Inglourious Basterds to come through for them big time. I think they really need IB to be a hit.
(Grindhouse would have never gotten made if the Weinsteins didn’t essentially let QT do whatever the hell he wanted to do, I don’t think.)
If that makes any sense at all. It just stands alone like that, as entertainment, not really as anything else.
No, I get what you’re saying. It’s definitely a touchstone of influence as far as modern, younger filmmakers go but it’s definitely entertainment.
Over at The House Next Door there was a great back & forth about Quentin and how cringe-inducing some scenes are, such as Butch’s cab ride. It feels like something out of Coffin Joe, and it looks as faux as Sin City. But you can’t stop watching it, even if you have Esmerelda Villa-Lobos’s lines memorized.
I have to go look this up. And yes, there are some fucking goddamn excruciating scenes Tarantino puts in movies. As much as I like Pulp Fiction, some of the heavy talky parts do wear thin on repeat viewings (Butch Willis’ girlfriend is usually just too unreal for my tastes). But yes, you hit it right on the head better than I did (as per usual). High five to Tommy!
I too enjoyed Death Proof- though I found the Jungle Julia scenes a bit tedious the first time.
I pretty much love Death Proof for two things: A) The beer all the actors are drinking is Shiner Bock, which I love that Tarantino included; B) the second group of girls. The first group of girls just make me want to drool on myself, Julia included, and they’re annoying. Gimme Zoe Bell any day!
PF is my 3rd favorite film of all time: hell, I named my first born after one of the main characters!
I thought of you and the baby when I was writing this! With a name like the one you gave her, she is going to be an awesome lady when she gets all grown up.
And that’s how I got see what is still to this day one of my favorite films. But Mom knows I’ve seen it now:)
Ha! I saw it on late night cable, myself, one night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s funny because when I look back on it, even eight year olds were hyperaware of Tarantino just because of that damn music. Maybe I should say hyperaware of the movie, not necessarily Tarantino.
Just like every time I hear El Mariachi, I think of his buddy Robert Rodriguez. Great way to kick things off before the IB release!
Thanks! And I’m about to do a Robert Rodriguez flick here (From Dusk ‘Till Dawn) since QT wrote it!
Awesome! I think Robert Rodriguez is way cool. Looking forward to it!