4/30/2023 0 Comments Quentin tarantino pulp fictionTarantino conveys the casual, almost indifferent approach that the film's criminal characters take to violence in scenes like Pumpkin and Honey Bunny's first argument, Jules's first murder in Brett's apartment, and Vincent's accidental slaying of Marvin. In the highly aestheticized universe of Pulp Fiction, violence is an everyday yet unpredictable phenomenon, often reflecting the fundamentally unforeseeable and surprising nature of life itself. Discussing the difference between pigs and dogs in the final scene, Jules tells Vincent, "Personality goes a long way," a statement that also reflects the film's consistent and unapologetic elevation of style over substance. Later in the film, Vincent's oafish, everyman qualities contrast with Winston Wolfe's curt, businesslike demeanor, suggesting the broad range of personalities that career criminals can inhabit. Vincent and Mia's dance scene at Jackrabbit Slim's serves little purpose other than being a vehicle for each of their styles as dancers and highlighting the personal chemistry between the two. Seemingly minor visual details like Jules's Jheri curl, Jody's piercings, and Lance's mounted high heel shoes lend each character a distinct personality, many of which reference stylistic touchstones from bygone eras. Tarantino, himself a master of stylization, imbues every character in Pulp Fiction with an inimitable and eclectic personal aesthetic. the mob boss, the corrupt boxer, the femme fatale) from bygone film genres about crime. In all these ways, Tarantino lends surprising moral dimensions to the "flat" stock characters (e.g. Despite being criminals, many characters still experience moments of moral clarity, such as when Butch decides to rescue Marsellus, or when Jules rethinks his life as a gangster. In addition to coolly performing executions and injecting hard drugs, the film's career criminals also bicker, whine, and make amateurish mistakes, undermining the hardboiled archetypes from which Tarantino draws their characterizations. Tarantino represents crime and criminals in a morally neutral and highly aestheticized fashion, emphasizing the combination of glamour, squalor, and banality that typifies their lives. Virtually every character in Pulp Fiction is implicated in some kind of criminal enterprise, whether as a perpetrator, an accomplice, or a witness. Significantly, Jules, who recognizes the act as a "miracle" and pledges to give up criminal life, survives the film, whereas Vincent, who refuses to acknowledge the "miracle," dies under extremely unlucky circumstances that Jules would also likely consider an act of "divine intervention." Morality Their disagreement suggests a larger debate about fate versus free will: whether mankind is subject to higher forces, or whether life's events unfold spontaneously and according to no particular plan. Vincent, on the other hand, believes that they were just lucky. Jules believes that they survived due to an act of "divine intervention," and tries to persuade Vincent that God has spared them for a reason. FateĪfter they are miraculously unharmed by a hail of bullets, Jules and Vincent have an extended philosophical argument over the nature of the universe. Through the theme of time and timing, especially bad timing, Tarantino forces his archetypal, "stock" characters to confront ludicrous and unpredictable situations. Unfortunate timing dooms many of the film's characters, such as Vincent, who chooses to use the bathroom at three separate points at unlucky moments, and Butch, who stops at an intersection at the exact moment his arch-nemesis Marsellus is crossing the street. As a result, the audience must deduce the order in which the events of the film take place. Tarantino intentionally disorients the audience by showing the events of the film out of order-most obviously, beginning with the final scene in the diner-without any subtitles or title cards to explain when the film is flashing forward and backward in time (with the notable, comic exception of the Wolf's arrival at Jimmie's, which takes place exactly "nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds later"). In the world of Pulp Fiction, timing is everything.
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