Themes in Pulp Fiction

 *Contains spoilers*

After finally watching the legendary Pulp Fiction today, I must conclude that it's now pretty high up on my "favourite films" list.

Not only is the film absolutely studded with stars but an unusual narrative method (typical of Tarantino), intriguing characters and really great dialogue makes the film an absolute pleasure to watch.

I've noticed films I like the most tend to be unorthodox and genre-busting. Pulp Fiction certainly fits those labels. It really is impossible to categorise - one minute you'll think you're watching a black comedy, then the next scene cranks up the tension like a spot-on Thriller. Then suddenly you'll be hit with the comedy again. While you're still laughing, something happens to knock the wind out of you and make you think a bit. Then you're laughing again.

Like the cheap stories from which it takes it's name, it's crammed with tales from beginning to end that can change tempo like this in the blink of an eye. It's like a whole bunch of narratives were taken and then linked beautifully using the same characters. I think the title is less a direct reference to those "trashy" paperbacks and more a hinting of the strange grittiness attached to the story.

While undoubtedly violent (and definitely heavy on the cursing), the film seems to use these two assets to full effect rather than throwing them around for the hell of it.

The film felt very noir-esque in parts, with dialogue so dramatic it bordered deliciously on being surreal. It defies the noir label though, and is instead an altogether different beast. Noir is merely one style it wears like an item of clothing and casts off when suited.

I found the film to both be immensely sad (in the specific case of one character), and yet uplifting as a net emotional effect. The themes only really hit you when you sit back and think about what you just watched.

It's definitely structured for this retrospective effect, which I think is a great credit to Tarantino's abilities. Shot in non-chronological order, you will struggle to remember what happened exactly when even after watching - then you want to watch again to confirm whether your ideas and theories on the meaning of the film are correct.

*Spoilers from this point on*

Now that I think about, the central core of Pulp Fiction lies in the revalations that each character throughout the movie experiences about themselves. These shining moments of clarity (or lack thereof) both control the characters' fates and define their personalities.

Jules

Take Jules, the most obvious example. He starts out as a hitman capable of pondering such details as what burgers are named in France, but is apparently oblivious to the horrific nature of the murders he commits. The irony to his life and what is actually important in it seems to dawn on him slowly as the film progresses.

His spiritual awakening is crowned in his final last glorious moment in the diner. I think Jackson deserved an Oscar for his performance here, nomination be damned. His delivery of that speech ("You are the weak. And I am the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin'...I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.") seems to suddenly bring the chaotic shifting of the film to a grinding halt. Balance is restored with Travolta's Vincent Vegas character giving a quick laugh before the credits, but the haunting quality of that dialogue and the piercing look in Jackson's eyes stays with us.

Jules' introspection not only seems to give him a new reason to exist, but it also gives the film it's reason to exist.

However, this soul-searching is not limited only to Jules. Look at Bruce Willis' character, Butch.

Butch

Butch starts the film apparently morally corrupt - he visits Jules and Vincent's mob boss Marsellus (Ving Rhames) in order to throw his next boxing match for money.

However, he then fights the match anyway and wins, accidentally killing the other man in the process. Having craftily bet on himself, he gets the money for both throwing the fight and winning it, tremendously pissing off Marsellus. When informed of the man's death, Butch apparently doesn't care.

His crowning moment of change comes when later trapped in the lair of some demented rapists. Having freed himself, his enemy Marsellus is still trapped and is being horribly violated off camera.

Butch pauses at the door, his freedom in front of him, and we see in his eyes that he is having his "Jules" moment. Now comes the deciding factor, the decision on what he will be for the rest of his life. He sees past his grievance with Marsellus and redeems himself by returning to save him from a greater, pervading evil.

Jules goes from shouting his Biblical reference and then executing someone coldly to reciting it remoresefully and almost sorrowfully in his last scene.

Similarly, Butch's unpleasant attitude is gone when he last speaks to his girlfriend. The rage is gone from his demands and he no longer seems tortured. Even from the sound of his voice we can hear that perhaps he has learned something more important to him than all that money

Vincent and Mia.

Lastly there is Vincent and Marsellus' wife Mia (Uma Thurman), easily the two most tragic characters in the film.

Vincent is effectively Jules if he had never had his realisation. He is incapable of seeing the greater meaning to his life - or rather he seems to, but shuts himself out from it.

Vincent is in a bathroom at 3 very signifcant times:

- During the beginning of the holdup of the diner.

- When at Mia's place before she overdoses on Heroin.

- At Butch's flat, waiting for him, when Butch instead surprises and kills him with his own gun.

All of these times, he is reading a cheap comic, with the camera panning significantly to it after his death.

There have been many interpretations of this, including a rather interesting feminist reading that can be seen on Wikipedia.

Personally, I haven't delved that deep into it, but I think the bathroom itself is a more simple metaphor for Vincent's isolation from the most important things that are happening all around him, just as he is isolated mentally from the most important things in life.

He chooses to go there and isolate himself almost unwittingly at crucial moments. While there, he engages himself in a trashy and cheap alternate reality. His life itself is exactly like what he is reading - ungrounded in reality and shallow, meaningless. Yet he does not realise.

He talks early in the film about the sensuous act of massaging a woman's feet, and yet we never see him in a relationship. The closest he gets is to Mia.

With Mia, we get the sense that they would be perfect for each other in a parallel dimension, which is partly what makes their last interaction strangely heartbreaking. After saving her from her OD, Vincent blows her a kiss (unseen by her) and then walks away alone.

When he is in the bathroom at her apartment, he convinces himself in the mirror to simply leave without getting any more intimate with her. The obvious explanation is he fears Marsellus' wrath, but more implicitly I believe he fears himself. He fears getting what he wants, because he doesn't understand it.

He loves Mia, but he can't even realise that. He just cannot get what he wants.

Ultimately, his same self-isolation and failure to comprehend life leads to his death at the hands of Butch. His existence is pointless and pathetic, just like the comic book, and the look of startled shock on his face before his demise tells us that that is his moment of clarity, sadly all too late.

Mia is hewn of the same material. She lives with Marsellus, but seems strangely troubled. She snorts coke like it's going out of fashion, her life similarly empty. She is at her happiest with Vincent, and yet is powerless to change her lonely destiny.

For a film apparently about the apathy and nihilism of modern culture and the sudden twists of fate that command life, Pulp Fiction has a strong undercurrent of the power of choosing one's own destiny that seems to belie all that came before.

That, I think, is the primary wonder of the film.