It's hard to overstate was a huge deal Pulp Fiction was back in the day. A massive hit, critically and commercially, it was the perfect storm of writer/director Quentin Tarantino's quirky sensibilities and far-flung influences, combined into a crazy mélange of bizarre storytelling and knock-out performances that may well be one of the most unlikely hits ever.
You may recall me detailing my going to see True Romance with a friend to a near-empty theatre and odd looks from our friends and family. At first, it seemed like Pulp Fiction was going to be more of the same. The first time we saw it, there was only a slightly bigger crowd, what with Reservoir Dogs and True Romance only starting to gain traction with a cult audience. (Both would get plenty more attention after Pulp Fiction hit it big.)
Granted, this one had a more marquee name cast than QT's other films, but only in retrospect. None of them had done anything of much note at the time: John Travolta hadn't had a hit in years, and had been reduced to doing a series of "talking" baby movies (the Look Who's Talking series)- he was a last-minute replacement brought in after proposed star Michael Madsen had to bow out after a prior commitment to co-star in the Western Wyatt Earp (which he came to heavily regret); and Bruce Willis, though a huge international star, was coming off a series of flops (including the much-derided Hudson Hawk and Bonfire of the Vanities).
Meanwhile, Uma Thurman was an "It Girl" that had long been looking to land a proper hit and had yet to really land one (though I dug Mad Dog & Glory, Jennifer 8 & Final Analysis); and Samuel L. Jackson was a critically-acclaimed actor better-known for bit parts in big movies (Jurassic Park, Patriot Games, most of Spike Lee's early output) than for being a leading man.
But the word of mouth was strong on this one, and this time around, the second time I saw it, something astonishing happened- the crowd got it, finally. There are only a few movies I can distinctly remember seeing at the theatres- I see so many movies, they all kind of blur together. But there was no denying this was something special, and mind you, like I said, this was the second time I'd seen the film.
Of course, there's a lot to take in with the movie- it's tailor made to be the kind of film that rewards multiple viewings. But I've got to say, seeing this for the second time was one of the best experiences I've ever had in a theatre. The place was jam-packed, where it had only been half-filled at best before, and there was an undeniable sense of anticipation in the air.
By this time, word had gotten around that Pulp Fiction was something special, and mind you, this was before the internet was really a thing- it wouldn't take off in earnest until the following year- so when I say word of mouth, I mean that in the truest sense of the term. As in the film had legitimately gotten people talking about it.
Whatever the case, the crowd was all over the place, in terms of who was in attendance, with people that clearly wouldn't have normally touched a film like this with a ten-foot-pole showing up to see what all the fuss was about. We're talking an older, decidedly un-hip crowd that had maybe shown up because of the Bruce Willis/John Travolta factor, not knowing just what they were getting into.
Lest we forget, this was a film in which the two main leads were hit men for a gangster crime lord, one of which was a heroin addict; and the female lead was a white, heavy coke- user married to said black crime lord, at a time in which interracial relationships were still raising eyebrows. Granted, the two never say as much as one word to one another, so it's not like it was particularly emphasized, but still.
One of the big plot twists involved forced sodomy and others revolved around an accidental killing and an accidental overdose. The film also features the writer/director himself playing a character that drops the "N"-word left and right, at a time when such things were pretty unheard of- not that they're necessarily acceptable now, but it was certainly more of a hot button issue then, with director Spike Lee among those raising an eyebrow about it.
(The two would eventually become friends, with Lee casting QT as a sleazy director in his Girl 6, but then have a falling out again, as Lee continued to call out Tarantino for his use of the word, time and again, notably with Django Unchained, which he also accused QT of exploiting slavery with.)
Anyway, it was not exactly typical mainstream fare, then or now. But Pulp Fiction was so alive, so crackling with life that it was near-infectious. Rarely before and not much since have I seen a movie in which the director so completely had the audience in the palm of his hand. Basically, just Spielberg and Tarantino's best stuff, and perhaps Scream, another film that got a cool reception at first, before word of mouth made it an unqualified hit, as well as the more recent Get Out.
In the scene in which Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace OD's after mistaking heroin for coke, for instance, you could virtually hear a pin drop after Travolta's Vincent Vega slammed that hypodermic needle into her ribcage. Then a near-collective gasp of relief and surprise when she sprung out of it after the burst of adrenaline to her system. It was one of the most indelible moments in cinematic history I've ever witnessed, and like I said, it was the second time I'd seen the film, so I knew it was coming. But damned if I wasn't swept into the moment right there along with the audience.
Just like that scene, Tarantino brought a burst of adrenaline to the box office at a time in which it really needed it. Remakes and sequels were all the rage, and most of them were crap. The only really worthy hits were the aforementioned Jurassic Park, another memorable movie-going experience I remember vividly, and maybe Disney's Aladdin. The rest were pretty pedestrian, at best. But Pulp Fiction changed all that.
Granted, the biggest thing it did was to open up the movies to more left-of-center experiences, but that proved to be a great thing, resulting in some of the best movies of the decade, including Casino, Clockers, Dead Presidents, Get Shorty, Heat, Kids, The Usual Suspects, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, L.A. Confidential, Memento, Seven and Trainspotting. The one thing these movies had all in common was a gritty approach to challenging material, often featuring leading characters that weren't exactly choirboys or girls.
Basically, Tarantino cleared the way for the antiheroes to take center stage, and made it all look effortless in the process. But, as many of his imitators would learn the hard way, it wasn't just filling the screen with ultra-violence and pop-culture-laden dialogue that made QT's films so successful. There was an artfulness to it that escaped a lot of the also-rans, the direct result of QT having been raised just as much on high-brow arthouse fare as he was on good, old-fashioned drive-in movie exploitation.
The reason his imitators mostly fell flat wasn't because they'd seen those movies, too- it was because they hadn't seen them in the first place. They were doing imitations of an imitation. But, as all QT fans know, there's more to his work than simply regurgitating old movies he loved growing up. That's only part of the equation, and rarely has anyone truly nailed the formula in its entirety.
Another clever part of the process was QT's ongoing habit of telling stories in a non-linear fashion. This aspect of his approach particularly rubbed a lot of Hollywood suit types the wrong way, with Tony Scott jettisoning it altogether for his take on Tarantino's True Romance and more than a few producers refusing to work with Tarantino unless he stopped doing it.
Production company TriStar, who very nearly bought the rights to it, ultimately turned it down because they didn't "get it," with one executive noting that it "didn't make sense," because characters that were dead in one scene cropped back up like it never happened in the next, thus showing that they didn't pay attention to what was happening in the script. (They weren't the only ones, as I had to explain it to some people afterwards.)
Even Miramax, who ended up completely financing the film, had doubts about some of the casting, such as Travolta- the Weinsteins wanted Daniel Day-Lewis for the role- and Uma Thurman- they wanted Meg Ryan or Holly Hunter. As a safe-guard, they sold the international rights in advance of the film's release, based on the involvement of Bruce Willis, the film's biggest star, for $11 million, thus breaking even on the $8 million film even before it hit theatres.
In addition, the actors worked for scale- Travolta reportedly got only about $100,000-$150,000 for his work- with Willis working mostly for gross percentage points on the back end, which paid off nicely when the film became an international hit, grossing some $213 million at the box office.
It also gave all the principals concerned some real juice in Hollywood, completely resurrecting Travolta's career, and boosting Jackson's considerably, paving the way for his becoming the actor with the highest-grossing film career of all-time, at least at the time of this writing. Interestingly, Jackson almost lost out on the role, due to the by-all-reports excellent audition given by co-star Paul Calderón.
When he heard this, he flew to LA on his own dime to audition a second time, and blew everyone so completely out of the water that he secured the role. Ultimately, Calderón had to settle for a bit part as the bartender at Marsellus Wallace's bar, but he went on to a decent enough career, with roles in films like Clockers, Cop Land, Girlfight, 21 Grams and the TV shows Bosch and Fear the Walking Dead.
Other notable actors in the film include recurring QT faves Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi (all in Reservoir Dogs) and Christopher Walken (in True Romance), plus newcomers to the fold, Rosanna Arquette (whose sister, Patricia, was the lead in Romance), Amanda Plummer (recommended by Roth, who introduced her to QT, saying he wanted to star with her in a movie involving her wielding a big gun- obviously he got his wish) and Ving Rhames (who went on to huge success with the Mission Impossible franchise).
There's also Portuguese actress Maria de Medeiros (who QT met while touring Europe with Dogs and had previously starred with Thurman in the sexy Henry & June), Frank Whaley (The Doors), Irish singer Bronagh Gallagher as the stoner girl at Stoltz' drug dealer's house (she wore a Frames t-shirt as a shout-out to the band- whose lead singer, Glen Hansard, you might know from the film Once- the two co-starred in The Commitments together) and the sultry Angela Jones, as the mysterious cab driver obsessed with death, who caught QT's eye in the short Curdled, which the filmmakers later expanded into a feature film with Tarantino's help. (She's basically playing the same character here.)
Finally, there's the unholy trinity that is chopper-driving cop Zed (Peter Greene, The Mask, The Usual Suspects), his brother and pawn shop owner Maynard (Duane Whitaker, Feast, From Dusk Til Dawn 2) and the notorious "Gimp" (Stephen Hibbert, Austin Powers, National Treasure).
Fun fact: Hibbert, a comedy writer, was then married to co-star Julia Sweeney, of SNL fame- she was the gender-ambiguous Pat, of "It's Pat" fame (that's her in the pic above, reunited with Keitel), and here plays the junkyard owner's daughter that the Wolf goes to breakfast with after taking care of business. (Character actor Dick Miller played her father, but his scene was cut.)
Also, if you look closely, the redhead talking to Wallace after his being ran down by Butch is none other than controversial stand-up Kathy Griffin, and that's renown voice-over actor and comedian Phil LaMarr (MADtv, Futurama) as the ill-fated Marvin, who accidentally gets shot in the face by Travolta's character.
The guy who very nearly shoots and kills Vincent and Jules is yet another Arquette, Alexis (previously Robert), making her the third member of the family QT has worked with in one way or another; and if you look closely in the diner scene, that's producer Lawrence Bender as the "long-haired yuppie scum," who was initially going to be killed in a shoot-out when the robbery went sideways before QT changed the script.
Speaking of which, this script was yet another derived from the massive 500-page script that encompassed True Romance and Natural Born Killers that I detailed in my reviews of those films. In that script, co-writer Roger Avary had come up with the ideas of someone accidentally getting shot in the back of a car and the intense need for a clean-up afterwards and the gunman that wildly fires at someone point-blank and somehow misses, which were both incorporated here. Avary also came up with a lot of the "Gold Watch" storyline.
Originally, the movie was going to be an anthology flick in the vein of the Bava classic Black Sabbath (also the source of the band's name), with three stories interlocking. One would be QT's, the second Avary's and the other another as yet undecided upon director, but this approach was abandoned earlier on, and QT's segment became Reservoir Dogs and Avary's the "Gold Watch" segment.
Once Tarantino came up with his idea of a series of vignettes involving two hit men working for a local gangster and the escapades they got into, he somehow persuaded Avary to take a "story by" credit only, with QT taking sole credit for the screenplay, in spite of Avary's pretty significant contributions. Be that as it may, Avary did get to take the stage and share the Oscar win for Best Screenplay for the following year's Academy Awards, so that doesn't suck.
Part of the trade-off was Tarantino executive-producing Avary's directorial debut, Killing Zoe, which he went right into filming around the same time as this film. While not as successful as Pulp, it did receive its fair share of accolades in its own right (including a Cannes win the same year as Pulp) and is well worth seeing, featuring a solid turn by Pulp co-star Eric Stoltz.
Avary went on to some modest successes, including directing the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction, writing Silent Hill and Beowulf and executive-producing the fun cult flick Boogie Boy, though he never quite scaled the heights of Pulp Fiction again, sadly.
Part of that was due to a falling out with Tarantino (for allegedly not giving him enough credit for his various contributions to his work over the years- the two have since reconciled, reportedly- you can read more about it here), along with a later vehicular manslaughter charge that landed him in jail for a spell, neither of which did great things for his career, for obvious reasons. He's currently in the process of trying to get the Y/A adaptation Unwind made, which you can read more about here.
To be sure, one of the film's greatest strengths is the script, but it's also readily apparent that the writing style in the movie is all Tarantino, as evidenced by watching the film and Avary's Killing Zoe back to back. There are similarities, to be sure, but QT's dialogue is very much his own and very distinctive, not to mention, it's been pretty consistent over his entire career.
That said, the actual "Gold Watch" bit, as delivered by Christopher Walken is memorable, and I don't think any of us who grew up with the film will soon forget the absolutely bonkers, Deliverance-inspired bit at the pawn shop anytime soon. I'm not sure exactly how much of what is Avary's doing, but the film certainly wouldn't be the same without it.
It's also worth mentioning that, as much as I like those bits, the ones with the cab driver and Butch and his whiny girlfriend are not my favorites and I'd be willing to bet that they were more Tarantino's than Avary's doings. Actually, I know the Esmeralda bit is QT, as he's gone on record as saying her role was inspired by her similar role in the Curdled short, so we can definitely chalk that up to the writer.
That part is somewhat tolerable, as Jones is really sexy and quirky, but it does go on a bit longer than it should, and that, mind you, is the edited-down version, as the extended one is on the Deluxe Edition as one of the deleted scenes. On its own, it plays okay, but in the movie, it drags a bit.
But regardless of that, I want to fast-forward the Butch and Fabienne stuff every time. It's a blemish on an otherwise damn near perfect film, IMHO, and I'm almost positive it's QT's stuff all the way. It makes the Butch character pretty unlikable and hard-to-root for, and borders on misogynistic, which is weird for Tarantino, who usually favors strong female characters, obviously.
Fabienne, though, is just this side of annoying, and though she doesn't really deserve Butch's outburst- it was an honest mistake- when I'm watching it, all I can think is, let's get past all this shit so we can get to the good stuff. I did realize that she was trying to tell Butch she was pregnant, with all that "pot belly" talk, which I never picked up on before. I do like her delivery of the final lines, though: "Whose motorcycle is this?" "It's a chopper, baby." "Whose chopper is this?" "It's Zed's." "Who's Zed?" "Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."
Incidentally, chronologically, those are the last words in the film, technically, as the events of the bulk of "The Gold Watch" (save the prologue) take place entirely after the ones at the beginning and end of the film. Also, in case you didn't know, QT confirmed that it was Butch that keyed Vincent's car, after their confrontation at the bar, the incident that Vincent complains about to his drug dealer. Of course, Butch ultimately ended Vincent's life later on, adding insult to injury, as it were.
This was another aspect of the film that I noticed the audience, at the second screening I attended, react to in an audible way- after Travolta's character is killed, people were upset, especially women. (Cue the "awws," a la that infamous NBK scene.) But when he was "revived" in the next segment, everyone was audibly enthused about his resurrection- a clever bit of business on QT's part, who had to know that some people wouldn't like that.
Fun fact: you can hear Zed's chopper's motor rev up, if you listen close at the beginning of the film, thus signaling early on that the film will circle back around to the beginning later on. Contrary to what some think, it doesn't mean that Butch is passing by the diner at that moment, as, if he were, Vincent Vega would already be dead. Rather, it's a clever bit of foreshadowing to what's to come.
Note also how many times something drastic happens when someone goes to the bathroom. In the final segment, it's the guy hiding in the bathroom that springs out and shoots at Vincent and Jules, thus changing Jules' trajectory in life as a direct result, albeit not Vincent's- but he pays the price for his dismissiveness later on. Meanwhile, it's Vincent's trip to the bathroom in the diner that brings things to a head- and later gets him killed at Butch's.
Some have noted that heroin causes constipation, so you could also point to that (heroin) as something that nearly ends Vincent's life prematurely when it nearly kills Mia, as her husband presumably wouldn't be too thrilled by that development. And where was Vincent when that happened? Stalling in the bathroom, as it were, trying to talk himself out of doing something he'd regret, which leads to something he absolutely does regret, anyway.
He dodges that bullet, figuratively, but not the literal ones that get him on the other end of his last bathroom sojourn, chronologically, so you could say that heroin got the best of him in the end, if you see things that way. Fun fact: the book Vincent is reading, Modesty Blaise, is a favorite of QT's, and he would later executive produce a remake of it in 2003- though the 1966 version, featuring the legendary Monica Vitti in the titular role, is a lot of fun, too.
It's this kind of attention to detail that makes the film a cut above the rest, though it's not without the occasional goof. (The IMDb list is endless and a little ridiculous.) But overall, it's remarkably well-plotted, and in a way that really lends itself well to multiple viewings, which I love. To me, that's the trademark of a truly great film, if you can watch it again and again and still catch new things.
Another example: if you look closely at the scene in the pawn shop, before Butch is looking for a weapon to rescue Wallace with, you can see the burnt-out lights on the sign, which make it read "Kill Ed." Add to it the letter "Z" on the keychain Butch grabs and it subliminally spells out "Kill Zed," thus signaling that Butch is going to do the right thing.
It could also be seen as a foreshadowing of Kill Bill, I suppose, but I doubt QT had conceived of that as of yet, at the time. Although Mia's failed pilot, Fox Force Five, is in the ballpark, so maybe it was already coalescing in his mind- you never know. Still, a cool coincidence, considering!
The film is full of stuff like that, if you pay close attention, as is Reservoir Dogs (I forgot to mention the whole color-coded signaling all over that film, which correspond to the colors assigned to each of the main characters). It shows how much QT invests in making his films reward re-watching on down the line.
Though, occasionally, it can result in some silly theories, such as the one which has Wallace's soul in the famed briefcase. (If that were true, how would anyone who looks at it know that, as "Pumpkin" does when he sees what's inside?) In actuality, it was just a sort of homage to a similar bit in the movie Kiss Me Deadly, or, as QT put it himself, a "MacGuffin."
But who cares? Stuff like that is part of the fun. Also great fun is the landmark soundtrack, which forever changed the landscape of film soundtracks. After that, it became de rigueur to have dialogue from a film incorporated into the soundtrack, for better or worse. It also single-handedly resurrected obscure surf music, with Dick Dale's "Miserlou" later used in everything from rap songs (listen here and here) to TV commercials.
Ditto the careers of soul crooner Al Green ("Let's Stay Together") and funkateers Kool & The Gang ("Jungle Boogie"), whose sales received a big uptick in light of the film's success and saw them go back on tour to take advantage of the renewed interest, as well as release new retrospective career collections to cash in, and more power to them. I certainly was among those who bought said collections, and I later got into some of their deeper cuts as a direct result of this film, as well as my love of old-school rap, which have sampled the two extensively.
The soundtrack was later re-released, complete with an expanded song list, including more material from the film- though sadly still not everything. I've since made a playlist with pretty much everything, save the diner music that isn't "Ole, Ole" and the cover of the Ricky Nelson song, for which I substituted the original.
The DVD was re-released as well, with an additional disc of supplemental material, (also featured, later on, on the Blu-Ray release), including deleted scenes, a making of, and more. No commentary from QT or anyone else, alas- though the Deluxe Edition has a feature that oddly allows one to make their own!
Perhaps needless to say, the movie is essential viewing for any serious student of film, and is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best films of the 90's, and roundly makes the list for one of the best films of all-time. I don't know that it's my favorite QT film- we'll see, as I make my way through the rest of his catalog, watching certain films for the first time in a long time- but it's up there, at the very least, and certainly what should be the "gateway drug," if you will, to those just getting acquainted with his work.
It's also nice to see that it hasn't aged poorly, in spite of being ripped off so many times by so many people. It still plays like gangbusters, and it has a great, musical flow, like listening to an album in its entirety that you know backwards and forwards.
It may have lost some of its ability to shock at this point, but it's still a great, fun watch, and I certainly recommend it to everyone that hasn't seen it, though I can't imagine that anyone not having seen it would be reading this otherwise. (Do you also listen to commentaries before seeing the film, lol?)
Join me next time for a few more also-rans, like QT's first quick dip into commercial TV, his ER episode, "Motherhood," and his segment of the underrated anthology film, Four Rooms.
Next week, I'll also be covering his first major collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez (RR also directed a few scenes in Pulp Fiction- specifically the ones with QT acting, as he was busy doing that at the time), the oddball crime/horror mash-up From Dusk Till Dawn, which has had a surprisingly long shelf life- more on that later. See you then, and thanks for reading! 😍
No comments:
Post a Comment