The Definitive Film of the '90s
Three five-year periods ago, Tarantino brazenly challenged the Cannes Film Festival and subsequently attempted to thoroughly rob the American Film Academy – though with limited success, only securing a consolation “Oscar” for Best Screenplay. However, who knows how things might have unfolded had Robert Zemeckis’ “Forrest Gump” not stood as an unyielding behemoth in the path of “Pulp Fiction.” Circumstances aligned such that labeling this self-taught director’s film a “new classic” was feasible within a month of its release; today, approaching this timeless piece feels almost daunting. A hit of hits, a cornerstone, an example for all.
Tarantino’s Masterpiece
Neither before nor after have postmodern collections of quotations possessed such air and life. Miraculously, “Pulp Fiction” transcended Tarantino’s concentrated desire to cherry-pick the best of the best. The twist and John Travolta, Vietnam and Christopher Walken, a gun and a sermon, boxing gloves and a chopper, banter and more banter. The scene where Butch (Bruce Willis), having escaped from perverts, contemplates how to deal with his tormentors – a hammer? a baseball bat? a chainsaw? a samurai sword! – is indicative of this. Tarantino’s breadth of possibilities is mesmerizing. Therefore, “Pulp Fiction” is not a stale collection of cinematic curiosities but the very meat of cinema, flesh torn and stitched together for a new life. Pulp. Dramaturgically sorted, “Pulp Fiction” operates according to the laws of a road movie.
A Journey Through Space and Time
From the roadside diner at the beginning to the same diner at the end – seemingly spinning like a top in place, this film nevertheless covers a gigantic path. An anecdote about a family of tomatoes and a cynical tale about Vietnamese veterans are sent into the territory of a religious parable about divine intervention. It is no coincidence that Butch rides out of the frame on a motorcycle nicknamed Grace. This is a journey through space and time. A mysterious briefcase belonging to Marsellus Wallace, the lucky hours of boxer Butch, and a cocaine dose snorted by the brunette Mia embark on a long journey.
The main events of the film unfold inside a car: someone’s death and someone’s escape from death, a dangerous romantic date, a conversation about French hamburgers. It doesn’t matter whether this car is traveling from point A to point B or is parked at a diner where Marilyn Monroe serves a milkshake. It doesn’t matter whether it is literally splattered with someone else’s brains or figuratively. Three stories, Aristotelianly captured by the unity of time and place, do not flow into one another (two days in the lives of shooters Vince and Jules) but live a simultaneous life in a single enclosed space, coexisting in the volume of the history of cinema.
Connections and Influences
Interestingly, but terribly logical, that in Cannes, “Pulp Fiction” was preferred, among other things, to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Red,” who, like Tarantino, insisted that everything is connected. But Kieślowski was talking about the connections of the big world. Tarantino took it much narrower, and it turned out more truthful. Knowing that the ideal movement is circular and aimless, Tarantino, like a furry bumblebee, flies around his cinematic lands from one delicious flower to another: Godard, samurai, Hitchcockian MacGuffins, boxers, big guns, the best music of the 70s, gangsters in white shirts. The physics of this flight is not fully understood by science, but what are physical laws to the children of the video store? Perhaps in fifty years, some reader will ask: who is this Tarantino anyway?
The answer to this question is also in the film. He is a thrifty householder in a shabby dressing gown with a mug of fragrant Americano in his hand. He is the one who knows what rags can be found in the garage if you dig well. He can haggle for a long time with Harvey Keitel over a blanket given as a wedding gift – because every thing in this household is in its place. Yes, and it would be nice to furnish the bedroom with oak furniture.