Pulp Fiction: A Monumental Piece Of Cinematic History

In my previous post, I wrote about why Léon The Professional is one of the greatest thrillers ever made. I said it was coincidental that Léon The Professional came out the same year as Pulp Fiction, because both films centered around hitmen who subverted the stereotypes of typical hitmen in conventional films.

Pulp Fiction is not a conventional film. Pulp Fiction is a film that's famous for becoming a huge success, despite breaking conventions.

Pulp Fiction has gotten so iconic to the point where you can't even find anything new to say about it. It's been studied, embraced, and imitated by inferior filmmakers since its release. Pulp Fiction is the first independent film to gross over $100 million in the United States, and it paved the way for other independent films like Boogie Nights and Trainspotting. Most of my favorite films were released in the '90s for this reason. I don't think there will be another decade that surpasses the great films of the '90s.

Never let this guy use your bathroom.

Pulp Fiction changed the way movies were written. Prior to the release of Pulp Fiction, most aspiring screenwriters either wrote an Eddie Murphy style comedy or a Shane Black style action film. They would study Syd Field's screenwriting books, so that they followed the conventions that studios wanted from spec scripts. Quentin Tarantino didn't do that, which actually made him struggle for several years. When he wrote True Romance, it took him five years to sell it. It was a difficult screenplay to sell because of the spelling mistakes, the non-linear structure, the long dialogue scenes, the large page count, and the unconventional characters it had. No studio wanted to buy it, and no investor was willing to give Tarantino a lot of money to make it himself. Don't assume that just because Quentin Tarantino's scripts have spelling mistakes that script readers don't care about spelling and grammar. Tarantino got rejected because of how much of a rule-breaker he was.

This has to be understood, because Pulp Fiction changed it all. Suddenly, people started imitating Quentin Tarantino, or wrote something similar. Quentin went from being what the studios rejected, to being what the studios desired. Pulp Fiction wasn't just a fluke either; Tarantino is still making films to this day, most of them being critically praised and financially successful. Death Proof is the only bad movie he's ever made.

I already stated in my review of Crash that breaking conventions means you're taking risks. Pulp Fiction takes a lot of risks that are similar to the risks taken in Crash: It doesn't have a main protagonist and tells several stories rather than just one. While Crash is notoriously hated among cinephiles, Pulp Fiction is beloved by most people in general. It's a film that wins "Artsy" awards like the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award yet appeals to anyone who likes great storytelling. Storytelling is the aspect I care about most in movies, and Quentin Tarantino is a truly phenomenal storyteller. He's seen so many movies that he usually knows where a story leads up to. Because of this, he knows how to take an unpredictable turn, which keeps the audience interested.

If you haven't seen this movie and don't know any plot spoilers, you could never guess what happens to this guy.

NOTE: I will be getting into spoilers right now, but then again, if you're reading this, you probably already saw it. If you haven't seen it yet, what the hell are you doing? Watch it now!

As the title implies, Pulp Fiction is heavily influenced by the pulp magazines and hard-boiled crime novels from the 1920s to the 1950s. Pulp Fiction takes the generic storylines that pulp magazines and hard-boiled novels usually have - the hitmen on an assignment, the hitman hired to go out with the boss' wife, the boxer who throws the match - and joins them all together. One of the best ways to make a great movie is to take a well-worn premise, and have a unique spin on it. Pulp Fiction is one of those movies. Not only does it take those generic storylines, but it also gives them a turning point that don't usually happen in these stories. In "The Bonnie Situation," it goes from being about Vincent and Jules completing an assignment, to being about the cleaning/disposal of a dead hostage that Vincent accidentally shot in the face. The other storylines also have a shift in direction, which diverts from the typical pulp magazine stories. The shift in direction is what makes Pulp Fiction so entertaining despite being 154 minutes long, because the stories take a direction that's different from what audiences are used to seeing.

Going back to my point about Crash, Crash was criticized for coming across as self-important. When you have to use themes to carry your story, you will inevitably be seen as pretentious. Pulp Fiction doesn't have as many characters and storylines as Crash does, and it has a much longer running time, which meant Pulp Fiction could develop its characters and let the viewer spend time with them without having to focus on other characters. For conventional movies, the average dialogue scene is two-three minutes long. In Pulp Fiction, there are dialogue scenes that go on for over ten minutes.

If Pulp Fiction was a sequel to The Deer Hunter, The Deer Hunter would be significantly improved because of this scene.

Pulp Fiction needed a beginning and ending that tied all the storylines together. In conventional films with a main protagonist, the ending is usually when the main protagonist finally gets what he wants, or solves whatever problem he had to face throughout the film. Pulp Fiction has multiple characters with their own storylines, which makes it harder to end the movie. Pulp Fiction needed a reason to have a non-linear structure, and the way it begins and ends at the diner is what makes the film feel connected. It's so ironic that Vincent Vega dies in the middle of the film, yet he's alive at the end. Technically, the film begins in the middle, and ends in the middle, in the same scene and time. If that's not genius, I don't know what is.

Some people criticize Quentin Tarantino because he borrows a lot from other movies. Some people are stupid enough to call Quentin Tarantino a hack, which he is far from. The thing with Tarantino is, he's able to take the styles and techniques of other films, and make his own film stand out. His greatest influences are Brian De Palma, Sergio Leone, and Howard Hawks. If you watch their movies, you'll see that there are similarities, but overall, Quentin Tarantino's style is his own. Good artists borrow, great artists steal. With the wealth of knowledge that Tarantino has, Tarantino can steal so much from so many different films that his own films are unique. If he was really a hack, his career would have ended ages ago, like Michael Cimino's.

Pulp Fiction is a flawless work of genius, with only one minor flaw: Pulp Fiction has a lot of scenes where they fade to black, then fade in. There were parts where I thought it would be better if they cut to black instead of fade to black, but this is only a minor personal complaint which doesn't affect my rating for Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction doesn't need sentimentality, important themes or "Save The Cat" moments to be good. It's a film about nothing that successfully changed everything, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

10/10