Pulp Fiction
Dir: Quentin Tarantino
1994
*****
Columbia Tristar
turned down Pulp Fiction describing it as ‘Too demented’. It’s shocking to
think that a big film production company wouldn’t at least recognise Quentin
Tarantino’s now-modern classic as something a little different and exciting,
but then QT is still asked about violence in his movie to this day by
mind-numbingly empty-headed interviewers, and films with
non-linear narratives are still only made by independent film makers. I
had mixed feelings about Pulp Fiction when it first came out. I was in the
glorious early years of becoming a cinephile, discovering a whole world that I
did not know existed, spending most of my afternoons with Louis Malle, Yasujiro
Ozu and Aki Kaurismaki. I saw QT as nothing more than a copycat, someone who
had spent an awful lot of time working in a video store, who had sucked in
about as much as he could and spat it all out on celluloid. In many ways this
is exactly what QT is, but, what I didn’t ever appreciate back in 1994 was just
how well he had put these ideas together. I remember thinking the chatty
dialogue was stupid, the emperor’s new clothes and really nothing special but
the truth was he brought the ordinary into the mainstream. Most modern scripts
are still a couple of decades behind Pulp Fiction, the truth is, like many, I
was incredibly jealous that I hadn’t had come up with the idea first. It’s
simple but brilliant. The sceptic in me desperately wants to say that this was
an attempt at capturing the essence of cool, but the truth is it is cool in its
own right. I don’t think QT is ‘cool’ as such but he knows how to conjure it,
and his cast (who are cool) generate it with ease. I think every actor that has
worked with QT since Pulp Fiction has tried to emulate the characters within it
– a little too much in certain cases, indeed, Pulp Fiction will always be his
signature film, but after all this time I’ve grown to appreciate that, rather
than be put off by it. I have always been critical of QT and of Pulp Fiction
but the truth is it’s an incredibly watchable film, over twenty years later and
I can still watch it and get goosebumps. Don’t tell the police, but it was the
first film I saw in the cinema that I was underage for. I remember being on the
edge of my seat for a good part of the movie, not only because I had no idea
what to expect – knowing many of the scenes were said to be ultra-violent, but
also because I was expecting to be kicked out at any minute. I wasn’t kicked
out and it really wasn’t that violent. In fact, there really is hardly any
violence at all, no more than your average horror or action film. It’s one of
those films that has received all the wrong kinds of hype, even to this day.
It’s constantly misunderstood, mis-sold and spoken of like no one has ever seen
it. Serendipity has been very kind to QT but then one could say he planted the
seed, he may not have known what the flower would be come, but he knew it would
grow. The opening credits begins with a dictionary definition of Pulp Fiction
and still people muse over what it is about, like it isn’t self-explanatory.
QT’s extensive use of pastiche and homage make it something of a postmodern
noir masterpiece that, for better and for worse, opened the floodgates to more
creative independent filmmakers. I don’t think you can really deny the impact
Pulp Fiction had on modern cinema, it was a game-changer for sure and whether
you love it or hate it, it pushed boundaries that were long overdue a push. QT
clearly loves other directors who left little bits of themselves in them,
indeed, you know all of his films are influenced by others and are, in some
cases, carbon copies of other ideas, but there is always something from the man
himself. Whether it is a tie in from one of his other films or reference to
something from his own ‘universe’, you know a QT film, his signature was
established from the outset and you can deny him that creative brilliance just
because it’s simple. Seven interweaving stories involving the same characters
over the course of a few days, all very simple but all totally unpredictable.
The initial concept of the film is fascinating. Roger Avery wrote the rough
first draft of what Pulp Fiction would become in 1990. He and QT came up with
an idea for a short that quickly turned into a trilogy. Initially, they were
going to write a three-part horror anthology; QT and Avery project was named
Black Mask after the popular crime fiction magazine and featured an initial
idea from QT, a following one from Avery and a third collaboration would
follow. QT’s idea ended up becoming Reservoir Dogs and Avery’s ‘Pandemonium
Reigns’ would form the ‘Gold watch’ sequence of Pulp Fiction. Everything
changed after Reservoir Dogs, QT still wanted to make a trilogy but in the end
the he decided that it would be better to tell different stories within one film.
In his own words; “I got the idea of doing something that novelists get a
chance to do but filmmakers don’t: telling three separate stories, having
characters float in and out with different weights depending on the story. Part
of the trick is to take these movie characters, these genre characters and
these genre situations and actually apply them to some of real life’s rules and
see how they unravel.” Two scenes in Pulp Fiction were written by Avery for the
True Romance screenplay but were left out of the film. QT knew who he wanted to
cast and pretty much got his way. He launched and relaunched the careers of
many actors and put together and satisfyingly eclectic cast. John Travolta was
a surprise choice for everyone. The producers wanted Daniel Day-Lewis, other
names put forward included Alec Baldwin, Gary Oldman, Sean Penn, Dennis Quaid
and just about every other bankable leading actor popular that year. It was
written with Michael Madsen in mind and was offered to him but he turned it
down to star in Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp – a decision he has expressed regret
over ever since. It turned out to be the character of his career (Saturday
Night Fever fans may disagree) and it is now impossible to see anyone else in
the role. He was very neatly suggested as the brother of Madsen’s character
from Reservoir Dogs and a film starring both was touted but alas, it never was.
Likewise, the character Jules was very nearly Michael Beach – who was said to
be very good, but it is impossible to think of anyone other than Samuel L.
Jackson in the role. Johnny Depp or Christian Slater nearly played Pumpkin
instead of Tim Roth and they could have played opposite either Patricia
Arquette, Jennifer Jason Leigh or Marisa Tomei as Honey Bunny instead of Amanda
Plummer. I like them all but in all honesty having Clarence and Alabama from
True Romance starring opposite each other as different characters probably
wouldn’t have worked as well as one might think. Depp was also considered for
the character Butch along with Matt Dillon and Nicolas Cage. The mind boggles
as to how either of those would have worked out. Harvey Keitel was always
Winston Wolf but there was talk of Al Pacino and Michael Parks taking on the
role should he become unavailable. QT himself was thinking of playing Lance
instead of Jimmy but decided he’s be better off behind the camera for the
overdose scene, and while John Cusack and Bill Paxton were considered (as well
as Depp, Cage and Slater), Eric Stoltz rightly got the part. Mia Wallace was
the part everyone wanted, I’ll be honest and say that Marisa Tomei, Patricia
Arquette, Pam Grier, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright and Meg Tilly would have all
been great – Uma Thurman made the role her own, but it’s not a performance that
I’ve always loved. According to QC, Jennfer Aniston came very close to getting
the part but I find that hard to imagine. I love Carl Weathers, Sid Haig, Jim
Brown and Charles S. Dutton but Ving Rhames is Marcellus Wallace, just as
Christopher Walken was Captain Koons over Robert De Niro, Michael Parks and
Tommy Lee Jones. As much as I love him, Bruce Campbell would have been
completely wrong for Maynard. Courtney Love once said that QT approached her
late husband Kurt Cobain to play Lance but he denied it, saying he never once
met or spoke to Cobain before his death in 93. QT has said that friend and
fellow Reservoir Dog Steve Buscemi was due to star as one of the main
characters but ended up with a cameo due to time conflicts with another movie.
What his role would have been remains a mystery. Pulp Fiction could have ended
up as a very different type of film, I think they mostly got it right but I
also think they got lucky. So much of the film is mused over, it has become
something beyond cult and beyond mainstream. It is clear that the briefcase is
full of ‘treasure’, whether it be money, drugs or gold, it doesn’t really
matter, and yet nerds and cinephiles still argue about what it could mean. This
is the side of Pulp Fiction that has always put me off. It’s a very simple
exercise in symbolism, it’s relatively unimportant, quite a nice touch
visually, but unimportant all the same. Uma Thurman draws a square on the
screen for goodness sake, and besides, it’s actually copied from 1955’s Kiss Me
Deadly. Cinephiles will see the influences, and it is something of a sport to
try and spot them all, but when the average viewer thinks it’s 100% original,
well, that’s when I hate QT films. However, I still consider him something of a
genius. He has been described as a cinematic kleptomaniac, and I’ll go along
with that. He’s picked the fruit from other people’s trees, he didn’t grow his
own tomatoes but he’s one hell of a chief. You can wax lyrical about the
contents of his films all day long and there are more fan theories to Pulp
Fiction than any other non-science fiction film. These theories range from
profound to utterly ridiculous – personally, I just like how QT suggests just
how terrible things can become from taking overlong toilet breaks – but the
others also make for fine reading and great film-based drunken chit-chat. The
snappy script, the colourful characters, the non-linear narrative and the
awesome cinematography all go towards making Pulp Fiction a bona fide cult
classic and a masterwork in its own right. The fact that people still talk and reference
it today confirms that, and it still feels fresh. I’m not sure that anyone
involved has made a better film since.
