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.