Letters to the Editor
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Down with 'Pulp Fiction'!
Why 'Pulp Fiction' Is Not All That
Basically the film is four vignettes cleverly strung together and framed with a mini-story (the restaurant robbery). The individual stories have no particular themes or purpose, they exist solely to entertain on a moment-by-moment basis, which yes, I understand is the film's upfront intention. The first story plays games with audience expectation and tonal juxtoposition, showing us a new side to assassins, making us laugh at their banal coversation and trivial day-to-day concerns, then throwing scalding water on us as they inhabit their amoral-killer roles, meting out life and death in a grandiose manner. (We later return to laughing at them, even viewing them as buffoons, and the sudden switches are exhilarating and strange.)
The middle section of "Pulp Fiction" concerns a sort-of "date" between Travolta and Uma Thurman, where they seem to be acting out a twisted, funhouse representation of all-American pop-cultural romance: A diner, a milkshake, a dance, "let's go back to my place," and instead of sexual penetration we get needle-in-the-heart penetration, followed by post-coital chit-chat in the form of an inappropriate and childish joke. Tarantino dunks our heads in cold water, hot water, cold water, hot water.
The Bruce Willis vignette is the least connected to the rest of the movie, but it follows the same pattern of sharp juxtopositions. One minute Willis is cuddling with his French girlfriend ("give me oral pleasure"), the next minute he's in his car cursing over his lost watch. One minute he's gunning down his assassin on the john, the next minute he's stumblng into somebody's S&M den. It's funny, surprising, and totally meaningless -- devoid of all interest in theme or morality.
I found "Pulp Fiction" terrific up to this point. But the final vignette reveals everything that is wrong with Tarantino's sensibility. It's the place where, to quote William Blake, "you don't know what's enough until you know what's more than enough." Travolta shooting the young black informant in the head was played for laughs, but I personally found it unpleasant to be put in the position of giggling at somebody having his brains blown out, no matter how clownish it makes the Travolta character look, or how zany of a situation it generates. I didn't find the whole "we need help cleaning up this back-seat carnage" premise particularly funny, and at that point the sight gag of Travolta/Jackson in shorts and T-shirts wasn't enough payoff. Nor did I find Harvey Keitel's "cleaner" role very convincing or interesting, and Tarantino's character and performance only served to annoy me. The man can't act and he isn't funny unless he's playing himself (see his inspired cameo in "Sleep With Me" for comparison). This last vignette is also the point at which "Pulp Fiction"'s amorality and randomness take their toll. I wondered, after all that came before, Why this? How does this conclude the movie? The back-yard scenes are relatively inert and they rehash humor elements of previous scenes. The episode only serves to pad out the three-act structure of the film and explain the sequence of events that culminate in the restaurant standoff.
I will gladly admit that "Pulp Fiction" is an inspired work full of amusing moments and situations, but why is anyone required to disregard its flaws or its lapses? This probably sounds more moralistic than I intend it to, but when I saw the film in the theater, I was a little bit disgusted that people were guffawing over somebody having his brains blown out. I was also far less impressed by the disjointed use of time. Tarantino handled it pretty well, but he's hardly the first to employ such tricks. I think average filmgoers tended to give Tarantino more credit for it than he deserved simply because they hadn't been exposed to much experimental or independent cinema ("Rashomon," "Hiroshima Mon Amour," "La Jetee," Jim Jarmusch, etc.).
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Down with 'pulp Ficton'!!!
I have barely scratched the surface of why I am not a fawning "Pulp Fiction" devotee and take issue with the sheep-like cinematic dittoheads who seem to think not liking "Pulp Fiction" invalidates your viability as a sentient hominid. "Pulp Fiction" had some pretty sucky after-effects that include the following crappy results:
(1) 50% of all film students in America quicky gave up on mature, thoughtful storytelling and replaced their creative aspirations with Mexican standoffs and in-jokey "homages" to violent films that weren't that special to begin with.
(2) 50% of all filmmakers followed the same predictable pattern, eschewing original personal filmmaking for empty, violent spectacles often featuring amoral sensibilities and "funny and/or sympathetic hit-men." Renny Harlin made that crappy Geena Davis spy movie; William H. Macy played a gay hitman; Mel Gibson's "Payback" featured dozens of hitmen, with everybody dying, "Two Days in the Valley" was full of hitmen....hitmen, hitmen, hitmen, everywhere... Then Donna Summer came out with her hit song, "It's Raining Hitmen!" and it only got worse from there. Of all the "Pulp Fiction" inspired movies released in its blockbuster wake, how many can you rememeber? Yet there were scores of them.
(3) Tarantino's own success destroyed him as a filmmaker. This is what happens when somebody rockets to the A-list instead of working their way up while honing their craft -- they stop growing, they get spoiled, they lose patience with the important nuts and bolts that hold a story together. While directors like Curtis Hanson have emerged as dependable, mature artists after decades of smaller-scale films, Tarantino has turned into a hack version of himself, struggling to hold basic scenes together. The most important story moments of "Kill Bill" thud on the screen, and EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER speaks not like a unique individual, but like the pop-cultural mouthpiece of Tarantino the man. Jackie Brown's one attempt at a real crime drama set-piece (the shopping-mall robbery) was so amateurish it might have been a film-school project. With "Reservoir Dogs," Tarantino looked to become a really gutsy, innovative artist (even though he stole most of that story from a Japanese film). Then he became a "name" and it ruined him.
(4) Tarantino's success meant he subjected his hyper personality to the world at every available opportunity. Tarantino started believing that people's love for "Pulp Fiction" meant that people loved HIM. He decided to become an actor and the result was "Destiny Turns on the Radio." Didn't see it? Don't remember it? You're in luck -- it features Tarantino trying to play Elvis. It's reaaaalllly bad. Tarantino turned up in some other schlocky films that were of little note. Robert Rodriguez joined Tarantino on the path of stylistic excess instead of meaning, craft or depth. Tarantino influenced then-girlfriend Mira Sorvino to pretty much sabotage her up-and-coming career by trying to become an action star. Tarantino is lucky that he still has his raw talent to draw from to make up for his lack of restraint.
(5) "Pulp Fiction" meant that the world would no longer be safe from the terrors of John Travolta. Prior to the film, Travolta was safely ensconced in the ghetto of "Look Who's Talking" movies. Then "Pulp Fiction" came out and Travolta's faux-cool ego was unleashed like a giant steaming tongue upon the cultural landscape. We had to sit through Travolta's preening anti-heroics in everything from "Broken Arrow" to "Swordfish." Then Travolta did a new-age-Messiah schtick in a double-whammy of "Phenomenon" and "Michael," and crapped his Scientologist inanity all over audiences with "Battlefield Earth." Now, after "Wild Hogs," the world is begging Travolta, "Won't you please - for the love of god please - go make 'Look Who's Talking 4: My Diaper Is Far From Achieving a State of 'Clear'."
For these sins alone "Pulp Fiction" should be stricken from the "classics" list.
Incidentally, somebody else mentioned that "Pulp Fiction" has a terrific soundtrack. I agree -- and I think it boosted the film's cool points well beyond what they'd have been with a conventional score. You might be interested to know that much of the music for the film was selected ("curated") by Chuck Kelly, a man who worked with Tarantino at the same video store where he attained the bulk of his knowledge and appreciation for cult cinema.