Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction is an
Oscar winning
1994 film directed by
Quentin Tarantino, who also co-wrote the screenplay with
Roger Avary. It was released to great critical and public acclaim and is widely considered a watershed in
American film history, and as the instigator of an ascendant
independent film movement in the United States. The film's idiosyncratic characteristics include fragmented storyline,
eclectic dialogue,
ironic and
campy influences, unorthodox camerawork, and numerous
pop culture references. Tarantino and Avary won
Academy Awards for
Best Original Screenplay and the film was nominated for seven Oscars in total, including
Best Picture. It also won the best picture at the
Cannes Film Festival.
The film, in keeping with most other Tarantino works, runs in
nonlinear order, a storytelling technique which became highly trendy among independent filmmakers during the
1990s, in large part due to the popularity of
Pulp Fiction.
The film's title refers to the
pulp magazines popular during the mid–
20th century, known for their strongly graphic nature.
Taglines:* Girls like me don't make invitations like this to just anyone!
* You won't know the facts until you've seen the fiction.
* From the creators of
True Romance &
Reservoir Dogs* Three stories about one story.
* I don't smile for pictures.
* Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character.
* Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.
The screenplay is available as a paperback (ISBN 0786881046,
1994).
Pulp Fiction is found both on critics' lists (such as the
AFI's One Hundred Years, 100 Movies List) and in popular rankings, placing consistently in the top 10 on the
IMDB Top 250 List. In
2000, readers of
Total Film magazine voted it the 18th greatest comedy film of all time. In Britain (2001), it was voted as the 4th greatest film of all time in a nationwide poll for Channel 4, beaten only by
The Shawshank Redemption,
The Godfather and
Star Wars. In
2005, Time.com named it one of
the 100 best movies of the last 80 years. It won the 1994
Palme d'Or at the
Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It was named Best Picture by the
L.A. Film Critics Association and the
National Society of Film Critics. Many critics, including
Siskel and Ebert, have compared Tarantino's success with
Pulp Fiction to that of
Orson Welles after the release of his
Citizen Kane.
The success of
Pulp Fiction spurred studios to release a slew of "copycat" films that tried to duplicate the film's formula of witty and offbeat dialogue, an elliptical/non-chronological plot and unconventional storyline, and gritty subject matter. Most of these films fared poorly at the box office and were dismissed by critics as inferior and derivative, though the
raver film
Go did receive critical acclaim, as did
Guy Ritchie's
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; the latter being a particularly successful transplant of
Pulp Fiction's basic structure into the underworld of
London.
The unconventional attitude of the movie, in particular its lack of a standard
chronological structure, has often led the film to be cited as an example of a
postmodernist film.
The film had a significant impact on the lives of its cast members. It revived the fortunes of
John Travolta who was going through a career slump at the time, and
Bruce Willis solidified his career as a leading man. It got
Uma Thurman onto the Hollywood
A-list and led to more work for character actors such as
Ving Rhames and
Harvey Keitel.
Eric Stoltz also profited. The actor who gained the most from
Pulp Fiction was
Samuel L. Jackson, who wowed critics and audiences in a part Quentin Tarantino wrote especially for him. Once relegated to supporting roles, Jackson soon became one of the world's most popular film stars.
Using many elements of a
black comedy with many stylistic and pop culture touches,
Pulp Fiction weaves through the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles gangsters, fringe characters, petty thieves and a mysterious
attaché case. Following Quentin Tarantino's more traditional crime movie,
Reservoir Dogs, the storyline is chopped up, rearranged and shown out of sequence.
There are four main storylines in
Pulp Fiction: Vincent and Jules; Mia Wallace; Butch Coolidge; and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. All four are intertwined, although Vincent is the only one of these six characters to meet all of the five others during the film.
The order of events as shown in the film:# The diner (first half)# Vincent and Jules# "Mia Wallace and Vincent"# "The gold watch"# "The Bonnie situation"# The diner (second half)
The actual chronological order of events:# Vincent and Jules# "The Bonnie situation"# The diner (both halves)# "Mia Walace and Vincent"# "The gold watch"
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Pumpkin and Honey Bunny hold up the diner in the first scene of the film. |
The Diner (first half)
Pumpkin (Ringo-
Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Yolanda-
Amanda Plummer) discuss robbing restaurants instead of their normal jobs due to lack of awareness in restaurants. They decide to rob the one they are currently in and pull out revolvers. Pumpkin jumps up and screams "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!" Honey Bunny grabs a revolver and screams "Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!"
The title credits play.
Vincent & Jules
|
John Travolta (left) and Samuel L. Jackson as Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, respectively. Here, they are depicted in Tarantino's signature trunk shot. |
Hitmen Jules Winnfield (
Samuel L. Jackson) and
Vincent Vega (
John Travolta) head to a
Los Angeles apartment to retrieve a briefcase that was involved in a failed deal for their boss,
gangster Marsellus Wallace (
Ving Rhames). They also have to kill Brett (
Frank Whaley), the one who was supposed to have set up the deal, and his cohorts. The briefcase is a classic
MacGuffin, whose contents are never revealed except indirectly as a glowing yellow light.
After a long and bizarre conversation led by the scripture-spouting Jules (
Ezekiel 25:17, 'The path of the righteous man'), the pair shoot and kill Brett and one of his accomplices and ignores Jules' informant, Marvin (
Phil LaMarr), who happened to be there with the gang.
Mia Wallace
|
Uma Thurman plays Mia Wallace. |
At Marsellus Walace' request, Vincent Vega shows his wife Mia (
Uma Thurman) a good time while Marsellus is out of town. Vincent shows up at Mia's house and while waiting for her to get ready, she plays "
Son of a Preacher Man", by
Dusty Springfield on the sound system. They head to the fictional restaurant Jack Rabbit Slim's, a slick
1950s-
themed restaurant with lookalikes of the decade's top
pop culture icons as staff (e.g., television impresario
Ed Sullivan as the
maître d', and servers such as singer
Buddy Holly and actresses
Marilyn Monroe and
Mamie Van Doren), an option for patrons to eat at a booth or a
classic car refitted as a booth, and the famous "Five-Dollar
Milkshake".
Vincent and Mia make small talk, wherein she recounts her experience as an actress in a failed television
pilot, "Fox Force Five". The show followed the exploits of an all-female team of secret agents, each having a particular specialty. Mia's character, Raven McCoy, was raised by circus performers and, according to the show, was
"...the deadliest woman in the world with a knife." She also knew a
zillion old jokes her grandfather, an old
vaudevillian, taught her, though she initially refuses to share with Vincent the joke Raven tells in the pilot out of fear of being embarrassed.
In Mia's words, the rest of the troupe had other formidable abilities:
"Fox, as in we're a bunch of foxy chicks. Force, as in we're a force to be reckoned with. Five, as in there's one... two... three... four... five of us. There was a blonde one, Sommerset O'Neal from that show "Baton Rouge", she was the leader. A Japanese one, a black one, a French one and a brunette one, me. We all had special skills. Sommerset had a photographic memory, the Japanese fox was a kung fu master, the black girl was a demolition expert, the French fox's specialty was sex..."Tarantino has acknowledged the similarity between Fox Force Five and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS) in
Kill Bill.
Mia then demands that Vincent dance with her in the Jack Rabbit Slim's
twist contest and they dance to
Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell". When they return to the Wallace house, she is seen carrying the trophy. While listening to
Urge Overkill's version of
Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon", Mia overdoses after snorting
heroin. She had found the heroin in the pocket of Vince's coat, which she was wearing, and believed it to be
cocaine. A fearful Vincent rushes her over to small-time drug dealer Lance,(
Eric Stoltz) who had previously sold him the heroin. Mia is finally revived after Vincent stabs her in the heart with a syringe full of
adrenaline.
Mia wakes up with a howl and when asked to say something, says "something". The drug dealer's dysfunctional wife (
Rosanna Arquette) remarks "That was fucking trippy".
Upon arriving back at the Wallace residence, Mia finally reveals her corny joke:
"So there's Papa Tomato, Momma Tomato and Baby Tomato walking along the street. Baby Tomato starts lagging behind, and Papa Tomato starts getting really angry. So, he turns around and squishes Baby Tomato and says, 'Ketchup.' "
In their last conversation, they agree not to tell Marsellus of the overdosing incident, both fearing what he might do to either of them.
The gold watch
|
Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) in the pawnshop. |
Aging
prizefighter Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) accepts a large sum of money from Marsellus, agreeing to "
take a dive" (deliberately lose a fight) by allowing himself to be knocked out in the fifth round of his upcoming match. However, Butch double-crosses Marsellus, instead betting the money he received from Marsellus on himself (with, due to the fight's being fixed, presumably very favorable odds) and winning the bout, accidentally killing his opponent in the process. Although now flush with cash, Butch must quickly leave town, as a vengeful Marsellus is hot on his trail.
There is a flashback at the beginning of the "The Gold Watch" storyline (Butch's story), in which the child Butch Coolidge (Chandler Lindauer) receives his watch from a war buddy of his father's (
Christopher Walken), who kept the watch in his
rectum for two years to hide it from the
Vietcong due to his father's death in a
Vietnam War prison camp. This gold watch, which has been passed down from father to son since his great-grandfather fought in
World War I, is of great sentimental value to Butch.
Butch is compelled to return to his apartment to retrieve the wristwatch after he discovers his girlfriend Fabienne (
Maria de Medeiros) has forgotten to pack it. While there, he grabs a pack of toaster pastries, an imitation of
Pop-Tarts, in his kitchen and puts them in the toaster on the counter. While waiting for the pastries to pop out, Butch finally notices a
silenced MAC-10 submachine gun on the
kitchen counter. Upon hearing his toilet flush, he readies himself in time to encounter Vincent Vega coming out of the bathroom. The toaster pastries pop and Butch fires the gun, killing Vincent.
While driving back to the motel from the apartment complex, Butch sees Marsellus crossing the street in front of him, they recognize each other. Butch accelerates into him. He then collides with another car and runs over a fire hydrant. A group of ladies help Marsellus back to his feet, In his POV, he sees Butch running away from the scene. He takes out his gun; the ladies run away. Butch runs down the sidewalk with a damaged leg, while Marsellus limps on his trail, firing stray bullets. Butch punches Marsellus repeatedly, while they enter a pawnshop. Butch takes Marsellus gun and is about to execute him, when the pawnshop owner, Maynard, turns a shotgun on the two. Maynard picks up the phone and dials his partner Zed. Maynard tells Zed, "The spider just caught a couple of flies!". He knocks out Butch, while Marsellus is already knocked out.
Marsellus and Butch wake up to find that they have been tied up to chairs with red balls strapped in their mouths. Maynard and Zed turn out to be
sexual predators and
sadists. They take Marsellus into the back room and rape him; Butch escapes his bonds and is faced with the choice of saving himself or aiding Marsellus. Knowing Marsellus wanted him dead, he could easily have left Marsellus in the hands of the odd-ball assailants. Butch, on the other hand, makes a choice to release Marsellus, risking that he might fail or that Marsellus might not accept his overture.
Butch looks around the shop, finding a hammer, a baseball bat, a small chainsaw and finally a
katana on a top shelf. Butch goes back downstairs and opens the door. Zed is raping Marsellus, while Maynard watches. Butch slashes Maynard across the chest and then stabs him, knocking him dead on the floor. Zed retreats from Marsellus and sees Butch. Butch, katana ready, is about to kill Zed, when Marsellus gets Maynard's shotgun and shoots Zed in the groin/thigh. Butch asks "What now?" and awaits Marsellus' decision. Marsellus, who originally intended to hunt Butch down and exact his revenge for the botched boxing fix, now must realize that Butch has both saved his life and submitted to him: he decides that Butch is free as long as he never tells anyone about the incident of his rape, and never returns to Los Angeles. Butch agrees, and quickly leaves town on Zed's
chopper with Fabienne.
The Bonnie situation
We return to Vincent and Jules' story. We learn that during Jule's bible passage to Bret, there was another man of the gang in the bathroom. After Vincent and Jules shoot Bret, the man bursts out of the bathroom and shoots at Vincent and Jules with a large revolver. No bullets hit them, so they kill the man, then Jules discusses how it was a miracle that they did not get shot.
They take Marvin with them in the back seat of their car. During a conversation, Vincent asks Martin's opinion and carelessly aims his gun at him. The gun goes off, as a huge bloody mess is on Vincent and the car. Jules calls Jimmy (
Quentin Tarantino), as he lets them use his garage. Though Jimmy's wife Bonnie will be coming home soon from work, they call Mr. Wolf (
Harvey Keitel), to help. They get the job done, Jules and Vincent have no choice but to wear "dorky"
T-shirts.
Vincent and Jules decide to go out to breakfast....
The Diner (second half)
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Pumpkin (right) and Honey Bunny hold up the diner. |
The two men eat at a
diner for breakfast. Jules has a spiritual awakening and states he will be leaving Marsellus Walace. Vincent does not like the idea, and goes to the bathroom. A pair of petty thieves, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, jump up with revolvers and scream obscenities. Pumpkin shouts "Everybody be cool this is a robbery!" Honey Bunny screams "Any one of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every one of you motherfuckers!" They demand all the patrons' money and valuables. Pumpkin demands that Jules hands over the case from Bret, Jules holds him at gunpoint in a semi-
Mexican standoff with Yolanda. Vincent emerges from the restroom with gun drawn and pointed at Yolanda; in this standoff, not everyone will die, because no one has a gun pointed at Vincent. Jules explains his ambivalence toward his life of crime, takes his wallet back from Ringo (sans the cash inside because Jules "bought Ringo's life"), and lets the pair go free.Vincent suggests that they should leave now, they put their guns in their pants, and walk out of the diner.
The end credits roll.
The mysterious briefcase
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The code for the briefcase: 6-6-6. |
The only indisputable observations about the stolen attaché case recovered by Jules and Vincent are that its latch lock combination is "
666", the "number of the Beast" as given in the Biblical
Book of Revelation, and that the contents of the case either glow or are highly reflective. Whenever asked, director Tarantino has replied that there is no explanation for the case's contents: it is simply a
MacGuffin. The case is most likely a nod to
Robert Aldrich's
1955 film noir
Kiss Me Deadly, in which a similar briefcase glows because it contains a small
nuclear device. Originally, the
Pulp Fiction case was to contain diamonds (stolen in the film
Reservoir Dogs), but this was seen as too mundane. For filming purposes, the briefcase contained an orange lightbulb with a battery.
Some theories on what's inside the briefcase include: Marsellus Wallace's soul, the ear from
Reservoir Dogs, a severed head, or just an orange lightbulb. A popular Internet theory, especially around the release date, was that it contains
Elvis's famous gold jumpsuit, as it would be a valuable gold object, light and instantly recognizable, and would fit in with the frequent nods to
1950s nostalgia found throughout the film. Supporting this initially was Mia's cryptic reference to Vincent as an "Elvis man", however the video release made it clear this was actually a reference to a deleted scene between the two characters, although some argue that the reference was left in to hint at the briefcase's contents. As a true MacGuffin, though, what the suitcase contains is not important; it may even be empty. What makes it important is how desperately Marsellus and everyone who encounters it seems to desire it, but more importantly, Jules and Vincent's willingness to kill and risk their own lives to get it for Marsellus. This provides a striking demonstration of how strong their loyalty is. A new theory gaining prominence is that the briefcase contains a golden gun. The roots of this rumor come from the
1966 Spaghetti Western "
Ringo and his Golden Pistol", Jules calling Tim Roth's character "Ringo" and Quentin Tarantino's love of Italian Westerns.
The boxing double-cross
This is most likely in homage to the
1929 Dashiell Hammett crime novel,
Red Harvest, wherein the story's protagonist exerts pressure on organized crime by blackmailing a boxer into "unfixing" a fixed fight. Indeed, such early
Twentieth Century crime novels were Tarantino's inspiration for the movie.
Toilet motif
Tarantino uses the toilet or bathroom as a plot device. When Jules and Vincent are shooting Brett & his companions, a fourth man is hiding by the toilet, waiting to fire. When Mia comes back from 'powdering' her nose at Jackrabbit Slim's, their quiet dinner turns into them competing in a dance contest and they start being more and more attracted to each other. When Vincent goes to the toilet, things are about to change drastically. A fun and romantic evening out with Mia turns into a nightmare when Mia mistakes Vincent's heroin as cocaine and overdoses. Vincent goes to the toilet on a quiet morning during a stake-out at Butch's apartment and upon exiting the bathroom he finds Butch is there pointing a
MAC-10 at him and he is soon shot dead. After Vincent and Jules wipe their hands in Jimmie's bathroom after a wash to remove blood stains, Vincent's towel is saturated with blood whereas Jules' isn't. Vincent and Jules' breakfast and ethical conversation in the diner turns into an armed robbery while Vincent is in the bathroom.
The soul theory is widespread among
Pulp Fiction fans. Knowing that in Tarantino's movies, almost nothing is purely coincidental, many fans therefore don't believe the MacGuffin story. In short, the soul theory states that Marsellus had sold his soul to the
Devil and the briefcase now contains Marsellus' soul. Vincent and Jules are then sent to retrieve the soul from Devil's associates. There are a number of things in the movie which, if interpreted in a specific way, can be seen as proof of the soul story.
The band-aid
In the bar scene where Marsellus is talking with Butch, we mostly see his neck with a large band-aid on it. It could be the spot where the Devil removed Marsellus' soul - when this theory first achieved prominence, in order to lend credence to it the originator claimed that the Bible states that the Devil would take the soul from the back of the head, but this is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible [
1]. The band-aid has no specific purpose in the movie and the audience never sees why it's there or how Marsellus got it. The band-aid is gone when we see Marsellus looking for Butch after the boxing match; this is the first time we see Marsellus after the briefcase has been retrieved. The main reason for the band-aid theory is the fact it's so prominent when we see him for the first time and that it's gone when Marsellus gets the briefcase back. However, the actor who plays Marsellus,
Ving Rhames, has since said that the reason for the band-aid is simply that he had a cut on his neck.
Sunglasses
It is often said that eyes are the windows to the soul. Marsellus is shown at all times wearing pitch black sunglasses before he receives his briefcase and, connecting to the band-aid notion, he no longer wears the glasses later.
The Number of the Beast
We see that the combination is "666", the "
Number of the Beast" as given in the Biblical Book of Revelation. The code is also featured quite prominently, and many fans of the movie see the specific number as a clue that the briefcase belongs to
Satan. It is speculated that further evidence for the significance of the "
Number of the Beast" is found in the name of
Mia Wallace's failed
pilot "Fox Force Five." Since the letter
f is the sixth letter in the
English alphabet, a simple code in which each letter stood for the number of that letter's place in the alphabet would give the abbreviation of "Fox Force Five" (FFF) as "666". Other interesting numbers placed in the movie include
420, which most of the clocks are set to.
The divine intervention
The fourth man fails to kill or even hit Jules and Vincent at
point blank with a high-caliber handgun. Jules interprets this as a miracle and is therefore redeemed; Vincent dies a short while later. The question is why
God would protect two gangsters who just killed two people. The popular answer which fits in the soul-theory is that the four young men in the apartment were actually associates of the
Devil, and therefore Jules and Vincent were (unintentionally) doing God's work.
Brett's death
When Brett is shot by Jules and Vincent, we see a strange yellow glow coming from the direction of his (out of screen) body. This could be the glow of his soul exiting his body, the same as the glow of Marsellus' soul inside the briefcase. There is no similar glow during any other of the deaths in the movie, though.
However, it can be argued that these "glows" are merely the muzzle flashes of Vincent and Jules' pistols, which were inserted during the editing process but were poorly synchronized.
Marvin's death
When Marvin is asked whether he believes that they witnessed an act of God, he says he doesn't have an opinion. This doesn't mean he does or doesn't believe in God, but could mean he in fact is an associate of the Devil and therefore is either afraid of God or doesn't want to say anything about it. The gun accidentally goes off and shoots Marvin in the head. This again could be a freak occurrence, but Vincent seems to be certain that he didn't pull the trigger (look close and you see him pull the trigger). It's also a coincidence that the gun hit Marvin precisely in the head. Again, the people who favor the soul theory see this as another act of God, as He imposes His judgment on all four associates of the Devil.
Ringo's reaction
When Ringo (Pumpkin) finally sees the contents of the briefcase, he asks whether it's what he thinks it is. If the case contained mere gold or diamonds or anything of recognizable value, he wouldn't be asking that question. This sequence was also key to the "Elvis jumpsuit" theory; something which most people would recognize, but need to ask about its authenticity. In addition, Jules first tells Ringo that it contains his "boss's dirty laundry", hinting it may contain clothing. At any rate, the object in the case is something rare or unusual. Ringo also says that the content of the case is beautiful. He also keeps looking at the case in an amazed or even hypnotized way, as if he's seeing something amazing or supernatural. This can be interpreted as Ringo seeing the eternal soul and being amazed by its beauty and radiance. The question in this interpretation is how he recognizes the fact that it's a soul.
Vincent's staring
When Vincent finds the case in the lower right cupboard in the kitchen, he seems to stare at its contents. His level of amazement is nowhere near that of Ringo's, but he still fails to react when Jules asks him: "Vincent, we happy?" Only after Jules asks the same question again, in a louder voice, does Vincent seem to ‘snap out of it' and responds. The script states "Vincent just stares at it, transfixed."
Zed's motorcycle
It should be noted that as Butch escapes from the pawn shop, he immediately steals Zed's chopper, named "Grace". This could be interpreted as a final redemption for aiding Marsellus' returned soul. It also adds to the supposed biblical underlying theme of the movie, though some claim it is nothing merely than a tip of the hat to an acquaintance of
Quentin Tarantino.
Jules' Bible passage
|
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers." |
As explained by Jules in the final scene in the diner, he recites a passage from the
Bible —
Ezekiel 25:17 — each time he kills someone. The passage reads as follows:
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.This is, in fact, not an actual passage from the Bible, but a
collage of several passages. Ezekiel 25:17 in the King James Version reads:
And I will execute great vengeance upon thee with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.This is actually a typically obscure
reference to
Karate Kiba /
Chiba the Bodyguard, a 1976 film starring
Sonny Chiba (whom Tarantino has hailed as
"the greatest actor to ever work in martial arts films" and has worked with in the making of
Kill Bill), which opens with a nearly identical misquote, likewise attributed to Ezekiel 25:17:
The path of the righteous man and defender is beset on all sides by the iniquity of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the finder of lost children. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious anger, who poison and destroy my brothers; and they shall know that I am Chiba the Bodyguard when I lay my love upon them! (Ezekiel 25:17)Connections to Reservoir Dogs
In Tarantino's
1992 mainstream directorial debut
Reservoir Dogs,
Michael Madsen plays a character named "Vic Vega," whom Tarantino has said is brother to Travolta's "Vincent Vega". There have been many rumors in the past years about a Tarantino movie called
The Vega Brothers, starring these two actors.
There are some who think that the briefcase contains the diamonds from
Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino, however, confirms that
Reservoir Dogs is meant to end with Mr. Pink's capture by the police. At the end of
Reservoir Dogs, during the scene in which Mr. White whispers a few words to Mr. Orange, one can hear Mr. Pink being caught by the police after picking up the bag of diamonds.
Steve Buscemi is later seen playing a waiter in Jack Rabbit Slim's. The fact that Buscemi is playing a waiter is ironic, since in
Reservoir Dogs his character, Mr. Pink, doesn't believe in tipping waiters. Even more so when Vincent says that "
[He] doesn't seem to be much of a waiter".
On the radio in
Reservoir Dogs, a commercial for Jack Rabbit Slim's can be heard in a car.
Also, in a deleted scene from
Reservoir Dogs, Nice-Guy Eddie is telling Mr. White and Mr. Pink that he called Bonnie, a nurse that he knows, to take care of Mr. Orange. In
Pulp Fiction, Jimmie's wife, Bonnie, is a nurse. She is also
African-American, which the guys in the car imply her to be. At one point, Mr. White even refers to what they're talking about as the "Bonnie Situation", which was the title of the last chapter of
Pulp Fiction.
Time setting
Set in early-
1990s Los Angeles,
Pulp Fiction nevertheless lends itself a timeless quality by drawing on themes from various eras of the
20th century:
*Mia Wallace looks something like a silent film character from the
1920s or earlier—note her
bobbed hair, which some have claimed is a reference to silent film star
Louise Brooks. However, some of her scenes and the look of her character directly reference
Anna Karina's character in
Jean-Luc Godard's film
My Life to Live (
1962).
*Jack Rabbit Slim's is a nod to the
1950s.
*The Wolf drives an
Acura NSX, which first debuted in
1991.
*Both World Wars and the
Vietnam War are referenced.
*Marsellus Wallace makes reference to
Indochina.
*The sign outside Butch Coolidge's fight ("Wilson
vs. Coolidge") is a play on the names of former U.S. presidents
Woodrow Wilson and
Calvin Coolidge.
*The "Wilson vs. Coolidge" sign says that the bout takes place on Thursday, July 16th. The most logical time for the events of the film, then, is July, 1992 (the two other dates closest to the year of filming are 1987 and 1998). 1992 also fits with Butch's being a young boy in the early
1970s.
*During the taxi ride away from the fight, the background is a black & white
rear projection, as was used in films before
bluescreen and
front projection became popular in the 1970s.
*Mia Wallace has an antiquated
reel to reel tape player and a
record player.
*Vincent Vega makes a call to Lance from a
cellular phone.
*The TV show the young Butch watches is
Clutch Cargo, from the
1950s.
*Vincent's car is a classic
1964 Chevrolet Malibu.
*The young man shot in the apartment while lying in the couch is referred to from Jules as "
Flock of Seagulls" due to his distinctive haircut, in reference to the
1980s pop band.
*Incidentally, Jules makes a reference to another 1980s band
Kool and the Gang in the Bonnie Situation.
*With his gun on Pumpkin's neck Jules makes a reference to
Happy Days when speaking to Yolanda: "What's
Fonzie like?". After Yolanda says "Cool", Jules says: "Correctomundo!"
*Urge Overkill's "Girl, you'll be a woman soon" (the song Mia Wallace plays on her record player after she returns home the first time with Vincent Vega) was released in 1992.
Influences
Pulp Fiction features many direct references to other films. Tarantino (a former video store clerk) is well-known for having watched nearly every movie in the store before going off to make his first mainstream film,
Reservoir Dogs. The influence of this broad viewing remains prominent in
Pulp Fiction.
* The scene where Marcellus Wallace (
Ving Rhames) is sodomized is similar to a scene with
Ned Beatty in the 1972 movie
Deliverance.
* The passage from the Old Testament
Book of Ezekiel 25:17 was first read in the
1967 film
Karate Kiba.
*
Don Siegel's
The Killers (
1964) concerned two wise-cracking hitmen dressed in tailored black suits.
* A similar dance sequence took place in
Jean-Luc Godard's
Bande à part (in another ode, Tarantino eventually named his production company
A Band Apart).
* The line "with a pair of pliers and a blow-torch" was originally used in the
1973 film
Charley Varrick.
* Quentin Tarantino's personal life problems were his inspiration for Jules' self-reflection.
* As noted above
Kiss Me Deadly and
Repo Man both feature a case/container opening with nothing seen but a bright light.
* The
1978 film
American Boy by
Martin Scorsese features
Steven Prince telling the story of a time when he had to inject his friend with adrenaline. He marked his friend's heart with a red magic marker, used a long-needled syringe, and injected the dosage directly into his friend's heart, after which he immediately became conscious again.
* The exterior shot of Jack Rabbit Slim's is a reference to the
1973 film
American Graffiti.
* The dance sequence in Jack Rabbit Slim's uses the same dance moves and camera sweeps as the dance sequence in
Federico Fellini's 8½.
* The scene where Butch first spies the
katana in the pawnshop was reportedly modelled after a similar scene in
Alejandro Jodorowsky's film
Sante Sangre.
* Vince and Jules visually recall the opening of Alex Cox's 1987 film "Straight to Hell", following two black-suited hoodlums, one black, one white.
*Jim Jarmusch's 1989 film Mystery Train with its interlocking three part structure, numerous popular culture references, homages to Elvis and the casting of Steve Buscemi was a major influence on Pulp Fiction.
* In the scene where Butch gets into the taxi with Esmeralda after the boxing match, the camera focuses on the driver's identification, similar to a scene in the movie
Taxi Driver with
Robert De Niro.
Soundtrack
* Opening titles music: "
Misirlou", a traditional Greek song by John Rubanis, performed by
Dick Dale and The Del-Tones. The song was re-recorded in the 1980s by Greek garage-rock band
The Last Drive, and was sampled for a hip-hop version by the
Black Eyed Peas titled "Pump It".
* During the opening titles, just as the title for music supervisor Karyn Rachtman flashes, we hear a radio dial being tuned to another station, featuring "
Jungle Boogie" by
Kool & the Gang. Following the opening titles, we continue to hear the song in the background, playing on the car radio.
* When Butch is in the car listening to "
Flowers on the Wall", the line "It's good to see you..." is sung when Butch and Marsellus spot each other.
* In
Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Bruce Willis says "smoking cigarettes and watching
Captain Kangaroo", repeating a line from "
Flowers on the Wall" that he sings in the car after retrieving his watch (from a kangaroo, no less).
* In the original VHS and Laserdisc release, when Jules and Vincent are walking to Brett's apartment, the song "Strawberry Letter 23" by the Brothers Johnson can be heard as they pass an open apartment. However, the song has been deleted from the audio track on the DVD release. This same song was later used by Tarantino in his film "Jackie Brown".
* During the second chapter, while Butch, Vincent, and Jules are at the bar, the same part of
Al Green's "
Let's Stay Together" is continuously played.
Miscellany
* During the apartment scene after Jules kills Brett, the gunshot holes in the wall behind Jules and Vincent are visible
before the fourth guy comes out of the bathroom shooting his magnum.
*
Pulp Fiction was originally titled
Black Mask.
* Other actors considered for the film included
Daniel Day-Lewis as Vincent;
Paul Calderon as Jules;
Mickey Rourke,
Matt Dillon and
Sylvester Stallone as Butch;
Michelle Pfeiffer,
Daryl Hannah,
Meg Ryan,
Joan Cusack and
Isabella Rossellini as Mia;
Johnny Depp and
Christian Slater as Pumpkin; and
Pam Grier as Lance's wife Jody, who was later cast in the lead of Tarantino's
Jackie Brown.
* "The Gold Watch" sequence was heavily based on a script entitled
Pandemonium Reigns, which Tarantino purchased off his friend
Roger Avary.
* Out of the $8 million it cost to make the movie, $5 million went to the cast.
* Mia Wallace's suit reappears in two of Tarantino's later films,
Jackie Brown and
Kill Bill, Volume 2.
* In a deleted scene, we discover that Vincent may or may not be a cousin of singer
Suzanne Vega. During a conversation, Mia asks if they're related; he replies that his cousin's name
is Suzanne Vega, but if she's a famous folk singer, then he hasn't heard anything about it.
* Chronologically, the last lines of the movie are spoken by Butch Coolidge immediately before riding out of L.A. on a stolen
chopper: "Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."
* When Butch decides to help Marsellus, he passes a wall with Tennessee license plates. Butch previously mentions on the phone with his brother that he is from Tennessee and is planning to return. He remembers his father's ordeal in Vietnam and how men are supposed to help each other in tough situations.
* The majority of clocks in the movie are set to
4:20, specifically in the pawnshop. It is a widely acknowledged misconception that
all of the clocks are set to this time.
* One of the film's producers was
Danny DeVito. In
DeVito's film
Twins, the main characters' names are Vincent and Julius.
* Jules' former partner is named Jimmie, possibly being a reference to the French film
Jules and Jim.
* When Vincent enters Lance's house with the overdosed Mia, the games Life and Operation can be seen amongst the books and clutter.
* Despite
Steve Prince's claims, injecting
adrenaline into someone's heart will not save them from a
heroin overdose. The proper antidote is
Narcan, an
opioid antagonist, injected intravenously, intramuscularly, or sprayed intranasally.
* The characters of Pumpkin, Honey Bunny, and Winston Wolfe were written specifically for Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, and Harvey Keitel, respectively.
* As the sole example of "real" pulp fiction in Quentin Tarantino's film
Pulp Fiction, the character of Vincent Vega (John Travolta) is seen in several scenes reading
the first Modesty Blaise novel while sitting on the
toilet. The edition Vincent reads has a mock-up cover that Tarantino had his prop department make, based upon the cover of an early edition of the novel.
* Samuel L. Jackson has a
cameo role in
Kill Bill as Rufus, an organist in the El Paso Chapel. Jackson's character was also rumored to be Jules, because of that character's desire to "walk the earth". The fact that he works at a church and is very well traveled supports this theory.
* The collector's edition DVD (region 1) comes with a printed menu for "Jack Rabbit Slim's," similar to the one read by Mia and Vincent. While "Vanilla Coke" and "$5 Shake" (listed as "Five Dollar Milk Shake") are on the menu, the entree items "
Durward Kirby Burger" (ordered by Mia) and "
Douglas Sirk Steak" (ordered by Vincent) are absent.
* Red Apple, the cigarettes Butch buys inside Marsellus's bar, is also advertised in Tokyo's airport in
Kill Bill, Volume 1 and in LA's airport in the beginning sequence of "Jackie Brown". They also appear in
Four Rooms.
* Virtually all of Tarantino's characters smoke the brand Red Apple. This is a fictional brand that Tarantino invented to avoid product placement. In Pulp Fiction, however, Vincent Vega rolls his own cigarettes using Drum, a real brand of tobacco.
* Big Kahuna Burger is Tarantino's made up fast-food restaurant, and is featured in the
Pulp Fiction apartment scene,
From Dusk Till Dawn, and in
Reservoir Dogs, when Michael Madsen walks in drinking a soda.
* The cereal that Lance is eating when Vincent comes to his house with Mia is called
Fruit Brute and it was discontinued in
1983. Quentin Tarantino tries to get the same cereal box in each of his movies, which has shown up in
Reservoir Dogs and
Kill Bill, although the cereal through which Vernita fires a gun is called "Kaboom!".
* In the first scene of the movie, when Honey Bunny and Pumpkin jump up to begin the robbery, Honey Bunny shouts "Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute
every motherfucking last one of you!" Later, when we see Jules in the diner and Honey Bunny and Pumpkin begin the robbery, Honey Bunny shouts "Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute
every last one of you motherfuckers!" Her words are not the same, despite it depicting the same scene. This was purportedly done by design to illustrate the different viewpoints.
* In the flashback to Butch's childhood, young Butch watches a TV show featuring static cartoon images with superimposed moving human lips. The show is
Clutch Cargo, perhaps the best-known of the programs and commercials that used this "
Syncro-Vox" technique.
* Jules and Vincent are seen using
Colt 1911A1 .45ACP pistols (Jules incorrectly dubs his "Mr. 9mm"), both chrome plated with ivory grips.
*When we first see Jules and Vincent kill Brett in the apartment, you can see that Jules has emptied his gun. However, when we see them kill Brett again in "The Bonnie Situation", he still has one more round to kill the guy who bursts out of the bathroom.
* The film's non-chronological editing sometimes leads small cinemas with poorly marked or disorganized film reels to show the film even more out of order than Tarantino intended. The only way audience members can know a misordered film was shown incorrectly is if they have seen it before.
* When the film was initially released in the
United Arab Emirates, local distributers thought they'd received a "mixed-up" copy of the film, so they recut the entire film, placing it in chronological order.
*The name "Winston Wolf" was borrowed from a regular customer named "Winston Wolff" who frequented the video store that Quentin Tarantino worked in. Later on, Wolff (who is Asian) gained real world notice as a video game programmer at LucasArts, working on
Dark Forces and
Jedi Knight*A popular internet rumor is that there is an announcement on the radio in one of Butch Coolidge's scenes saying that the trophy won by Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace was stolen. This is, in fact, a myth. All you can hear from the car radio in the scene where Butch leaves his car to go to his apartment is a radio advertisement for Jack Rabbit Slim's, but no mention is made of a stolen trophy.
In popular culture
* The events fallowing up to the rape scene in the "The Gold Watch" was parodied in
The Simpsons episode "
22 Short Films About Springfield", and again in the
Family Guy episode "
A Fish out of Water".
* In
The Simpsons episode
22 Short Films About Springfield, the carpool dialogue about the little differences between America and Europe is spoofed. Lou is talking about visiting a McDonalds, and compares the Krusty Burger with cheese to the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Also,
Misirlou is heard playing in the background on the jukebox in the Krusty Burger.
*
Adult Swim's
The Boondocks parodied much of the movie in one episode.
* The
Animaniacs comic book parodied the movie in its Jan
1996 issue. The cover is a spot-on mockup of the movie poster [
2].
* The
2006 film
Hostel includes numerous references to
Pulp Fiction, specifically from scenes in "The Gold Watch". These include the film playing on TV in the background at the hostel, the main character Paxton being tied up and ball-gagged, Paxton returning underground to save a fellow victim in an act of redemption, a character screaming "I'm going medieval on her ass!" during a torture scene, and Paxton running over his captors in a car after stopping at a traffic light. Tarantino is listed as
executive producer on the film, but also has been quoted as having worked on the script with writer-director
Eli Roth.
* In the videogame
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, when
CJ is on the phone with
The Truth discussing illegal narcotics, The Truth become spooked and shouts "I don't know you. Prank call, prank call!". This is an homage to the scene in
Pulp Fiction when Vincent calls drug dealer Lance to tell him about Mia's overdose, and an upset Lance ends the conversation with, "Are you calling me on a cellular phone? I don't know you, who is this? Prank caller, prank caller!"
* Also in
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is an option that allows
CJ to don a "Gimp Suit," a reference to the oddly clad captive in the store basement in "The Gold Watch."
* In the video game
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, there are weapon
cheats divided into three levels. For each level, the first weapon is a
baseball bat, a
sword, or a small
chainsaw. A hammer can also be substituted. This may be a reference to the scene in the pawnshop when Butch considers using a hammer, bat, sword (katana), or chainsaw after deciding to rescue Marsellus from the rapists.
* In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the dancers at the Malibu and the stripper's dancing is similar to Vincent Vega's.
*In the Disney Channel Programme 'Recess' a black character, named Vince, says to a white character that the 'Big Guy needs a foot massage', obviously a reference because Vince and Jules discuss foot massages and call Marsellus Wallce the' big man'.
* Also, the character of Winston Wolf is mimicked by a man named Mr. White (reference to
Reservoir Dogs, in which Harvey Keitel played Mr. White) is sent to Third Street School (the setting of the show Recess) to 'solve problems' as Keitel's character does in
Pulp Fiction.
* One of several films spoofed in television ads for
WrestleMania 21, with
Eddie Guerrero as Vincent and
Booker T as Jules.
*Pulp Fiction has been featured twice in the
Universal Press Syndicate comic
FoxTrot, both resembling the "royale with cheese" scene.
*An episode of
According to Jim contained a
MacGuffin briefcase which, like the Pulp Fiction briefcase, contained an entrancing, glowing light.
*In an episode of the television show
NCIS, a briefcase is found that glows like the famous
MacGuffin briefcase. When opened, the lab technician Abby says, "This is so Pulp Fiction!"
*In the 1997 Spice Girls movie, Spiceworld, a scene in the film is a nod towards 'Fox Force Five'. The five girls are depicted as Mia Wallace describes in the JackRabbit Slim's scene. They are called 'Spice Force Five'.
*When announcing
Grave Danger, the
CSI episode Tarantino directed, Brazilian cable TV channel
Sony Entertainment Television played a few comic animated videos referring to some of
Pulp Fiction's most famous scenes. One of them featured characters
Warrick Brown and
Nick Stokes having the following dialogue:
- You know what they call a cotton swab in Paris?
- They don't call it a cotton swab?
- No, they call it "échange de coton"
- "Échange de coton"! What do they call an evidence bag?
- An evidence bag's an evidence bag, but the call it "L'evidence bag"
- "Le evidence bag" haha! What do they call a corpse?
- I don't know, I didn't go to a morgue.* On an episode of
Will and Grace, the character played by guest star Macaulay Culkin says "I'm about to get medieval on Law's ass".
*In an episode of
Seinfeld, when Elaine develops an idea to open a bakery that sells only the tops of muffins, she and publisher Mr. Litman are faced with a problem of getting rid of the bottoms of the muffins. Newman, parodying Mr. Wolf, solves their problem, including parody of the confrontational speech between Winston and Vincent beginning "If I am curt with you...".
*In an episode of
Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius Jimmy has a party in his house. A girl he is fond of comes over, and they dance like Vincent and Mia do in Jack Rabbit Slim's, and to similar music. This is an obvious reference to Pulp Fiction.
*In the video game
World of Warcraft, in the Ravenholdt Manor, there is an
NPC named "Winstone Wolfe." If targeted, below his name are the words "The Wolf."
*
Research paper: "Pulp Fiction - a cult movie?"*
What's in the Briefcase?, from the
Urban Legends Reference Page*
Roger Ebert's
review of
Pulp Fiction*
Complete list of actors who were considered for roles
