Pulp Ficiton (Formal Analysis) -Tarantino (1994)

Pulp Fiction: Substance and Style incarnate

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is considered by many modern critics and audiences alike to be one of the most influential and iconic films of all time. With its progressive narrative structure, witty and pop culture laden dialogue, great acting, and use of extreme violence, it transcends many conventional Hollywood genres and becomes its own sort of mash up film. This, in addition to its odd subject matter, made Pulp Fiction a national cinematic phenomenon immediately upon its release in 1994. As esteemed film critic Richard Collins writes in his review of the film, “[Pulp Fiction] towers over the year's other movies as majestically and menacingly as a gang lord at a preschool.” The film won the prestigious Palm d’Or at the Cannes festival, and even garnered Tarantino his first academy award for best original screenplay. Even now, 17 years later, the film’s legacy stands and it remains in the eyes of many to be Tarantino’s seminal work. What has really made the film stand out is Tarantino’s unique application of style and manipulation of a variety of cinematic techniques throughout. As Ken Dancyger writes in his 2002 book, The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice, Tarantino’s use of style in Pulp Fiction represents “a new phenomenon, the movie whose style is created from the context of movie life rather than real life. The consequence is twofold—the presumption of deep knowledge on the part of the audience of those forms such as the gangster films or Westerns, horror films or adventure films. And that the parody or alteration of that film creates a new form, a different experience for the audience.” (203).  Throughout Pulp Fiction, Tarantino effectively manipulates editing, cinematography, Mise-en-scene, and sound to create his own distinct style through which he foreshadows coming events, reveals character traits, creates suspense, and entertains.

Pulp Fiction is, at its core, a mixture of tales about the intertwining lives of two hit men, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson), an aging boxer, Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a mob boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rahmes), and his wife, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman). It follows all of these characters as they get into a number of very memorable, odd, funny, disturbing, intense, and emotionally charged situations. As Roger Ebert explains in his original review of the movie, “Pulp Fiction is a comedy about blood, guts, violence, strange sex, drugs, fixed fights, dead body disposal, leather freaks, and a wristwatch”. Although this may seem like a strange mixture of plot events, Tarantino handles each distinct scene maturely and with very close detail to multiple cinematic components thus making the movie sophisticated, and memorable.

One of the scenes in which Tarantino uses editing, cinematography, Mise-en-scene, and sound effectively to warn the audience of certain coming events, inform them of hidden character traits, and create suspense and anticipation,  is the one in which Vincent goes to the Wallace house to pick up Mia for the night. The scene begins with a tracking shot of Vince walking up to the glass front door, in which his body makes a dark shadowy silhouette, and finding a note taped to it. There is then a close up of the note accompanied by Mia Wallace’s voice over narration of its contents. The second Vincent enters the Wallace house, many of Tarantino’s choices regarding Mise-en-scene are apparent. The first overtly noticeable thing is the house’s color scheme. Nearly everything that is visible is white. This includes the couch, the lamps, the carpet, the walls, and even Mia’s shirt. To accentuate this stark white color scheme even further, the scene employs high key front lighting. This is ironic because generally in film language, white is closely associated with purity, and yet, the inhabitants of this particular home, Mia and Marsellus Wallace are anything but innocent. One is a crack addict while another is a hard headed mob boss. In addition to this, such a color scheme also creates juxtaposition between Vincent, who is wearing a black suit, and the rest of the house. This shows that he doesn’t belong at the house and may be foreshadowing the fact that something bad will happen if he stays there.  You can also tell that the house is very modern through its incorporation of many different kinds of technologies such as intercoms, and video cameras that watch over the main rooms.

While Vince is walking around the house for the first time, and Mia watches him via a camera viewing station, Tarantino incorporates a very important piece of seemingly non-diegetic ( we later find out that it was coming from a record player but we are given no indication of that before the end of the scene) sound into the film. This would be Dusty Springfield’s hit song, “Son of a Preacher Man”. This song is about a girl who only likes one guy who is the son of the local preacher (again playing with the theme of innocence). One of the lyrics in the song is, “Being good isn't always easy, No matter how hard I tried, When he started sweet talking to me, he'd come tell me everything is alright, he'd kiss and tell me everything is alright, Can I get away again tonight?” The first line of this verse relates directly to Mia’s drug addiction and the last line deals with the fact that she is going out with a man other than her husband Marsellus.

 While the song is still playing, the Tarantino also adds alternating close ups of Vince making a drink, and Mia snorting Cocaine. This is establishing the vices of both characters and will come into play later in the film. When Mia finally comes downstairs to join Vincent, she simply turns the record player off and says, “Let’s go”. This creates suspense due to the fact that the audience has no idea where the characters are going and  there has already been so much build up to their night out. It is worth noting that throughout this entire scene, we never fully see Mia’s face. We see her lips when she talks into the intercom, her arms when she’s in the intercom room, the back of her head when she snorts crack, and her feet when she goes downstairs, but never a full shot of her body or face. This creates even more confusion because the audience has no idea what she looks like. This tells us that Mia is a very complex character who doesn’t like to show her true self to others and hides behind many different walls. All of this creates anticipation for the next scene in the film.  After close analysis, it is quite evident that Tarantino uses editing, sound, and set design, to establish certain character traits in Mia and Vincent foreshadow forthcoming events, and create suspense within the audience.

Yet another one of the many scenes in Pulp Fiction that uses cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing  techniques effectively to create suspense and is the scene in which Mia Wallace overdoses and Vincent Vega must drive her to his drug dealer Lance’s (Eric Stoltz) house and revive her by stabbing her with an adrenaline needle. The scene begins with a long shot of an empty highway. It then cuts between medium shots of Lance, in his messy apartment which is shown in low key lighting and with yellowish color hues which represent the filth that is within it, and Medium close-ups of Vincent calling him while driving. Once Lance picks up the phone, the Medium close-ups of each character alternate in accordance with their conversation and who is speaking. After they talk on the phone, a long take begins when Lance hears Vince’s car barreling down his street. When he opens his blinds, he sees the car speed by and crash into the side of his house, angered, he storms out of the door and confronts Vincent. They then proceed to argue in the lawn about whether or not Vince can bring the recently overdosed Mia into the house. This part of the scene was shot on a small handheld portable camera. This can be discerned by the cameras extreme mobility and the small amount of shaking that is evident in the frame throughout the take. Yet another long take follows in which, Lance’s wife Jody wakes up to the commotion outside and demands an explanation, meanwhile, Lance and Vince are still arguing. As each of the three characters speak, or in this case yell, the camera pans back and forth between them. By using this technique, Tarantino creates a great sense of space for his audience. They know where everyone is located and are aware of both the off-screen and on screen space. Also, this extremely long take lasts for over one and a half minutes, which was extremely rare in an age in which the average shot length in most films was around 5-7 seconds. Tarantino employs the use of multiple long takes in this sequence to present the proceedings in a very visceral manner and convey the gravity of the situation. Also, the long takes make every action seem to last longer, seeing as though Mia is quickly dying, this elongation of events unsettles the audience and begins to instill fear in them.  

In the next few shots, Tarantino shows extreme close-ups of Mia’s chest area (Vincent is looking for where her heart is), the unwrapping of the adrenaline shot, and then he takes a smartly balances the frame by putting one of the three characters who are trying to revive Mia, Vincent, Jody, and Lance, in one third of the frame, while they are all looking over her. This balances the frame well and provides spatial continuity. The extreme closes ups then continue, one of an adrenaline bottle, and then one of Vincent drawing a red dot over the general area of her heart. In the moments right before Vincent stabs her with the needle, this pattern repeats again. The difference is, this time the shots are all zooming in to represent the intensity of the situation. There’s zooming extreme close ups of Mia’s bloodied face, the dripping needle, Vincent’s sweating face, the red dot on Mia’s chest, and Jody’s excited face. To further increase the suspense, Lance is counting down from three while these shots are projected. Vincent then proceeds to inject the adrenaline into her and she is revived. Within this scene, Tarantino also uses mise-en-scene effectively. Although it is a very intense scene, he injects little bits of humor into it to both amuse and entertain the audience. For example, during many parts of the scene, two classic board games can be seen resting on Lance and Jody’s shelf, The Game of Life and Operation. This is very ironic because they are fighting to keep a person alive throughout the scene and they must be extremely precise in their actions to do so. Lance is also wearing a Speed Racer shirt in the scene, which alludes to the dangerous way in which Vincent drove over to the house and to the kick that the adrenaline would eventually give Mia.

Pulp Fiction is a masterpiece by almost all standards. Tarantino’s supreme use of cinematic techniques, such as mise-en-scene, editing, sound, and lighting, throughout to inform, control, and entertain the audience make the film stand out and is a main reason why it is still revered today. Even now, after Tarantino has directed five more films (Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vol 1,2, Death Proof, and Inglorious Basterds), almost all of which were well reviewed, Pulp Fiction remains his most popular and acclaimed. It is also his most stylized film, and can serve as a reminder to all about how through extreme attention and manipulation of detail, filmmakers can excite, upset, and ultimately influence us.