Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson,
Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth,
Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Harvey Keitel
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Written by: Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary
Duration: 2hrs 34mins
Rating: 5 out of 5
Ever since I read Tarantino's original non-chronological script for True Romance a few years ago, I’ve wondered what Pulp Fiction's four days amongst L.A.'s crime underworld would be like if watched in a conventional beginning–middle–end manner.
Well, I recently stumbled upon a link to such a version that someone's edited together and posted up on YouTube (major props go out to 'Crimewriter95' for his efforts):
Now, a flick like this is always going to reward repeat viewings, with new details and subtleties emerging – yet Pulp Fiction is one of the most over-analysed pieces of celluloid of the last 20 years, so hasn’t everything that can possibly be said about it already been rehashed ad nauseum?
Maybe. But this re-edit changed the movie's familiar ‘rhythm’ and allowed me to take a step back and watch this masterpiece from a different perspective, bringing to light some things I had never quite clocked before. Here are my top 25 observations.
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| IMPRESSIVE BRAND LOYALTY FROM VINCE |
1. So Vincent Vega (John Travolta) was in Europe for three years, and despite popping into McDonalds all the time he never once wandered into a Burger King? Seriously?
2. 'The holiest of holies' is pure poetry.
3. Jules’ (Samuel L. Jackson) 'Let’s get into character' should be a more famous line. It seems his character in the apartment is charming but prone to bursts of rage, whereas Vincent is silent and mysterious.
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| BET HE ACTUALLY EATS BIG KAHUNA BURGERS ALL THE TIME |
4. Does Jules really have a girlfriend, vegetarian or otherwise? He doesn’t seem too concerned about her when he’s planning to ‘walk the Earth’ over breakfast. I wonder if this lady actually exists, or whether she's just part of his 'character'?
5. Was Vince lying when he said he never watches TV? He seems pretty familiar with Cops.
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| "OK, WHO LET QUENTIN WALK IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA AGAIN?!" |
6. I’m sorry, but how does a badass gangsta like Jules end up associating with a whiney little twerp like Jimmie? And then Jimmie has the gall to shout him down and brandish the 'N' word all over the place. Just to be clear, that’s Quentin Tarantino successfully intimidating Samuel L. Jackson. This is even more embarrassing than QT’s cameo in Death Proof.
7. What kind of function is Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel) attending at 8.45am? Some sort of classy all-night drinking session?
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| POOR OLD WINSTON PROBABLY JUST WANTED TO SPEND THE WHOLE DAY UNDER THE DUVET |
8. Damn, Jules and Vincent sure do go through an awful lot on empty stomachs.
9. Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) says, "A coffee shop" as if she’s reading the scene heading on the Pulp Fiction script.
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| I HOPE HE WASHES HIS HANDS AFTER THESE FREQUENT VISITS TO THE LITTLE BOYS' ROOM |
10. Look, that’s Vincent walking to the crapper over Honey Bunny’s shoulder, whilst Pumpkin (Tim Roth) is introducing his plan!
11. Ringo Starr was a Scouser (from Liverpool) and, as such, sounded vastly different to Roth’s mild London accent.
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| THERE MAY BE TROUBLE AHEAD... |
12. Oh, Lance (Eric Stoltz) says he is out of ‘balloons’ (the more traditional way of carrying heroin – I looked it up) so he gives the smack to Vincent in a ‘baggie’, in the manner that one might hold cocaine. So this foreshadows Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) mistaking the two drugs when she searches Vincent’s coat.
13. Is Vincent the most casual representation of a heroin user ever depicted by cinema? It’s not exactly Requiem for a Dream.
14. These days, Vince would just whip out his I-Phone and look up that Fox Force Five show on Wikipedia to find out the joke. Which would be crap.
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| SUBTLE... |
15. Would someone really do class A drugs right out in plain sight in the middle of the ladies' room? Is this showing how irresponsible and wild Mia Wallace is, or do people just do whatever the hell they want in L.A.’s public restrooms?
16. I’m starting to find it a little unrealistic how unafraid Vincent and Jules are of their supposedly hard as nails boss, Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Jules raises his voice at him over the phone; Vince asks Mia, who he’s only just met, some pretty personal questions over dinner that would pique even the most laid-back husband; and then later, when he’s wrestling with his conscience in the bathroom mirror, Vince ponders his ‘moral test’, never mentioning that Marcellus would surely have him capped if he came anywhere near the man's wife.
17. Just who is this Trudi girl (Bronagh Gallagher)? She looks about seventeen and seems to be just hanging around Lance's house, talking about body piercing with his wife and smoking a bong whilst watching TV with him. Earlier, Lance was actually trying to pimp her out to Vince. And she has an Irish accent... is the drug dealer also running some kind of European sex trafficking operation on the side?
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| GAP YEAR STUDENT? TRAINEE NURSE ON AN EXCHANGE PROGRAMME? |
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| LANCE'S COUSIN VISITING FROM THE MOTHERLAND? CORK RUNAWAY TRYING TO MAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD? |
18. Come to mention it, Uma Thurman looks about seventeen when Vince drops her off back home after the near-overdose.
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| AND ON A SCHOOL NIGHT AND EVERYTHING! |
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| "SORRY 'BOUT THAT, FLOYD" |
19. Cab driver Esmarelda Villalobos (Angela Jones) is interesting enough to have her own spin-off movie… wait a sec… http://www.imdb.com/title/
20. Butch (Bruce Willis) tells his pal on the phone that he and Fabienne and going to “…leave first thing in the morning”. Leave in the morning? Why the hell aren’t they hightailing it out of Dodge and away from the supposedly dangerous Marcellus Wallace straight away?
21. The ‘motorcycle movie’ Fabienne is watching seems to be about soldiers escaping from a POW camp – just like in Captain Koons’ (Christopher Walken) story…
22. Does Vincent’s heroin usage directly lead to his death? Not in the way Mia nearly checked out, but rather that he actually popped into the bog round Butch’s for a cheeky hit?
23. Now I think about it, he was reading the exact same copy of Modesty Blaze round Butch's that he was leafing through whilst on the can in the coffee shop. So does he carry the thing around with him all day? Isn’t it a little big to fit in his suit jacket pocket?
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| VINCE'S SUIT MUST HAVE A... |
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| ... MARY POPPINS' BAG QUALITY TO IT |
24. Wait, what the hell is Kathy Griffin doing in this movie (as one of the women who crowd around Marcellus after Butch runs him over)? Is she playing herself, like in that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm?
25. I wonder if Tarantino got the idea of making Zed (Peter Greene) a security guard after seeing Robert Patrick's sinister turn dressed as a cop in Terminator 2?
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| SUNSET, HERE WE COME... |
Watching Pulp Fiction this way definitely made for an inferior experience – the movie felt pretty long and drawn out, its pacing and energy severely hampered. One thing became abundantly clear: The Gold Watch is the most satisfying of the three stories, feeling almost like a mini bonus movie tacked onto the end, and Butch and Fabienne’s ride away on the chopper is just as good an ending as the usual one – maybe even better. *****
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