Okay here we go. Why Pulp Fiction is a good movie and I will continue to defend it. Let's first get the whole non-linear story line stuff out of the way. Is it a gimmick? Yes, is it a gimmick used by great film makers? Yes. (I am sure you, kleinbl00, know most of what I am about to present here, but I'm spelling it out a bit for the sake of having others be able to see where I'm coming from) Okay so Tarintino's production company "A Band Apart" is a play on the Godard film "Bande à part" a dark French New Wave film. The reason I bring this up is because of Godard's quote: "A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." So obviously, Tarintino is going to play with this idea of non-linear story telling because French New Wave is awesome and pretending to be a French New Wave director is fun. If I could get people to pay me to pretend to be Truffaut, I would be elated. So my thesis is this: The title "Pulp Fiction" gives us the real insight. Pulp fiction is a description of a genre, not a description of anything that happens in the movie. This would be like calling a movie "Adventure Non-fiction". Tarintino isn't even hiding the fact that he's copying and pasting things, he's embracing it. Given Tarintino's background as a film buff, along with his obvious fandom of pop culture, the entire movie is an homage to the Pulp Novels and the French New Wave movement. He's taken something generally considered to be vapid and empty and mixed it with something that is considered to be deep and philosophical. All of the drugs, sex, and violence in those novels but through the lens of a film buff. I understand why people don't like it I think, but it also opened a huge world of movies and cinema to me which I didn't know existed. He's done this afterwards too, the whole Grindhouse thing, and then Kill Bill which is basically a revenge flick where even the characters names are from other movies. article Oh hey do you like 12 monkeys? La_Jetée What about Indiana Jones? Secret of the Inca's So you are right 100% it is a morality play it has no value in the story. The characters are over the top extensions of the narrative and none of them grow. But for me, it works it works because of the gimmicks, it works because the motivations are often secret or lazily put together on weak strings. It works because I bought exactly what is on the box "Pulp Fiction".
For the record, I said "Pulp fiction is not that good of a movie." I didn't say it was bad, I didn't say it was a failure. For the record, I think it's one of Tarantino's weakest; I find that when he writes for other directors he does fine (True Romance is a favorite of mine) but when he's left unattended you get Kurt Russell in Death Proof. As a film, Pulp Fiction is better than Death Proof or Jackie Brown but Death Proof was so bad that I decided I don't need to subject myself to Tarantino ever again. For the record, you're arguing that it "works for you" and that it's a "good movie." We're not that far apart, you and I - on the one hand, I'm observing that it gets far more praise than it deserves, while you're arguing that it's not undeserving of praise. I totally agree with you - and I suspect you don't completely disagree with me. Are we close? Thing is, you're also arguing that Pulp Fiction needs to be considered as "an homage to the Pulp Novels and the French New Wave movement." You're doing it no favors. Nobody gives a shit about French New Wave except hipster film students (who mostly bring it up to annoy people who claim to "like movies") and Tarantino. Meanwhile, "pulp fiction" gave us Raymond Chandler, Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Some people see Maltese Falcon. Others see "royale with cheese." Doesn't really matter, though, because Tarantino isn't actually making French New Wave cinema. He isn't actually worshiping the pulps. He's actually making 70's exploitation cinema which the whole world has turned away from. While the rest of us were watching Coppola's The Conversation, Tarantino was watching Boss Nigger. And that's fine. If you want to make a blaxplitation film, rock on with your own bad self. But don't tell me it's art. Quentin Tarantino is Clarence from True Romance. he's that huckster kid from the video rental place that worships Sonny Chiba above all else, stumbles into a trunkload of cocaine, goes to Hollywood and beats everyone else at their own game while simultaneously wiping them out in a hail of bullets. He's an unsubtle man. Left to his own devices he'll make ultra-violent revenge movies about nothing, and that's okay. But unlike John Carpenter or Russ Meyer or Tyler Perry, Tarantino convinced an entire generation of film buffs that he made "art" so they could enjoy ultra-violent revenge movies about nothing without feeling guilty. That's why he gets along so well with Robert Rodriguez - they're in on the same joke. They're cut-rate Hong Kong hackers that have been given the keys to the kingdom because Hollywood thinks they've let it in on the joke. The pig doesn't roll in shit to be ironic, it rolls in shit because it likes it. And if you like pigs, you don't care. So long as we can agree it's a pig, not a unicorn, we'll be fine.
Well let me say first that I am glad that you read through my nonsense. We're very close in the what that we see in both PF as a movie and likely Tarintino in general. I hope that I didn't imply that you didn't like the movie (I'm not going to look at my post again, because that wouldn't be fun) because I specifically tried not to assume that. I also hope that you don't see it as argumentative, but more discussion because I just like talking about this shit. To add, I also agree that QT is much better behind a pen than behind the camera when he has people helping him reign in as you say. Okay on with the show! I was weary of writing about pulp in such a way that was almost dismissive and I know there are others (was it Bradbury, maybe Heinlein, maybe all of Sci-fi) that could definitely have fit into the mold of the common pulp magazine. What I was really trying to express was the idea of "Pulp as genre" rather than "Pulp was crappy". He's not making New Wave, but he's certainly using enough elements (Pumpkin and Honey Bunny being almost complete rip offs/continuations of the characters from Breathless but I digress). I feel like calling it 70s exploitation is too plain and subtle for the movie, but I get it. Okay these are fightin' words! (Please don't really hit me though because I'm weak). C'mon man it's easy to dismiss things as not being art because you don't like them. Who cares if it's art you don't like, it's still art! Justin Bieber is still an artist even if he is backed by Sony(tm) or whoever he's selling shit for. What I get though is that the fans of Pulp Fiction are surprisingly, or unsurprisingly like the fans of Bieber. Taking something that they love and putting so much of their own interpretation into it that they make it their own and then become attached to it. What I REALLY think you and I are going to find common ground with is that PF is really overstated. I still think it's a good movie and it has a lot of merits, but I don't think it will stand the test of time. Overall I'm glad I got this out of my system, so thanks. Now I just want to start movie threads.Nobody gives a shit about French New Wave except hipster film students (who mostly bring it up to annoy people who claim to "like movies") and Tarantino. Meanwhile, "pulp fiction" gave us Raymond Chandler, Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Some people see Maltese Falcon. Others see "royale with cheese."
Doesn't really matter, though, because Tarantino isn't actually making French New Wave cinema. He isn't actually worshiping the pulps. He's actually making 70's exploitation cinema which the whole world has turned away from.
Tarantino convinced an entire generation of film buffs that he made "art" so they could enjoy ultra-violent revenge movies about nothing without feeling guilty.
Yes, I appreciate the discussion and no, we don't disagree on a lot. Put it this way - I think Tarantino gets a lot more rope than any other director because he's Tarantino, and I think he's Tarantino because of Pulp Fiction. And I think Pulp Fiction isn't that great. In my opinion, it's not a dynasty-building film. Let me restate "art" - "the uneasy alliance of art and commerce" has been used to describe Hollywood so many times that nobody even knows who said it first. Some people make pure art - like Godfrey Reggio. Some people make pure commerce, like Michael Bay. Most people end up somewhere in the middle. Tarantino is held out as an "artist" by "Bieber fans" (to use your phrase) because then they get as much street cred for blasting "U Smile" as that obnoxious Emo fucker in 5th period does for prattling on about Nirvana. But it's still "U Smile" and they're still "Bieber fans" and all the backward-handed attempts to turn it into Dylan is tedious.
My opinion of QT is that he's really good at making scenes, and not that great at making movies. That is, I love his dialog, and sometimes I think he shoots the most beautiful movies, but he has a tendency to swing and miss on the story. Kill Bill is the notable exception to this, and I think that movie is brilliant (although you really don't need a story to be a revenge flick, so it was already written for him; the filigree is what makes it great). Ingluorious was the most egregious example of QT not being able to get out of his own way to tell a goddam story. That move makes me mad, because it could be so good, but falls so flat on its face.
Fair enough. Part Two is better, but I can see why the brutal obviousness of it could be pretty off putting. But like I said, I like it for the pretty filler, and for me, that's all Kill Bill needed. A movie like Ingluorious, or Django really suffers when you treat subjects that should be treated with respect as cannon fodder, never mind the fact that the stories are just dumb. If you're going to do a revisionist history, at least make it interesting. I completely agree with you about Death Proof. I was soooo bored, but I wanted to see Planet Terror, so I stayed. Otherwise, I think that would've ended up on my shortlist of movies that I've walked out of (and it's a very short list; my tolerance for shitty movies is really high). I would say Death Proof is unarguably Tarantino's worst movie. Even if it was supposed to be recreating the "Grindhouse" feel, you should at least try harder than some 1970's filmmaker who probably had a microscopic budget and little to no talent. Shameful, really.