Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction

In 1994, Quentin Tarantino created one of the most profoundly original and genre bending movies in years known simply as Pulp Fiction. Made on a paltry $8 million budget, the movie took the world by storm racking up more than $200 million and numerous nominations by the time award season arrived. In grandiose fashion, Tarantino took the contemporary crime genre that had become stagnant in recent years, and breathed new life into it. Pulp Fiction navigated the pitfalls and the tired tropes of other crime noir by simply taking highly stylized characters, giving them superbly written dialogue, and putting them through a skewed timeline that keeps the audience in suspense until the credits roll. It is truly something special that could only come

Take the dynamic hit men duo of Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield played by John Travolta and the bold Samuel L. Jackson, respectively. In any other movie these two anti-heroes would be reviled, but this is not any other movie. This is Pulp Fiction where there are no black and white characters, but only gray shades of right, wrong, and the perpetual duel between the two. The pitch perfect performances by all the actors and actresses involved help lend these devious characters a certain sincerity they otherwise would lack, and in turn the audience begins to feel a bizzare sort of affection for them. These brilliant performances anchor the film, and help it become a true tour de force of

This type of story telling was toyed with in Tarantino's breakout hit Reservoir Dogs three years earlier, but by the time Pulp Fiction was released he had perfected the art. Explaining how the stories all tie together would be a disservice to those who have not yet seen it. This was a truly revolutionary way to manipulate the audience's expectations and keep them guessing about where the story is going. Many other movies have tried to emulate this process to no avail. By and far this is Quentin's signature style which he has used in all of his directing efforts, with the notable exception of Django Unchained. Don't blink because for Tarantino, being normal is not the norm and flipping the script towards greatness