Pulp Fiction is like boot camp for the Marines. You come into it from your civilized life, they subject you to violent language until you're numb, they abuse you verbally and physically until all of your normal feelings and values are reduced to dust. Leaving you aware that you have changed, and able to describe the change, you find yourself questioning the person you were previously. First thing you know you're saluting. This story is a cleverly disorienting journey through a landscape of danger, shock, hilarity, and vibrant local color. Nothing is predictable or familiar within this irresistibly bizarre world. You do not merely enter a theater to see Pulp Fiction: you go down a rabbit hole.
Theater is an actor moving through time and space, telling a story. In Quentin Terintenio¹s, Pulp Fiction, the actors portray savvy modern-day gangsters and the story is three stories told in backwards order. To say the least this not your average story. The theme of the story is redemption, and the journey to achieve that redemption. The characters are colorfully multidimensional and most importantly they are believable.
The language of the story is street-smart and confident, like the characters. There is no main plot, only mirror plots that are reflections of each other.
The theme of redemption is portrayed by two of the main characters of the story. These characters seek redemption and a new way of life, they each desire a more virtuous life. Butch (Bruce Willis) wants to pull off one last scam and then run away with the woman he loves. He seeks forgiveness and redemption through the future birth of his child. He wants his child to have a healthy childhood so that he will have the opportunity to hand down his precious gold watch, which was handed down to him. Jules (Samuel Jackson) has a near death experience and sees it as divine intervention that he is alive. Now he simply wants to leave his criminal lifestyle to ³walk the earth², and find his true self. Our story starts with the journey of the characters.
The characters in this story are not simply black and white, from the moment you meet them you are drawn in and want to know more about them. The story¹s intrigue, that element that makes the viewer curious, draws the audience in. And the story¹s credibility, the consistency of the characters, holds the audience there, inside the movie.
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
The strikingly accurate portrayal of the life of an African American family in the 1950’s did a great job of keeping the interest up. The director’s mise-en-scene gave the film a believability that is rarely achieved. They did this through the well staged apartment that the film takes place in for the majority of the screen time. The cramped and cluttered home sets the stage for the actors in the film to truly live into their characters. The actors did a brilliant job of portraying the wide breadth of emotions in this film. Their engaging personalities kept the film alive and vibrant the
Pulp Fiction is a film that is structured around three story-lines. Vincent Vega is the lead in the first story. In the second storyline, Butch Coolidge is the lead, and Jules Winnfield, is the lead of the third. Each storyline targets a different series of incidents but they connect and intersect in numerous ways. “The film starts out with a diner hold-up staged by "Pumpkin" and "Honey Bunny," then picks up the stories of Vincent, Jules, Butch, and several other important characters. It finally returns to where it began, in the diner: Vincent and Jules, who have stopped in for a bite, find themselves embroiled in the hold-up”(Tarantino). There are seven narrative sequences:
The plot segmentation of Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film, “Pulp Fiction,” reveals how the pieces in the nonlinear narrative structures are put together. In order for the audience to remind them when these events take place, the movie uses title cards to specify each segments’ main plot. Some of the characters would even reference events that have already occurred, such as when Mia, in the boxing match building, thanks Vincent for the dinner. The movie does not just allow the audience to really pay attention to how the story is being told, but also show how similar each of the main stories’ structures is, despite being in a nonlinear form. For example, all of them feature acts of “heroism” by resolving the issues when caught in very unexpected
I am not a big fan of black and white movies. They don’t interest me, especially because they are mysterious and dark most of the time. At the beginning I did not take much interest in it because I was confused of what was happening and why it was happening. After reviewing it with the class the beginning made sense, so the second time I was more focused on the movie than the first time where I was just in blank about it.
True Quentin Tarantino style is blood spurting, violent, and deep, Pulp Fiction is as encompassing as they come. The series of iconic events that formulate Pulp Fiction include a restaurant heist, murder, drug use, and a scene that implicates highly violent S&M style rape. Through its star persona, genre and film theory (specifically formalism) Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction glorifies guns and violence, thereby mitigating the effects of violence, and ultimately, condoning its use.
With the various characters introduced throughout the plot of the book, the characters voice their opinions and their thoughts. The wording and emotions
The Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, constructs an underground world of men fighting with one and other to find the meaning to their lives. Ed Norton and Brad Pitt are the main characters who start the fight club. They make a set of rules in which everyone must follow.
The main themes of the story are loneliness, materialism, and freedom from society. Tyler was created because of the lack of connection the narrator had with the people around him. The narrator was lonely and attended so many support groups because of it. He was not rejected at the support groups because the members thought he was sick just like they were. Materialism is a reoccurring theme as the narrator mentions how he has worked his entire life for the Ikea items in his apartment. He tried to fill the void in his life by buying worthless, meaningless stuff. People spend too much time working for things they do not need. The narrator comes to the conclusion that, “You are not your job or your possessions.” Only once a person realizes that can he or she finally let go and start living. “It’s only after you’ve lost everything,” Tyler says, “that you’re free to do anything.” In order to be free, we must not care about the stuff we own. Our whole lives are spent working to pay for stuff. If we did not have stuff to pay for, we would not have to work as hard and our time could be spent doing something more meaningful.
Each element helps each other by making the next scene better than the one before. It has the storyline come to live, and having people thinking what can happen next or who has the power in the movie. By seeing this movie it can make someone feel complete and satisfied for a long time.
...movie that I fell in love with. But most of all I love how the story line is a great overlap into the cinematically engaging movie. There is a great use of camera, timing, shots and story line that are portrayed in this movie without being too overwhelming. This allows the audience to relax during the movie and just take in the scenes as a story from reality. To this day, and even still doing this paper I still come to find different aspects of the movie that I missed the previous times I have watched it.
At heart Fight Club is really a dark parody about consumerist discontent. First of all Fight Club was one of the most direct depictions of modern society. We can visualize the clear criticisms of the movie from the words of Jamey Hughton, “ ‘Fight Club’ is the kind of breathless experience that chews you up, spits you out, and leaves your senses jaded and disorientated with exhilaration.” Secondly, Fight Club was a real evolution of the modern ideals, the emergence of modern atomized individuals and consequently urban alienation. Finally, the movie points out male-female roles and the place of violence in the male identity. Critic, Gary Crowdus, says it best by writing, “Fight Club members have become so physically impassive, so emotionally anesthetized, and so spiritually numb, that it takes a broken nose, a split lip, or a few cracked ribs to reawaken their deadened nervous systems and to provide them with a meaningful sense of male identity” (46).
the story, making it possible for a reader to really see in his or her
The film Pulp Fiction was an immediate box office success when it was released in 1994 and it was also well received by the critics, and celebrated for the way it appeared to capture exactly a certain pre-millennial angst and dislocation in Western capitalist societies. The term post-modernist, often used to refer to art and architecture, was applied to this film. The pulp fiction refers to popular novels which are bought in large numbers by less well educated people and enjoyed for their entertainment value. The implication is that the film concerns topics of interest to this low culture, but as this essay will show, in fact, the title is ironic and the film is a very intellectual presentation of issues at the heart of contemporary western culture and philosophy.
...impossible to find myself anywhere but sitting on the edge of my seat. It was difficult to predict what would come next, constant suspense was all around. Thus, making the situations portrayed more interesting and entertaining to the viewer of the film.