Pulp Fiction Genre Analysis - Joshua J. Way

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Pulp Fiction can be clearly defined as a crime/drama/dark humor film, but it is a movie that has the potential to be discussed in multiple dimensions. The film is has an array of cinematic allusions and pop culture references, it’s self-reflexive, and has an extensive use of homage and pastiche. These elements are prevalent throughout the film and are hard to ignore; Pulp Fiction proves to be a post-modern collage more than any definitive genre and can be argued so. The picture utilizes a colorful hyper reality to convey its message. It mashes into its arsenal crime, spaghetti western, blaxploitation, and even elements similar to that of Jean-Luc Godard and French new wave film. Using lively lowlifes, Pulp Fiction shakes up a tired, bloated movie industry, by reflecting how dull other movies of the time had become, further defining it as postmodernist film. Quentin Tarantino devotes considerable screen time to conversations that reveal the characters’ senses of humor and perspectives on life, which shows a considerable blend of cinema and theatre. These perspectives provide insight to a number of different criminals’ morals, thus defining the tone of the film. This coupled with Tarantino’s use of colorfully sculpted fantasy landscapes and allusions provides the audience with the taste of a series of time period experiences. There are examples of these throughout the film, ranging from the famous image of Marilyn Monroe’s skirt flying up over a subway grating to Jules addressing a soon-to-be victim as “Flock of Seagulls” because of his haircut. Although Tarantino credits the scene to the Jean-Luc Godard film Bande à part (1964) with the inspiration, John Travolta’s presence in a twist competition gives the audience a breath of another time period, reminiscing in Saturday Night Fever [1977] with Travolta redeeming his quirky charm with his smoothness on the dance floor. Pulp Fiction is marked with a reverence for the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s even down to the language of the film, while discreetly teasing and assembling complimentary references to other films and their conventions. The screenwriting in Pulp Fiction draws from old forms of storytelling, generally from the crime genre, and unfolds in a manner that twists and goes awry. An example of this is Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife- a long-standing story about the guy who has to go out with the boss man’s wife and not touch her. It seems that Tarantino is taking genre characters and genre situations and applying them to some of real life’s rules and see how they unfold. Even the character Butch Coolidge, has a resemblance to Mike Hammer from Kiss Me Deadly [1955], having just as ruthless and brutal of a manner, as the crooks chasing him. The pivotal moment in which Marsellus crosses the street in front of Butch’s car and notices him suggests the scene in which Marion Crane’s boss sees her under similar circumstances in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The two twisted cronies that take Marsellus and Butch captive, Maynard and Zed, are directly out of Deliverance (1972). Zed’s name is the same as the character played by Sean Connery in science-fiction film Zardoz (1974) the last two references both directed by John Boorman. When Butch decides to rescue Marsellus, he finds a multitude of items that are rich with film-hero resonances. Critics have identified these weapons with a range of possible allusions: • hammer- The Toolbox Murders (1978) • baseball bat- Walking Tall (1973); The Untouchables (1987) • chainsaw- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974); The Evil Dead II (1987) • katana (samurai sword)- many, including Seven Samurai (1954); The Yakuza (1975); Shogun Assassin (1980). The conclusion of the scene finishes with a line from Marcellus that echoes from a 1973 crime drama Charley Varrick, directed by Don Siegel. Beyond the array of visuals, Pulp Fiction is without a film score. The picture includes an diverse assortment of surf music, soul, pop, and rock and roll songs. Surf music is the overall musical style of the film, embracing a similarity to the spaghetti western. The particular blend of familiar and ‘underground’ recordings, as well as the use of beat-heavy style music of the early 1960s helps found the film’s text. ‘Classic’ ballads such as Dusty Springfield’s ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ combined with obscure pop songs are fundamental to the film’s postmodern attentiveness. Pulp Fiction offers a genuinely trivial form of sub-culture based around a decisively apolitical lifestyle. The soundtrack is central, to the film’s engagement in the younger, more cinematically aware audience it implores. In a mix of audio and visual collaborating, Pulp Fiction drafts an installment of exceptionally aware postmodernist film. The collage retains powerful pieces of pop culture and fantastic landscapes, pulling from multiple genres, historical films, and well-known stories delivered by absolute low-lives to exemplify a demand for better film making from the time period. This direction taken by the film demands a look at Pulp Fiction as a postmodernist collage.

Pulp Fiction Genre Analysis - Joshua J. Way

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