Pulp Fiction (1994) ★ ★ ★

I've watched "Pulp Fiction" seven times, and with each viewing, my enthusiasm for it has diminished. It is widely hailed as Quentin Tarantino's best movie, thanks to its star-studded cast and flawless technical execution, but there are a few things about it that trouble me. These concerns may have seemed trivial back in 1994, but the director's subsequent career has largely validated my impressions. My primary concern with "Pulp Fiction" is its failure to achieve what every critic claims it accomplished: a convincing non-linear narrative style. Many directors have imitated its fractured approach to storytelling, most to better effect (Christopher Nolan's "Memento" is one famous example), and many utilized it because their stories benefitted from it, which isn't the case with "Pulp Fiction." 

The film famously arrays its events out of sequence, to impress on audiences that its three main stories are interconnected within a single coherent narrative. To some viewers, it succeeded. Many people have regaled "Pulp Fiction" as being a triumph of narrative innovation, and an efficient way for the director to develop individualized character arcs that would be stunted by linear motion. In its second opening scene, we see Samuel L. Jackson's character, low-level hitman Jules Winnfield, interact with his partner, John Travolta's Vincent Vega, in a way that sets up the stakes for Vega's assignment, which involves a friendly visit with their boss's wife. They discuss how their employer, Marsellus Wallace, threw a colleague off a balcony for giving her a foot massage, which means Vincent can't afford any missteps with the Big Man's lady.

I say "second" opening scene, because it's preceded by one in which Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer drink coffee in a diner and prattle on about how tired they are of robbing liquor stores. Their seemingly random five minutes of screen time begins Tarantino's circuitous route through the lives of Winnfield and Vega, a prizefighter named Butch (Bruce Willis), their boss Wallace (Ving Rhames), his wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), average schmo Jimmie Dimmick (Tarantino), and Winston, 'The Wolf,' (Harvey Keitel). And here's where my issue arises; despite its efforts, "Pulp Fiction" doesn't present a worthwhile story. It boils down to a couple of goons chasing a briefcase, a prizefighter cheating a betting operation, and a suburban lowlife giving the aforementioned goons a hideout while they clean up after a mishap with a firearm. These non-linear sequences feel like isolated vignettes that are loosely linked by overlapping perspectives, like hearing Tim Roth shout "Garcon" to the diner waitress in the background of Winnfield and Vega's breakfast conversation in the film's finale, which is long after we see him shout it in the very beginning. 

This patchwork feeling is enhanced by the director's odd decision to intercut each sequence with a title, like "The Gold Watch," in which my focus is shifted entirely to wondering how and why a gold watch factors in, instead of marveling at how natural it feels to see another bizarre scene in non-linear fashion. These title screens interrupt the movie's flow, and suggest that each scene is meant to be a self-contained vignette, and not pieces of a larger picture. They provide definitive borders to territories that Tarantino wants audiences to perceive as being unified. "Pulp Fiction" tries to impress with its roundabout storytelling, but ultimately the story is less interesting than the method of getting us through it, and neither element works as well as it should. I think of this movie as being like the painting of dogs playing cards after it is unnecessarily cut into pieces and then stitched back together by someone wearing a blindfold.

The other thing I can't shake is the feeling that I've outgrown "Pulp Fiction." This is a film for mature audiences, and such things aren't meant to be outgrown, and yet this unfortunate feeling shades the experience for me. I was fifteen when I first saw it, and I loved it. I watched it every year of high school, and by college was beginning to tire of it, which I chalked up to overexposure. But I revisited it anew in more recent years, and found myself both bored and annoyed. The scene where Marsellus Wallace tells Butch, "In the fifth, your ass goes down," is two minutes longer than need be, and gets my wheels turning about Tarantino's penchant for pointless dialogue. Likewise, the stilted platonic date scenes between Vega and Mia Wallace are beautiful to look at, but their beauty lacks content, even by nineties standards.

The overdose scenes are great, however, and I find Butch's character interesting. Everything he says and does is directly related to time. It's as if he inhabits his own dimension, one where he never fully has his bearings, while those around him (especially Vincent Vega) aren't quite sure of where he is, either. And it's hard to put a price on the scene where Ving Rhames pauses on the crosswalk in front of Fabienne's Honda to do a double-take, and upon seeing Butch, says, "Motherfucker!" I also found Winston 'The Wolf' to be entertaining, with some of the best lines in the script. "Pulp Fiction" is an unforgettable picture, even if you've only seen it once, but it's unforgettable because of its gratuitous use of obscenities, its lurid violence, and its immoral, and sometimes downright evil characters. Tarantino established himself as a true cinematic genius in 1997, but in 1994? Eh.  

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