To become the best, we have to learn from the best.
Pulp Fiction is possibly Quintin Tarantino's most famous movie alongside Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs and Django. It's the story of two hit men, a crime boss, his girlfriend and a boxer as their unfortunate stories cross paths, told through a narrative that skips backwards and forwards through time.
Let's begin breaking down my favourite frames from the film that encapsulate what I think are some of the pivotal points of importance in the story.
Let's get started!
One of the first things we see is this lovely shot of Vince and Jules opening the trunk of their car. This kind of angle is very similar to that of a dead body POV where killers or detectives will stand over a dead body. Automatically from this shot I think the following scene is going to involve a dead body and their casualness sums up their characters well.
Here after a lengthy and very casual conversation the two men arrive at the door where they are about to raise hell. This framing combined with their conversation about foot rubs is just so perfect because we already know without having been told, that these guys are hit men. Death is just a day at work for them.
Here we see the boxer for the first time. He is being told what to do by Mr Wallace, the big crime boss. We don't see Mr Wallace as him not showing his face is like a display of supreme authority. He's too important to be seen just yet. The background is made of a lot of straight lines which fits nicely with the boxer having to stay inside the lines as it were.
Here the hit man Vince is talking to himself and is framed reflected in the mirror. This is showing his internal conflict at the choices in front of him: Be professional and respectful and say goodbye to Mr Wallas' girlfriend or fall for her temptation and suffer death by her enraged boyfriend. His ambiguity is shown wonderfully.
Here we see the boxer come back to his flat to get his fathers watch because his girlfriend has left it behind by mistake. He has double crossed Mr Wallace and taken his money and now he is a dead man walking in this town. This environment cage is also the threshold gate to his greater ordeal.
Mr Wallace has been bound and is being raped by Z, the corrupt policeman who seems to enjoy raping people in a basement guarded by a gimp on a chain. We don't see much of anything, and that's good. Not because I'm homophobic, but because it leaves his suffering to the imagination and also, because it shows that the boxer is also letting his imagination run wild.
Mr Wolf has come to the rescue to clean up the hit men's bloody car. They have stopped off at the character played by Tarantino's house and he has his own problem. His wife is coming home and he is F****ed if she sees a bloody car and two hit men in her house. He is singled off from his own comfortable reality he has in his happy home and it shows with the good framing.
The two hit men are tidying up the bloody car but the subject is very different. The two men are divided by two major issues. Vince has rejected the divine intervention they experienced while Jules embraced it and secondly, because Vince has a bad habit of disrespecting other people while Jules doesn't. They are literally divided by the car chassis.
Not Tarantino's first film and not his last but arguably his best. Personally, I love it to pieces as it deals with a bunch of interesting subjects: Divine intervention, respect, loyalty, betrayal and a whole host of other great subjects. Coudn't reccommend this movie more. If after watching this you don't look at a burger and think, "royale with cheese", then you're a sick man and need help. With one of the most quotable scenes ever, "say what again, I dare you, I double dare you mother F***er!" This film has the coolest characters doing the coolest stuff and the story is great and presented fantastically. What more do you need?
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