5 Things I Learned from Pulp Fiction

Until last week, I had a secret. Despite my love for film, high regard for Django Unchained, and admiring account of Quentin Tarantino at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, I hadn't seen Pulp Fiction. The problem? Universal acclaim scares me. There's little upside to writing about a classic movie everyone likes. Praise it, and your review lacks originality. Trash it, and you become the cynical curmudgeon groping for attention. [Editor's note: we tried to convince Ben that watching a classic film might have other benefits, like informing his understanding of movie history, or broadening his overall perspective on American cinema. His response: "Just spellcheck the post please."] So instead of a Roger Ebert-style review, here are five things I learned about Quentin Tarantino while watching Pulp Fiction. *moderate spoilers follow*

1. Tarantino's stories are surprisingly logical

A Pulp Fiction timeline by Shahed Syed

See one or two Tarantino films, and you'll want to admit the man to the nearest psychiatric ward. With all the charming Nazis, samurai swords, and blood-splattered sedans, you'd hardly need to explain your case to the hospital's receptionist. Peer beneath the wacky humor and gory mayhem, however, and you'll find a series of logical films based on a few simple rules of storytelling.

Pulp Fiction makes this clearest of all, presenting three interwoven plot lines with quietly similar structures. Each narrative establishes a conventional conflict, only to complicate matters with a late, unforeseen interruption that changes the stakes entirely. Butch (Bruce Willis) must recover a precious watch and flee town before Masellus (Ving Rhames) whacks him. Vincent (John Travolta) must entertain Mia (Uma Thurman) without entertaining his own sex drive. Vincent and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) must clean up a bloody car before their buddy's wife gets home. Butch nabs the watch, Vincent proves a gentlemen, and both Vincent and Jules save the missus from undue heartache. Yet Butch soon runs straight into Marcellus, Mia passes out from drug overdose, and the Vincent/Jules duo get held up while trying to decompress at a diner. Tarantino routinely raises the tension by giving his characters (and the viewing audience) a bit of false comfort before forcing them to confront an even stickier situation than before.

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What's more, the characters arguably get what they deserve. Butch's careless arrogance eventually leaves him bound and gagged. It's only once he turns back to rescue his enemy that his fortunes change for the better. Vincent's conscientiousness saves Mia, but his stubborn refusal to walk away from crime ultimately gets him killed.

Tarantino's stories may be laced with profanity and rife with broken bones, but they're told with the narrative stability of a Pixar short.

The same trends largely hold true for Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained. Though a few of the nobler characters die, the principal protagonists achieve victory, and the chief antagonists pay for their transgressions. Reservoir Dogs is perhaps the director's cruelest story, but even there, the good guy deceives the bad guys just long enough to thwart them. Tarantino's stories may be laced with profanity and rife with broken bones, but they're told with the narrative stability of a Pixar short. For all the insanity talk, Tarantino's work is surprisingly sane at its core.

2. Tarantino writes better chapters than books

Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction

Nearly every Tarantino film features distinct "chapters," whether it's the disparate WWII narratives in Inglorious Basterds, the self-contained morality tales in Pulp Fiction, or the piecewise historical segments of Kill Bill. Individually, these portions are fantastic. Tightly written and coiled like springs, they often create impossible tension before releasing the pressure all at once. (Prime examples: the Inglorious Basterds basement scene or the Pulp Fiction diner scene.)

Taken together, however, the chapters can overwhelm viewers' emotions to the detriment of the film as a whole. It's like the time you surprised your high school crush with concert tickets, chocolates, love poetry and a dozen roses. Just because the buttercreams were tasty doesn't mean they belonged on the date. 

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Django in particular packed a little too much Taranfoolery in its sprawling 180 minutes. Yes, the final half hour was splendidly cathartic. It was also shamefully indulgent. Alas, Tarantino couldn't help himself. 

Just because the buttercreams were tasty doesn't mean they belonged on the date.

To be fair, Pulp Fiction does better with its individual chapters than most of Tarantino's work. Unlike with Django, Fiction charms with each story's confident independence. The film doesn't need to bring all the characters together for a final scene; just some momentary overlap—when combined with the stories' strong narrative similarities—does far more than a climatic meet-and-greet ever would have. Regrettably, Tarantino appears tied to this chapter-based formula, despite subsequent films clearly in need of greater cohesion.

3. Tarantino employs a stand-up comic's sense of humor

The Klan in Django Unchained

Most of today's cinematic humor can be placed into one of two categories. The first style is situational, often physical humor. (Think Stu's missing tooth in The Hangover, the food poisoning scene in Bridesmaids, or every movie ever starring Ryan Reynolds.) It's a reliable method, if overdone, because it translates across cultures, genders, and socioeconomic status. Slipping on a banana peel will always be funny. The second style involves impossibly clever dialogue, where a close listener or repeat viewer will be most pleased, so long as he or she can stomach the characters' absurdly quick wits. (Think Gilmore Girls, The Social Network, and really, anything Aaron Sorkin has ever written.)

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Stand-up comics think differently. In a way, they blend the two styles, taking day-to-day "banana peel" situations, and crafting witty, Gilmore Girl observations  about them. Onstage, this hybrid style is a necessity, as only the combination of shared experience and uniquely amusing commentary will win over a skeptical, half-drunk crowd. The silver screen—with its gorgeous stars and special effects—can gloss over a few bad jokes; but a brick wall, microphone, and 40-year-old divorced guy? Good luck.

The silver screen—with its gorgeous stars and special effects—can gloss over a few bad jokes; but a brick wall, microphone, and 40-year-old divorced guy? Good luck.

After watching Pulp Fiction, I realized that Tarantino has the mindset of that 40-year-old divorced guy. He doesn't do situational humor, just situational violence. His characters might be as overdrawn as superheroes, but they're not nearly clever enough for The West Wing. Instead, Tarantino does humor in long, deliberate conversational asides, where the characters analyze and debate to the point of hilarity. It's just like watching a stand-up performance. Jules and Vincent's foot massage vs. oral sex dispute is the gold standard, but Mia's commentary on awkward silences or tough-guy Jimmie's fear-of-a-wife's-wrath come straight from the comic's nightclub playbook. More recently, the Ku Klux Klan's buffoonery in Django Unchained had all the same hallmarks: an extended discussion about sewing (ordinary), inserted between Tarantino's standard exaggerated action. It's yet another uncommon Tarantino touch often overlooked by general viewing public.

4. Tarantino is master of the payoff

The Gold Watch in Pulp Fiction

Perhaps my least original observation, Tarantino does narrative setup and payoff exceedingly well. He's like F. Scott Fitzgerald when it comes to symbols or Keanu Reeves when it comes to underacting. Pulp Fiction's golden watch might be the most obvious cinematic setup ever created, with its 10-minute-long introduction handing film students a pre-written essay on setting expectations. The film includes some subtler setups as well, from the visit to the drug dealer to the ominous Vincent-Butch tension at the bar (not to mention the more obvious setup with Ringo and Yolanda at the diner).

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You could make the case that Tarantino's setups are too blatant. Film snobs might point to Citizen Kane, with its "Rose Bud" payoff so subtle it might take two full viewings to grasp it. In my mind, however, Tarantino needs to be obvious. He directs with such a wacky, busy mentality that his approach to setup/payoff brings crucial organization to his otherwise frantic films.

He's like F. Scott Fitzgerald when it comes to symbols or Keanu Reeves when it comes to underacting.

Even better, the director's instincts on setup and payoff have matured nicely. Both Lieutenant Aldo Raine's Nazi-knifing antics (Brad Pitt, Inglorious Basterds) and Dr. King Shultz's quick-draw shenanigans (Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained) provide some of the best late-film payoffs in recent movie history.

5. Tarantino's excess works better on the page than on the screen

'The Wolf' in Pulp Fiction

Most Tarantino critics will lament the man's penchant for excessive violence and expletive-spewing characters. Though there are sound counterarguments to be made (he's just satirizing movie violence! his choice of setting demands discomfort!), these critics do have a point. Between the torture scenes in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the eye-plucking nastiness in Kill Bill, the movie theater slaughter in Inglorious Basterds, and the barehanded death-matches in Django Unchained, Tarantino has shown virtually zero restraint throughout his cinematic résumé. Yet moviegoers face a conundrum: without the director's no-filter extravagance, would we have any of these classic films in the first place?

After watching Pulp Fiction, I believe I've isolated the problem. Tarantino's unrestrained writing works wonderfully; his unencumbered visual composition—with all the blood, guts and gore—probably goes a burst artery too far. Pulp Fiction's Winston 'The Wolf' Wolfe (Harvey Keitel) displays Tarantino's exaggerated style at its best. Unimaginably suave and caricatured to the extreme, his entire involvement in 'The Bonnie Situation' drips with Tarantonian indulgence. The character surprises—even shocks—but only because he's so level-headed and unflustered. It's the rare Tarantino surprise devoid of unexpected violence.

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Give Tarantino a camera crew and a samurai sword, however, and he'll quickly paint the studio red. It's not the plot points themselves that are problematic: it's the way the director lingers on unpleasantries just long enough to distract from the true cleverness of his stories. I'm happy to hear about the mass butchering of the Third Reich in Inglorious Basterds. I'd just rather listen to Brad Pitt's Lt. Raine chew over another page of Tarantino's witty dialogue than watch another three minutes of Nazis turned to swiss cheese. The Butch/Marcellus torture scene in Pulp Fiction may lead to a key point of resolution, but I'd prefer to marvel at the characters' changed relationship than attempt to forget the extended portrayal of sexual assault.

It's not the plot points themselves that are problematic: it's the way the director lingers on unpleasantries just long enough to distract from the true cleverness of his stories.

I'll abide the pools of blood and titanic runtimes so long as Tarantino's films maintain the structure, humor, and narrative payoffs that made the man famous in the first place. He may seem inscrutable at a glance, but look a little harder and you'll find a capable writer and fearless director. Like Pulp Fiction itself, he makes a lot more sense once you go back to see what happened first.