Intertextuality in Pulp Fiction

Intertextuality in Pulp Fiction
by Daniel Robbins
Presented to Prof. Ernest Mathijs - 8 December 2009
FIST 300 - Cult Cinema - UBC

Drugs, sex, gangsters, guns, profanity, and witty dialogue: Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) has it all. These are just the things that get cult audiences in the door, however. What makes them stay is quote-ability and intertextual referencing the film beats the viewer over the head with. Pulp Fiction creates a world not from reality, but from movies themselves for audiences to get sucked into, and take pieces with them when the film is over, and the credits are done rolling. Through persistent intertextuality, Quentin Tarantino creates a fan following to be reckoned with.

In Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino makes reference to, literally, countless films. These intertextual references are so numerous that they cannot carry any meaning of their own. Tarantino includes these references, possibly because he likes them, or because the viewers that ‘get’ the references like them, or both. There are some obvious references as well as some very obscure ones.

The scene at Jack Rabbit Slim’s when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) is showing Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) a good time for the boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) can “almost serve as a metaphor for the activity of the spectator at whom the film throws dozens and dozens of references.” (Polan, 2000: 17). Many of these are the easy references to catch. The wait staff is stocked with celebrity impersonators, most notably Marilyn Monroe, and Buddy Holly, who are even named aloud. Some of the other easy to catch references are: The dance scene in Jack Rabbit Slim’s as a reference to Travolta’s earlier dancing movie roles such as Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977) and Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978); a quick, but fairly obvious one is the nickname for the (never shown on screen) character Antwan Rockamorra, ‘Tony Rocky Horror’, which alludes to The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975); and just before Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) goes back into Maynard (Duane Whitaker) and Zed’s (Peter Greene) basement to save Marsellus he picks up a few items in an attempt to choose the right weapon for the job. Butch picks up a hammer, then a baseball bat, then a chainsaw, and finally a samurai sword. This is a reference to horror cinema, with the most obvious one being The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974). The rest of the weapons are a little more vague as to their referent, but the samurai sword is certainly meant to nod at Japanese samurai cinema such as that of Akira Kurosawa.

Tarantino uses innumerable intertextual references that are much more ambiguous and obscure. It is unclear how many and which of them are intentional, but the viewer rich in cultural capital can pull these things out of virtually every character, scene, and line in Pulp Fiction. The character of Mia Wallace, Dana Polan states, sports a hairstyle that “is like that of Anna Karina in several Godard films” (2000: 21). I saw an intertextual reference in Mia, especially her hairstyle, as well; but it was not in France in the 1960’s. Mia Wallace seems to be to be a reference to Louise Brooks’ character Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s great silent film Pandora’s Box (1929), which has become a cult film in its own right. Mia is not in every way similar to Lulu, but she does have a little bit of the pre-femme fatale, naive view on the world that is so alluring, and self-destructive in Lulu. One scene that seems oddly self-referential is when Butch and Marsellus are tied up in the basement, beaten and bloody, and Maynard is spraying them with water (possibly to wake them up). This immediately brought the image of soaking a beaten and bloodied person in gasoline from Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992). Butch wakes up with a start in his hotel room with Fabienne (Maria De Medeiros), he is awoken by a “motorcycle movie” that is a nod at exploitation ‘B’ pictures. The character of Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is a reference to blaxploitation in himself. Again, there are hundreds of other examples; these are just to name a few.

Yet another way Tarantino makes intertextual references is by referencing other directors. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Tarantino talks about his influences, among them include Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese. As I have already illustrated, the films of the 1970’s are a major influence on Tarantino. These two offer a decent representation of the great films that were being created in the United States during that decade. Scorsese, who went to New York University, was part of a new wave of directors called the “film school generation” (Belton, 2009: 366). Not only does Tarantino cite Scorsese as one of the directors who influenced him most on the Charlie Rose Show, he claims Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) as one of his top three favorite films, along with Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) and Blow Out (De Palma, 1981). Elements of Taxi Driver can definitely be found in Pulp Fiction. Just after Butch flees the boxing match by jumping out of a window, he hops in a taxi cab. This vehicle is clearly not a modern 1990’s car; Tarantino uses a vehicle very similar to the one Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) drives in Taxi Driver. Butch’s conversation with the cab driver, Esmerelda Villalobos (Angela Jones), conjures up memories of Travis’s conversations with all kinds of “scum” in his taxi cab. Tarantino’s reference to De Palma is a little less concrete, or stylistically evident. Tarantino evokes a sense of De Palma’s influence through his constant use of intertextuality. De Palma’s ‘postmodern’ method of filmmaking involves the use of pastiche ,that is, imitation without any connotation around the imitation. De Palma used other people’s styles, specifically Alfred Hitchcock’s, without glorifying or satirizing them (Belton, 2009: 372). Tarantino uses elements from and even styles of his favorite directors.

Another director who is extremely well ‘quoted’ in this film is Alfred Hitchcock. Tarantino uses many various techniques of Hitchcock’s in Pulp Fiction. One of these techniques I attribute to Hitchcock more because of the term I choose to use than anything. The brief case, which the whole narrative revolves around, to me is a clear example of Hitchcock’s idea of a ‘MacGuffin’. No one knows what is in the case, and it really does not matter. The case moves the plot forward without anything specific being inside. Another Hitchcockian technique Tarantino employs is what is known today as the ‘Hitchcock Zoom’, ‘Dolly Counter-Zoom’, ‘Zolly’, or ‘Vertigo Zoom’. This occurs during Vincent’s date with Mia. This one, however, could be another reference to Scorsese, as he uses it in Goodfellas (1990). But either way it is a reference to Hitchcock, whether it is through Scorsese or not.

It has been said that the film is half European Art-House, and half Exploitation cinema of the 1970’s; that it is half French New Wave, half blaxploitation. I already mentioned that Mia Wallace can be seen as a reference to Anna Karina in Jean-Luc Godard’s films. Tarantino uses quite a few other references to the French New Wave cinema. To me, Butch and Faibenne’s relationship feels like Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). The man is on the run from the law (or the gangsters in Butch’s case) yet the relationship has this existential quality about it. This is not always the case since Butch has to go back to retrieve his watch and comes back bloody, for example. But having conversations about ‘potbellies’ instead of talking about how Butch just killed somebody in the boxing ring, or about their plans to leave the country in the morning evokes the same feeling for me as Breathless. Another French New Wave reference comes when Vincent and Jules “go to the house of Jules’s friend Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino himself), which some see as a reference to Jules and Jim[mie], a masterwork of the French New Wave cinema that is so central to Tarantino” (Polan, 2000: 20). I would not say that the characters represent Truffaut’s Jules and Jim completely, but the names are there and should be taken for what it is. Tarantino is clearly influenced by the French New Wave, and weaves elements of those films into his own.

I still have not nearly exhausted the number of elements that Tarantino has used from other films in Pulp Fiction, but I have given several examples in various contexts that will show that rather than being one film, Pulp Fiction is a conglomeration of other films. Just as Umberto Eco said about Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942), Pulp Fiction “is not one movie it is “movies”” (1984: 74). Much of the appeal of the film is that it is constant puzzle for yourself. The viewer is able to search, and find pieces of movies of their past.

Now that this film is fifteen years old viewers have a much different view of it than they did when it was originally released in 1994. Even though it is not logical, viewers can ascribe pieces of the film as references to movies that came out after Pulp Fiction. “A modern cult film is merely one huge collection of quotations, no matter whether, intertextually, it points forwards: Casablanca refers to ‘Play it again, Sam’, or backwards: ‘Play it again, Sam’ refers to Casablanca.” (Jerslev, 94). Jerslev is saying that the quotes from a movie can make you think of the movie, or the movie can make you think of the quote. The interesting thing is that she misquotes from the film. Play It Again, Sam is a 1972 film directed by Herbert Ross, starring Woody Allen. The line that Bacall’s character, Ilse delivers is merely “play it, Sam”. This speaks to our ability to identify movies, and lines from them, with one another. Every time I watch Pulp Fiction, in the scene where Vincent in shooting up heroin, Tarantino shows extremely dramatic, close-ups of the lighter and the needle and the bent spoon. These shots invariably make me think of Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000). In Requiem, Aronofsky uses the same sorts of intense shots of drug paraphernalia against black backgrounds, he takes it one step further with really inventive use of sound, but that is another topic entirely. Tarantino clearly could not have taken from Requiem, but every time I watch Pulp Fiction the thought goes through my head.

Beyond the highly intertextual nature of Pulp Fiction, what really give it its cult status are its highly dedicated fans, which is not too surprising considering, as illustrated above, Tarantino himself is the ultimate movie fan. Unlike many cult films, Tarantino’s second directorial effort, Pulp Fiction was fairly well received. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and its opening weekend grossed over nine million dollars (exceeding its production budget) (Box Office Mojo, 2009). Critics thought fairly highly of it as well; it was given good reviews by The Rolling Stone (“Pulp Fiction”, 2000), BBC (Haflidason, 2000), and Roger Ebert (Ebert, 1994). They did not seem to know what to think of it, but the bottom line of all three reviews was that it was a good movie.

Since its theatrical release in 1994, its popularity has grown much further. “Pulp Fiction is not so much a film as a phenomenon. Winning major prizes, giving rise to an immense culture of obsessive fandom, generating countless wannabes” (Polan, 2000: 7). There are various websites dedicated to the film. Sites such as pulpfiction.com, “a Tarantino fan site for bad mother fuckers”, offers a place to discuss the film, watch videos, look at pictures, and read about the film and its director. This seems relatively normal compared to “one of the most striking cases of fan dedication, the Fox Force Five website” (Polan, 2000: 11). With this, fans of Pulp Fiction have taken a minor part of the story and given it life in the real world. Fox Force Five is the name a of television show that Uma Thurman’s character, Mia Wallace acted in the pilot for. The show was not picked up and that is the end of it, in the film world. In the real world the fans have “their own culture built from the semiotic raw materials the media provides” (Jenkins, 1992: 444). For the fans, the Pulp Fiction does not exist solely within the 154 minutes of the film. They are able to appropriate pieces of the story to create their own fan fiction.

Pulp Fiction still holds a place beyond the very niche culture of the fanzine crowd that creates websites and art about the movie. Any time I walk into a store that has a display of posters, Pulp Fiction posters are nearly always included. Jules and Vincent adorn the walls of countless college dorm rooms. The film is extremely quote-able. It “provide[s] a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan’s private sectarian world” (Eco, 1984: 68). Pulp Fiction lends itself well to a cult following. It is easy for fans to pick out pieces and lines to emulate or repeat.

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction will surely remain a cult film for a long time to come. Its use of innumerable quotations and paraphrases from other movies lends itself to repeat viewings, and dedicated fan participation. The intertextual references cover such a broad range of cinema, that there is an ‘inside joke’ for everyone. In this way it is easy for groups of fans to gather to discuss the film through their own, fan-created forums. This inevitably breeds more fans.

References

Belton, J 2009, American Cinema American Culture, 3^rd Edition, Higher Education, Boston.

Box Office Mojo 2009, viewed 5 December 2009, .

Ebert, R 1994, “Pulp Fiction”, Chicago Sun-Times, viewed 7 December 2009, .

Eco, U 1984, ‘Casablanca: Cult movies and intertextual collage’, in The Cult Film Reader, eds E Mathijs & X Mendik, Open University Press, New York, pp. 67-77.

Haflidason, A 2000, “Pulp Fiction (1994)”, BBC, viewed 7 December 2009, .

Jenkins, H 1992, ‘“Get a life!”: Fans, poachers, nomads’, in The Cult Film Reader, eds E Mathijs & X Mendik, Open University Press, New York, pp. 429-444.

Jerslev, A, ‘Semiotics by instinct: “Cult film” as a signifying practice between film and audience’, in The Cult Film Reader, eds E Mathijs & X Mendik, Open University Press, New York, pp. 88-99.

Polan, D 2000, Pulp Fiction, British Film Institute, London.

“Pulp Fiction” 2000, The Rolling Stone, viewed 6 December 2009, .