A perfect interpretation of the dark world

Hannah 2022-03-14 14:12:20

Foreword I

wrote this film review entirely because I am a native.

A film produced in 1994 and ranked 14th in IMDB, I have the opportunity to see it now, which makes me have to admit my country. However, this does not prevent this perfect movie from bringing me deep shock and deep thinking.

1994 is really a golden year for movies. Many of the greatest movies in human history were born in this year. "Forrest Gump" tells the legendary story of good moral character; "Shawshank's Redemption" tells the calm and persistent And the epic of struggle for freedom. Someone once said that this year's great "Shawshank's Redemption" was concealed by "Forrest Gump", and deeply regretted and injustice for this. However, what was really hidden from the light and what should be injustice was actually This "Pulp Fiction".

Horizontal comparison: If "Forrest Gump" tells a positive story of noble sentiment and miracles, "Shawshank's Redemption" tells a neutral story of unremitting struggle against an ugly society, then "Pulp Fiction" tells no compromise. The negative story of the dark world without buckle. There is not a completely kind and innocent person in this movie. Everyone is burdened with sins, even blood debts. It truly shows us the darkness and cruelty of this world.

Longitudinal comparison: Quentin Tarantino's latest work, "Kill Bill", two parts compared with "Pulp Fiction", can be regarded as a simple explanation of violent aesthetics and killing. What can't be concealed behind the gorgeous and shocking killing is The connotation is weak, and "Pulp Fiction" is not bloody, and the point-to-point killing makes people shudder at the hidden meaning behind it. The acting skills of the heroine Uma Thurman are also different. Although she always plays only one of several protagonists in "Pulp Fiction", and the drama is not very heavy, her natural and enchanting performance obviously completely conquered the director. And the hearts of the audience. I think this is why Uma Thurman's style is used in all the posters of "Pulp Fiction" without exception.

The most noticeable part of the film is its structure. Although this non-linear narrative structure can no longer be regarded as an "experimental" now, it can combine the story structure and the story content like this film, and the film theme is perfectly combined in At the same time, there are few examples of "experiment" instead of "experiment". The film consists of 3 stories "Vincent and Marsellus' Wife", "Gold Watch", "The Bonnie Situation (Bonnie Situation)", as well as the preface and opening. It is worth noting that each story (including the prologue and the beginning) has two main characters, and the story unfolds between these two people.

The


title of the story "Pulp Fiction" is actually not translated accurately. "Pulp Fiction" is not a translatable name. It has multiple meanings. In fact, the name also explains the theme of the movie, which is the world. The original form-"Pulp Fiction". At this point, the entry explanation for Pulp at the beginning of the film has obviously hinted us.


The preface of the film can be described as a classic. A couple Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bonny (Amanda Plummer) are having breakfast in a coffee shop, but they are all talking about robberies. It turns out that they are a pair of robbers. The two suddenly decided to rob the coffee shop, so they shouted with guns, which formed a huge contrast with the leisurely and happy appearance just now. The title and staff list also followed in the sound of music. And this seemingly absurd prelude did not reflect the director's good intentions until the end of the film.


At the beginning of the film, two important protagonists appeared: Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta), two gang killers, went to perform a mission, and talked about the anecdote of the boss Marsellus's wife on the way, so as to inadvertently narrate This paved the way for the first story. The two went upstairs and walked into the room. Jules had a seemingly humorous but murderous conversation with the three young men who were at a loss. When they found the box of gold, Jules killed two white youths, and the recitation of the Bible before killing Brett (Frank Whaley) is one of the classic murder scenes in this film.


The title emerges. The first story "Vincent and Marsellus's Wife"


begins to appear not for Vincent and Marsellus's wife, but for Marsellus (who has not shown up) to buy boxer Butch (Bruce Willis), asking him to lose the match intentionally. . Jules and Vincent, who had changed into silly T-shirts and shorts, returned from their mission, and there was a little friction between Vincent and Butch. Marsellus called Vincent away, Butch left, and the story pulled back to Vincent's main line. This seemingly unreasonable arrangement is exactly where the director's subtlety lies, and it paves and supplements the interspersed story. On the way to pick up Marsellus's wife, Vincent first went to a drug dealer who knew him well and bought a pack of superb heroin. Later, there was a scene of Vincent taking drugs and driving. It can be said that the director’s excellent interpretation of drug aesthetics. The dirty and sinful behavior of drug use was so beautiful that only Quentin did it, and this is exactly what the film is about. needs.


Vincent was ordered to take Mia (Uma Thurman), the wife of the boss Marsellus, out to play. From beginning to end, Mia was extremely mysterious and seductive, and his attitude towards Vincent was extremely ambiguous, but Vincent remained unmoved. The two dine at Jack Rabbit Slim's and talked about Mia's failed acting career. Mia claimed to have told an old joke on the show. Vincent insisted on listening, but did not get Mia's consent. Then Mia suddenly asked to participate in a swing dance competition. The two danced on stage was very exciting and impressive. It is also this dance that concisely and convincingly completes the transition of the deepening of the two people's feelings, which saves countless tedious and clichéd lines and shots. After the two returned with great enthusiasm, Vincent hid in the bathroom and struggled psychologically, but Mia accidentally found the pack of heroin in Vincent's pocket... When Vincent walked out of the bathroom, she found that Mia, who had taken drugs, was foaming in the mouth. Fainted on the sofa. In a panic, Vincent took Mia to the drug dealer, injected adrenaline into Mia's heart without experience, and luckily saved the boss's wife. At the door of Mia’s house, when the two said goodbye, Vincent asked Mia not to tell Marsellus about this. After Mia agreed, he told Vincent the old joke: The Tomato family is walking on the road, and Little Tomato is walking too slowly. Daddy Tomato is right. He cursed: "Ketchup (Catch up)!!!" This joke was a pun, Mia showed his feelings for Vincent, and Vincent could only control himself, and helplessly sent a kiss to Mia's back.

A child is watching a cartoon, and his father's comrades in arms suddenly come to visit. For this child, Butch, tells the story of three generations of soldiers in their family who have passed on a gold watch from generation to generation at any cost. And he came to pass this gold watch on behalf of Butch's dead father. The child took the gold watch, but boxer Butch suddenly woke up in the bell, and walked out of the lounge after a short rest.

The title emerges, the second story "Golden Watch"

Butch violated the agreement with the boss Marsellus in the first story, killed his opponent, and jumped into a taxi to escape. And his coach was brutally beaten by Marsellus. Marsellus vowed to catch Butch. Here the director did not forget to arrange for Vincent and Mia, who were not part of the scene, to show off a little face and ambiguous. It can be seen that their carefulness and the director's attitude to the story Intricately interspersed with attention. Esmarelda, the taxi driver who chatted with Butch all the way, was very mysterious, and his speech and behavior were very ambiguous, and he was very grabbing for the scene. It is doubtful that this character has any other purpose, but after watching the whole movie, I found that this character is the most common dragon set. There is no special role and other scenes, which makes people confused and unable to guess the director's mind.
Butch went back to the hotel and spent the night with his girlfriend Fabienne. The next morning, when he was about to take a high flight, he found that Fabienne had forgotten his most important gold watch. In a rage, Butch risked his life and returned to the house. After taking back the gold watch, Butch thought it was all right. He bake two pieces of toast, but found a submachine gun on the table. Butch picked up the submachine gun and suddenly heard the toilet water sound and pointed the gun at the toilet. At the door, Vincent came out. The two were relatively speechless and motionless. The atmosphere was rendered to the highest point. Suddenly the toaster rang and Butch fired, and Vincent fell to the ground. The toaster alarm sounded sharply and continuously. Butch calmly and carefully inspected the body, wiped the fingerprints from the gun, and walked out slowly. The alarm sounded gradually. I personally think this homicide is the most classic of the whole film, and it can also be called one of the best homicide episodes in the history of world film.


Relieved, Butch was singing proudly in the car, but found that it was the boss Marsellus who was walking on the crosswalk in front of him. At the same time, Marsellus also found him. Butch rushed out and knocked Marsellus out, but he was also caught Another car hit the side of the road and both people passed out. After waking up, Marsellus chased Butch to a small shop and was stunned by the ambush Butch. Butch was about to kill Marsellus with Marsellus' pistol, but was stopped by the owner and knocked out. Then there appeared the most shocking plot of the film. The two were not sent to the police station, but were tied to the basement of a small shop. It turns out that the owner and his friend Zed are a pair of perverted homosexuals. They want to keep the two of them here for fun forever, and they already have a slave-the lame. Zed is knocking on the lame's head while deciding whom to deal with first. I will never forget the scene I started.




Marsellus was chosen unfortunately, and two perverts led him to the inner room. Butch took the opportunity to get rid of the restraint, knocked out the lame, thought twice when he walked out the door, and returned to rescue Marsellus, and the grievance between the two was wiped out. And an angry Marsellus vowed to let Zed taste the pain of the world. Butch took Zed's motorcycle to the hotel and picked up Fabienne. Fabienne asked him who the motorcycle was. Butch said it was Zed. Fabienne asked who Zed was. Butch said, Zed is dead, baby... The

title of Zed is dead appears, and the third story "The Bonnie Situation (Bonnie Situation)"


The story is back to the beginning. After Jules recites the cold Bible, he shoots and kills Brett together with Vincent, but there is a man with a gun hidden in the bathroom. He suddenly rushes out of the bathroom and madly asks Jules II. The man shot, and the magic is that all the bullets missed. The two shot the unlucky ghost and returned by car with gold and insider Marvin. On the road, the two argued about the relationship between the incident and the miracle. When Vincent asked Marvin, the gun went off, accidentally exploding Marvin's head. Jules had to temporarily avoid the house of his friend Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino), but Jimmie's wife Bonnie The situation is very urgent when he is about to return home. Marsellus dispatched the legendary Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe to solve these thorny problems with lightning speed. The two Jules, who were washed in the cold water bath, had to wear silly T-shirts and shorts (also It’s the dressing at the beginning of the first story), go eat breakfast.

Finally, we came to the familiar scene in the preface—the coffee house. Jules and Vincent were still arguing about the old question. Jules said that he was inspired and decided to wash his hands in the golden basin and travel the world in the future. Vincent went down to the toilet angrily, and then there was the robbery in the previous scene. Jules pretended to be calm and gave the wallet to Pumpkin, but Pumpkin still found the box full of gold. Jules took the advantage of Pumpkin's intoxication and subdued him with lightning speed. Honey Bonny lost his mind in anger, pointed a gun at Jules and yelled, Vincent's appearance also made the situation tense. Jules tried his best to calm down Honey Bonny, promised to give them all the money, including his own money, and let them leave safely, and then started the most exciting monologue of the film.


He read the wonderful and bloody Bible first, and then tried to explain: "maybe it means that you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. Nine-millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the Valley of Darkness.Or it could mean, you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish.Now, I'd like that.But that shit ain't the truth.The truth is, you're the weak and I'm the tyranny of evil men.But I'm tryin',Ringo.I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd."After that, he put down his guns, and Pumpkin and Honey Bonny, with a look of loss, embraced and supported each other, and walked out of the cafe with the purse. Then, to the brisk and melodious theme music, Jules put the guns away and walked out of the coffee. The name of the director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino appeared, and under the dim light, I couldn’t help but stand up and applaud heartily.

Comment

As I said in the preface, the classic of this film lies in the reveal The darkness of this world does not give an answer. It is not like "Shawshank's Redemption", which has a strong-willed, unremitting struggle, and finally successfully broke through the dark protagonist. He has a lot of protagonists, everyone's body With beautiful qualities, they are hopelessly dark and confused. Without a Hollywood-style happy ending, the dark world was originally dark, it used to be, it is now, and even more so in the future.

Structurally, the narrative sequence of the film is very unique. If you follow the narrative sequence, the story should be like this: At the beginning of the film, Jules and the two perform tasks, and then the third story "The Bonnie Situation" (including the preface Robbery), followed by the first story "Vincent and Marsellus' Wife", and finally the second story "Gold Watch". However, the director’s ingenious modification of the narrative sequence and the artificial cutting of the plot make people feel a sense of realization after watching the film. The film seems to be independent of each other, and there are many interruptions. Connected everywhere, endless, and memorable. It can be called a classic of this kind of film.

In terms of characters, this film can be regarded as a "group portrait movie." But this film is unique from ordinary "group portrait movies" in that these "group portraits" never appear in a "time and space" at the same time, but they are closely connected with each other at all times. Each story has its own protagonist. The first story is Vincent and Mia, the second story is Butch, and the third story is the central character of our film: Jules. At the same time, the protagonist in this story is often another story, another supporting role in time and space, while developing the plot for other stories, he also left the foreshadowing of his own story in advance. For example, Vincent, a character that runs through the beginning and the end, actually played an important supporting role most of the time, such as Butch's short-lived in the first story, such as the robber couple that only appeared at the beginning and the end. The performance that impressed me the most in the whole film belonged to Uma Thurman, which was natural and coquettish, and showed the inside and outside of a gang boss's wife vividly and vividly. Her wonderful performance in less than half an hour made people fascinated, but secretly hoped to have more shots of the eldest wife, but unfortunately we have so many Uma scenes: (In addition, John Travolta's performance also made me look forward to it. Bright, changed my impression of him as an "action star." Especially in the process of playing with Uma, he was always tepid, unhurried, confused and charming, and perfectly combined with Uma's Mia. So far, when he is arguing with others, his index finger is slightly stretched out in front of his lips, and the charming gesture of his confused eyes is still unforgettable. The wonderful performance of these two people can be said to have reached a climax in the swing dance in the first story. After watching this movie, my classmates said that this swing dance is the most exciting part of the movie. Even friends who don’t want to watch this movie strongly recommend watching this clip. In contrast, Bruce Willis’s breakthrough is not big , Is still the image of a lonely hero, of course, this is also related to the role. As for Samuel Jackson, the performance is also quite good, but there is nothing particularly impressive. This may be the so-called familiarity. He puts the center of the film The character Jules is very well-interpreted, especially the monologue that tells the theme of the film, which is unforgettable.

As I said, although each character in the film has a good sentiment in some way, it is hopeless. Going towards darkness and confusion. Below I will try to analyze one by one:

The first is Vincent and Mia. In the beginning of the plot, we can understand the side of Vincent's cold-blooded killer, he and Jules killed Brett mercilessly. Then the plot turned around and began to narrate the ambiguous relationship between him and the boss's wife Mia. After returning from dancing, it was obvious that the relationship between the two had developed to the point where they could not stop. When Vincent struggled between reason and emotion in the bathroom, I knew that this relationship would not have any good results at all. How can a thug fall in love with the boss's wife? This is painful for Vincent, but not necessarily for Mia. When Vincent rescued Mia, he was frantically anxious, not all because of fear of punishment from the boss, but more of his care and love for the women around him. At the end of the story, with a haggard face, I saw that the pitiful Mia had completely given up on her hypocritical appearance, and she was totally different from her previous arrogant appearance. She said "Ketchup (Catch up)" hopelessly and hopefully, but Vincent could only have confused eyes, smiled tiredly, and sent a kiss to the back of his beloved woman. Mia can only marry someone she doesn't love and spend her life wasting; and Vincent not only couldn't get true love, but eventually died needlessly under Butch's gun, like a grass, where is love? And where is the hope?

The "gold watch" represents something more important than life. For this thing, three generations of the Butch family passed it down at any cost. When Butch embarked on the way back home, he knew that he might be killed, but what the gold watch represented was more important to him than life. This thing is "Glory". The role of Butch was painful from beginning to end. Born into a family of war heroes, he was full of longing for glory since he was a child, but in the end he became a boxer manipulated by a gang. So he chose to resist, he deceived Marsellus, and then tried to flee with his lover. Is this glorious? Butch still couldn't find the answer. The greed and darkness of this world have obscured the word "Glory". But Butch tried to retrieve it. When he woke up in the perverted basement, his understanding of the darkness of the world deepened, but this still couldn't dispel his pursuit of glory. He could have left Marsellus to pervert and left, but he didn't. The pursuit of glory made him unable to ignore it. But after he rescued Marsellus, he realized that such behavior only turned the victim into the perpetrator and the perpetrator into the victim. The facts of violence, perversion, and darkness will never change. So he fled this dark world with his girlfriend with a loss of glory. However, what awaits them is just another dark world.

What is "The Bonnie Situation", does it refer to Jimmy's wife Bonnie? We don’t know, just like the title "Pulp Fiction", it’s hard for you to figure out what it really means. But in "The Bonnie Situation", our Jules figured out a problem, which is what "Pulp Fiction" wanted to say-this is a dark world. Jules may not understand everything, but he at least understands that this is a dark world, and decides to leave this dark world and travel the world. He said clearly in that monologue, maybe you are a wicked man, and I am a good man, and my weapon is a shepherd who protects the good; or you are a good man, I am the shepherd to protect you, and the real It is this world that is selfish and evil; but these are not facts. The fact is, you are the weak, and I am the spokesperson of evil. There is no kindness in this world at all, but only the weak and the strong. Our Jules can no longer bear this, so he went on to say, I tried hard, worked extremely hard, and wanted to be a shepherd. So he let go of the robbers, hoping that they could survive in this dark world where the weak and the strong. It can be said that the role of Jules plays the role of a prophet in the film and is also the spokesperson of the director's views.

Pumpkin and Honey Bonny are such a lovely, innocent and lively couple (-_-b) but they are robbers; Jules and Vincent and Brett did not know each other, but because of Marsellus' orders they killed him; Marvin died tragically in Vincent's Under fire; the moment Butch and Vincent met at Butch's house, what were in their hearts? I am afraid that only they know it, but Butch has no choice but to kill Vincent; even if Marsellus can call the wind and rain, Zed and his perverted friends will eventually be ravaged; and what kind of cruel abuse Zed will face ? …Pulp Fiction is the generalization of this world. The nature of this world is dark and rotten, but we still expect someone to stand up and fight against this evil. We expect the appearance of a shepherd, and we expect to become a shepherd.

Tribute to Quentin Tarantino for this great "Pulp Fichtion".

20:07 2004-11-17@Wien

View more about Pulp Fiction reviews

Extended Reading

Pulp Fiction quotes

  • Jimmie: I can't believe this is the same car.

    The Wolf: Well, let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet.

  • Vincent: Jules, if you give that fuckin' nimrod fifteen hundred dollars, I'm gonna shoot him on general principles.