Pulp Fiction - Analysis Quentin

Pulp Fiction - analysis

Quentin Tarantino's 1994 motion picture Pulp Fiction puts across a story involving guns, hitmen, killings, and a chance to redemption by going through a process of re-discovery. The story presents a young Butch Coolidge as he receives a watch that his father's friend kept in his rectum for two years as a Vietnam War prisoner consequent to Coolidge senior's death. The storyline advances to show Vincent Vega, a mercenary hired by Marsellus Wallace, his boss, to take care of his wife, Mia. Before being able to do this, Vincent and his fellow hitman, Jules Winnfield, have to retrieve a briefcase from Brett, an individual who disobeyed their boss. They execute Brett. However, they are surprised by another man as he emerges from the bathroom and hectically shoots at them without actually hitting them. The two walk away unharmed but end up accidentally killing a man on the back seat of their car and turn to a 'cleaner' to help them. Vincent and Jules experience a somewhat ironic incident and the latter is convinced that he needs to quit his job as a result. The job involving Vincent and Mia goes wrong as she accidentally snorts heroin thinking that it is cocaine and as she rushes her to his dealer friend to revive her and make things right. The action then moves to Butch, now a boxer, as he double-crosses Marsellus by arranging an already arranged fight and as he ends up killing Vincent and saving Marsellus from a gang of perverts.

1. The plot is important in distracting viewers' focus from trying to anticipate events that take place throughout the film. The motion picture's non-diegetic elements enable viewers to be transported in an environment that is very different from the film's story. By doing this, the film puts across feelings related to irony and sarcasm, as it apparently wants to ridicule a society that never seizes to amaze. It is as if the film is meant to be surprising by showing apparently improbable occurrences that are actually very likely to happen in real life.

2. The film does not follow Freytag's Pyramid and the only way for it to follow it was if it were to be divided in several chapters and analyzed individually.

3. Prologue (rising action) -- Vincent Vega and Mia (rising action) (complication) (climax) (reversal) (falling action) -- Prelude to the Gold Watch (rising action) - the Gold Watch (complication) (rising action) (catastrophe -- for Vincent) (complication) (climax) -- Brett's friend (complication) -- Epilogue (climax)