Pulp Fiction and Being John Malkovich: Narrative Analysis

Introduction: Unconventional Narrative in Contemporary Cinema

Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino, is a prime example of a film that utilizes a multiple narrative structure. The film contains three narrative stories signaled by inserted captions and told in "episodes" presented non-chronologically. Specifically, the three narratives are called "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife," a story about a man tasked with watching over his boss's wife without crossing any lines; "The Gold Watch," the story of a boxer who is supposed to throw a fight but refuses; and "The Bonnie Situation," the story of two hitmen as they prepare to kill someone and live through the consequences (LaFrance). The non-chronological presentation of these three stories does not mean there is no logic in the way the film's episodes are ordered. Each consecutive episode provides set-ups and pay-offs for linking bits of information, characters, and action — a structural feature that allows the audience to follow and piece together the temporal puzzle. The multiple narratives are therefore interrelated at a fundamental level, providing three interlocking stories that say more as a composite than any one of them could as an isolated narrative (Hassler-Forest). By utilizing an interrelated multiple narrative structure, Tarantino drives home his themes of amorality, evil, punishment, and redemption in a way that is stronger and more intellectually arresting than a traditional linear, single-narrative plot would allow.

The Structure of Pulp Fiction: Episodes and Non-Chronological Order

In order to analyze the structure of Pulp Fiction more clearly, the film can be divided into six episodes, in which almost all episodes provide information necessary for understanding at least two of the three narrative lines (Hassler-Forest). Table 1 below summarizes the six episodes in the order Tarantino presents them in the film and also indicates the order in which the episodes "actually" occur.

Table 1. Six Episodes of Pulp Fiction (adapted from Hassler-Forest, with correction of errors).

Film Chronology: (1) Introductory scene featuring Pumpkin and Honeybunny, followed by opening credits; (2) Introduction to "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife," featuring Vincent and Jules; (5) "The Bonnie Situation," featuring Jules, Vincent, Winston Wolf, and Jimmie; (3) "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife," featuring Vincent and Mia; (4) "The Gold Watch," featuring Butch, Fabienne, and Marsellus; (6) Jules and Vincent reflect on the events of episode 2 and have an encounter with Pumpkin and Honeybunny.

"Actual" Chronology: (1) Introductory scene featuring Pumpkin and Honeybunny; (5) "The Bonnie Situation," featuring Jules, Vincent, Winston Wolf, and Jimmie; (3) "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife," featuring Vincent and Mia; (6) Epilogue in which Jules and Vincent reflect on the events of episode 2 and have an encounter with Pumpkin and Honeybunny; (4) "The Gold Watch," featuring Butch, Fabienne, and Marsellus.

By rearranging the chronology of the film, Tarantino accomplishes several things. First, the narrative structure becomes circular, as episodes 1 and 6 both occur in the same diner and include the Pumpkin and Honeybunny characters (Villella). Circular narratives have a long tradition in film and literature, sometimes called "bookending" in screenwriting. Bookends are commonly fashioned by taking the end of a story, placing it at the beginning of the film, and allowing the story to run through time back toward that opening scene. This is a psychological storytelling technique that allows the filmmaker to foreshadow the ending, so that the rest of the entire movie becomes an answer to the story questions introduced in the first scene. In the case of Pulp Fiction, this convention is given a twist: the bookend scene is taken from the exact middle of the true chronology and moved to both the beginning and the end of the film. Throughout the movie, viewers carry in the back of their minds the question of how Honeybunny and Pumpkin's hold-up of the restaurant will turn out. This kind of overriding story question causes the movie to move faster than it would if the question had never been planted.

A second result of the scrambled chronology is that the film becomes a puzzle that can only be followed with heightened attention to detail, so that the interrelations between the different stories are caught by the viewer. How the interrelations between the various episodes and the three narrative lines work is best understood through a specific example. The first indication that non-chronological events are going to be connected comes in the set-ups established during episode 2, which foreshadows three separate later episodes. The first set-up is for episode 3, "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife," which follows episode 2 in the film's chronology. It is established through the dialogue between Vincent and Jules in the hallway outside Brett's apartment, where they discuss the upcoming "date," the danger to Vincent, and the sexual ambiguity of a foot massage — all of which foreshadow Vincent's upcoming dilemma. The second set-up is for episode 5, "The Bonnie Situation," the episode that follows episode 2 in actual time. This set-up occurs through action: the killing of Brett and his friend leads directly to taking Marvin on his last ride. The third set-up is for episode 6, again established by action, when Brett's friend miraculously misses Vincent and Jules at point-blank range — a semi-religious event, at least for Jules, that they discuss in detail in episode 6. By making the dialogue and action of this single episode set up three upcoming episodes, Tarantino is free to rearrange the chronology without losing the audience.

How Rearranged Chronology Develops Theme and Redemption

This structural freedom gives Tarantino a third, and perhaps most important, ability: by rearranging the order of events, he can more clearly express the film's themes. All three narrative lines touch on the ideas of contextual morality and choices between good and evil. For example, Vincent must choose between loyalty to his boss — that is, his role as a hitman — and his desire for Wallace's wife. There is no doubt that Vincent has a highly developed, if warped, sense of right and wrong. Although being a drug dealer or a hitman carries no moral problem in his worldview, "you don't mess with a man's automobile" (Hassler-Forest). When Vincent decides to remain loyal to his boss and stay in his criminal life, it follows that he will pay dearly for that decision. Butch, in "The Gold Watch," also faces a series of important moral decisions: he refuses to throw a fight despite the monetary reward, and then — most strikingly — must decide whether to go back and save Wallace from a fate worse than death in the basement of a pawnshop. When he chooses to do so, he is rewarded by being allowed to escape (LaFrance). Presenting each of these sets of choices in a non-chronological way separates them from traditional storytelling and forces the viewer to think harder about the cause and effect of the various moral decisions.

The theme most strikingly emphasized is that of redemption, as a main character in all three narratives undergoes a form of saving (Ebert). Notably, the characters recognize the error of their ways and redeem themselves through interaction with one or more other characters (LaFrance). Only through the ordeal involving the pawnshop owners is Butch able to leave his life as a boxer behind and settle his grievances with Wallace. Similarly, Jules is only able to leave his life as a hired killer after he and Vincent miraculously survive a gunfight and a subsequent attempted burglary. In contrast, Vincent — the only character who fails to recognize the errors of his ways — does not gain redemption and is instead punished with a violent death, alone and separated from Jules. Because Jules's redemption is the most striking of the three, traveling the fullest character arc, it is appropriate that the bookending technique places his final redemption in episode 6, at the very end of the film's chronology. This gives Tarantino the ability to place the greatest emphasis on this character's transformation over the course of the film (Ebert).

By altering the chronological telling of the three stories in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino has taken three story types that have been done many times before and moved them into new territory. He creates a story puzzle that engages the viewer, allowing open story questions and subsequent pay-offs to keep the film moving at a high pace. Most importantly, the structural choices give the director the ability to amplify the themes of moral choice, punishment, and redemption in a way that was genuinely new, contributing to the growth of contemporary cinema.

Conclusion: Social Commentary and Thematic Resonance

All of these characteristics ultimately combine to give Jonze a vehicle for social commentary. The film pokes fun at society's reverence of celebrity, even for second-tier actors whose specific films audiences can barely recall. It comments on the desire to watch others and on how much people will pay — literally and figuratively — to escape their own bodies, even for fifteen minutes. Further, Craig's puppeteering — whether he is manipulating puppets, his wife, or John Malkovich himself — makes a sustained statement about the destructive effect of control on personal relationships. Ultimately, the movie can be seen as a fable without a moral, because none of these issues are resolved by any of the characters. The sole exception may be Elijah the chimpanzee, who does come to grips with the childhood trauma of his capture. But even without definitive answers, Being John Malkovich is a compelling film that deploys a surrealist narratorial style, a range of surreal elements in the mise-en-scène, dark and confined spaces, and sharp editing techniques to construct a story world that has something symbolic to say about control, celebrity, voyeurism, and the deeply human desire to be someone else — even, or perhaps especially, John Malkovich.

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