Three thoughts about Pulp Fiction

[mr. logic]

Surely the big theory on Reservoir Dogs is that Mr.Pink shoots Nice Guy Eddie.

[St_Eddie]

Surely the big theory on Reservoir Dogs is that Mr.Pink shoots Nice Guy Eddie.

Squibs not going off in time, leads to many a fan theory.

[mothman]

I always assumed the confusion was from the impossibility of Mr. White shooting them both almost simultaneously.

[druss]

Marsellus is a just a gangster with a plaster on the back of his head. The plaster on his head isn't covering up a mark where his soul got sucked out or anything he just cut himself  somehow.

Fantasist drivel.

[greenman]

I fully support this notion.  Nasty head shaving accident.  Nothing more.

I'd say its more Tarantino throwing out a few things like the 666 code and the expressive golden light because he thought they were cool and played vaguely into the "miracle" idea about Jules character rather than looking to tell some hidden supernatural story.

I'd say its another example of the autistic school of film analysis on the net that's obsessed with reading conspiracy theory like hidden meanings into films above everything else that has a strong appeal to people who don't want to acknowledge a more emotional aspect to cinema.

[mothman]

I'd say its another example of the autistic school of film analysis on the net that's obsessed with reading conspiracy theory like hidden meanings into films above everything else that has a strong appeal to people who don't want to acknowledge a more emotional aspect to cinema.

Im not sure what you mean. Isn't a lot of hidden meaning ultimately emotional? If there's no hidden meaning in a mysterious bandage or a glowing box, then what are we meant to FEEL? "Ooh, pretty" when we see there's something shiny in the briefcase? Or "Aw, poor dear, first he cuts himself then he gets run over then buggered by a redneck?"

[QDRPHNC]

I'd say its more Tarantino throwing out a few things like the 666 code and the expressive golden light because he thought they were cool and played vaguely into the "miracle" idea about Jules character rather than looking to tell some hidden supernatural story.

I'd say its another example of the autistic school of film analysis on the net that's obsessed with reading conspiracy theory like hidden meanings into films above everything else that has a strong appeal to people who don't want to acknowledge a more emotional aspect to cinema.

As opposed to the autistic school of CaB posting...

[greenman]

Im not sure what you mean. Isn't a lot of hidden meaning ultimately emotional? If there's no hidden meaning in a mysterious bandage or a glowing box, then what are we meant to FEEL? "Ooh, pretty" when we see there's something shiny in the briefcase? Or "Aw, poor dear, first he cuts himself then he gets run over then buggered by a redneck?"

Yes I wouldn't disagree but again I think theres certainly a culture on the net that latches onto films like Pulp Fiction, The Shining, etc and focuses on the films as vehicles for very specific hidden messages/plots. The line of thinking that Kubrick made the film to comment on the gold standard or something like that rather than being a story about family violence and links to historic colonial violence. I would say a large part of that is the appeal to people who aren't comfortable discussing films emotional content, blokish analysis.

[St_Eddie]

I would say a large part of that is the appeal to people who aren't comfortable discussing films emotional content, blokish analysis.

As if half of the idiots in the documentary Room 237 weren't women.

[alan nagsworth]

I would love to be the creator of something that inspired so much conspiratorial chat and then come out like fifty years later and be like "nah, that meant fuck all, it came to me in a dream and I thought it looked cool" just to ruin a load of nerds' lives.

[sponk]

Will Self wrote a highly critical review of Pulp Fiction a while back. Can't find it online but it was very smug and contrarian.

[McChesney Duntz]

Judging by this, yeah, I think it's fair to assume that Self is no QT fan:

https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/film/kill-tarantino-7380557.html

[kalowski]

Judging by this, yeah, I think it's fair to assume that Self is no QT fan:

https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/film/kill-tarantino-7380557.html

I enjoyed that

[magval]

I would love to be the creator of something that inspired so much conspiratorial chat and then come out like fifty years later and be like "nah, that meant fuck all, it came to me in a dream and I thought it looked cool" just to ruin a load of nerds' lives.

Cameron always says his films are about love - love between a couple, parental love, love of a space alien for webbing lads up into walls etc, but has also admitted the exact thing you said there about the original Terminator design.

[a duncandisorderly]

Cameron always says his films are about love - love between a couple, parental love, love of a space alien for webbing lads up into walls etc, but has also admitted the exact thing you said there about the original Terminator design.

>harlan ellison returns from the dead & gets cross all over again- "food poisoning my ASS!"<

[Gurke and Hare]

It's irrelevant really, as it's a MacGuffin but if I was pushed to answer, I would say either gold or the diamonds from Reservoir Dogs.  The one answer I can't stand is 'Marsellus' soul'.  "Is that what I think it is?" is not how I would expect some two bit thief to respond to seeing the physical manifestation of a soul.

I've always thought that "Is that what I think it is?" is Roth's character standing in for the audience - it's explicitly pointing out that it's a MacGuffin. Yes, viewer with a clever theory about what's in the briefcase, it's what you think it is.

[Better Midlands]

I fully support this notion.  Nasty head shaving accident.  Nothing more.

Saw an interview with QT and that's exactly it, Ving came in with the plaster having cut himself that morning and QT decided to keep it there and built the shot around it.

[Better Midlands]

Stephen Hibbert, the then-husband of SNL regular Julia Sweeney who played Raquel, the scrapyard owner's daughter who The Wolf has a thing for)

I thought she stood out as wooden in the film, didn't seem too have any acting chops at all.

[Better Midlands]

I've always thought that "Is that what I think it is?" is Roth's character standing in for the audience - it's explicitly pointing out that it's a MacGuffin. Yes, viewer with a clever theory about what's in the briefcase, it's what you think it is.

In the same interview QT said exactly this.

[Famous Mortimer]

I thought she stood out as wooden in the film, didn't seem too have any acting chops at all.

I missed the original post, but they were friends, right? Tarantino did uncredited script work on "It's Pat" or something of that nature.

[McChesney Duntz]

I missed the original post, but they were friends, right? Tarantino did uncredited script work on "It's Pat" or something of that nature.

Yes. (I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a site with his handwritten contributions to the script posted somewhere at one point.) He also produced the film of her one-woman show, God Said HA! I believe they were bf/gf for a spell around this time - there's a photo in Michael O'Donoghue's biography showing the three of them palling around in Ireland a few months before MO'D's death. (They were going to collaborate on a screenplay, supposedly, which could have been either awesome or horrifying or, best case scenario, both.)

[Captain Z]

Was going to re-watch this tonight after reading the thread in the week, and handily it's on Dave at 10pm.

[popcorn]

Was going to re-watch this tonight after reading the thread in the week, and handily it's on Dave at 10pm.

Turned this on and I'm already gripped. Can't imagine how anyone in the world dislikes this film. One of the great crowdpleasers.

[Shit Good Nose]

Turned this on and I'm already gripped. Can't imagine how anyone in the world dislikes this film. One of the great crowdpleasers.

And everyone in it (well, apart from Julia Sweeney, but her screentime is minimal) is absolutely stellar.  Travolta especially is fucking amazing.

I don't even mind Tarantino in it (The Bonnie Situation is my favourite sequence).

[sponk]

I enjoyed that

You might like these two too.

[neveragain]

God, even when I agree with Will Self, he can't stop from being a twat. That line about actors being incapable of thought without a script - pure cuntery!

[a duncandisorderly]

I've always thought that "Is that what I think it is?" is Roth's character standing in for the audience - it's explicitly pointing out that it's a MacGuffin. Yes, viewer with a clever theory about what's in the briefcase, it's what you think it is.

isn't it a nod to this?

https://youtu.be/8M38LJqEb1o?t=3119

[mothman]

It's more commonly assumed to be an homage to the briefcase of atomic material in Aldrich's 1955 Kiss Me Deadly.

[drdad]

It's more commonly assumed to be an homage to the briefcase of atomic material in Aldrich's 1955 Kiss Me Deadly.

... to which Repo Man seems like a fairly clear homage.

[mothman]

I first saw Kiss Me Deadly on Moviedrome, which might count as further corroboration.