Pulp Fiction Presentation Outline

I.                   Brief Summary

A.    Pulp Fiction is a neo-noir film that deals with multiple protagonists involved in criminal wrongdoings in their own way.

1.      Vincent and Jules are hit men that do dirty work for their mob boss Marsellus

2.      Butch is a boxer that steals from their boss Marsellus and tries to get away with it 

B.     The film has an episodic structure where it’s divided into parts but they are all shuffled up out of chronology, and each episode has a protagonist it focuses on with its own story

II.                Film Noir Aspects

A.    Fatalistic narrative: the parts in which the film is divided into are out of order, where by the last scenes of the film we already know what is going to happen to our characters, it is a flashback that ties in right after the introduction of the film

B.      Tim Dirks, with regards to film noir films, says that they “show the dark side of human nature with cynicism and doomed love, and they emphasize the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience” (Dirks).

1.      Cynicism and other dark qualities in protagonist- all about self-interest: Vincent always concerned about covering his ass, and Butch steals and kills for his own interest  

III.             Neo-Noir Aspects

A.    Optimism

1.      Timothy Sexton in his article, “Pulp Fiction and the Conventions of Film Noir,” identifies positive traits of Pulp Fiction, saying that it “is actually a story of redemption. Jules is redeemed through what he views as a bona fide miracle by surviving the unleashing of bullets at nearly point break range. In film noir, characters are rarely redeemed and an optimistic feeling is rarely instilled”

a.       Throughout the film despite deaths and dark themes, it moves away from film noir by allowing there to be a change of character in one of our protagonists, saving him from a fatalistic death like his partner Vincent

b.      Our other protagonist Butch, who steals and kills, escapes without getting any severe consequences, unlike traditional noir

B.     Wicked Explicit Humor and Violence

1.      Director Quentin Tarantino doesn’t censor his film and sadistically attempts to humor his audience despite dealing with dark themes

a.       Film clip- Casual reaction to murder: Vincent and Jules are driving in the car with their accomplice Marvin, and Vincent with a gun in his hand turns to talk to him and blows his head off. He casually reacts and says, “Awe man I shot Marvin in the face… Well I didn’t mean to do that it was an accident.” We see the dark, twisted humor that Tarantino put in his film, something that goes way off the traditional conventions of classic noir.

Entry 8: Neo-noir Protagonist Similarities

I found "The Kidnapper Bell" and "City of Commerce" both to be interesting stories, the former more so. The main characters had a few similarities, though it did take me a while to find their comparissons. Unlike the darker-intent protagonist that we are used to in some works of noir, these two protagonists didn't fully set that mark of a criminal anti-hero. They were both flawed though. The protagonists show obsessive behaviors, they have a drug. Our almost nameless protagonist Jim from "The Kidnapper Bell" was very easily drawn into getting involved with the woman he was having an affair with, because he desired her. She tells him as she's trying to get him involved with the murder, "Didn't you ever want something so bad that, well, it's not that you'd be willing to do anything, it's that each step adds up and soon you find that you're over the line, somewhere you shouldn't be? You've got to help me, Jim," and to that it says that: "He does not say anything. His mind is already made up." It is his desire, his obsession in wanting to have sex with a beautiful woman that mess him up. In "City of Commerce" Nick has a poker-playing issue that goes as far as to risking his career and marriage. After unfavorable events occur with the exception of winning bigger than he usually does, he confesses: "Because there was nothing like a night spent playing poker: it was the great equalizer, the great humanizer, and the great eraser of differences. Except when it wasn't. But the hope remained for every numbers nerd,.. every hack screenwriter, and all the other poor saps out there who woke up one morning only thinking about cards and subsequently went about overturning their lives." He then leaves everything in his life behind and pursues a plan of living in those odds. With these points we could conclude that a neo-noir protagonist is obsessed with things that don't do him any good, and it's those addictions that drive him to a distorted fate. It is that mentality that taint these protagonists from being "good" and therefore having a dark edge to their personas, damaging their personal lives overall.

Entry 4- Zero Draft Questions

Question 9:
Keyes is depicted a bit differently from the novel in the "Double Indemnity" film. In the film you see a more intimate relationship between Walter and him whereas in the novel they are just close but not in a bromantic way. There are a couple of instances that help emphasize the subtle love triangle that is going on with Walter between Phyllis/Keyes. Evidence like Walter always lighting Keyes' cigar for him, something that would be commonly done by a man to a woman. Also Walter in two instances says that he loves him, and it makes you think if he meant it in a more-than-friends kind of way. The ending of the film has a wounded Walter and Keyes is holding him, he lights Walter's cigar this time, and when Walter tells him that "the guy he was looking for was too close, right across the desk" he responds "closer than that," then Walter tells him that he loves him again. Keyes also states that things between him and his wife didn't work out, and says a few things afterwards that make it seem like relationships in general between him and women just aren't for him. These interesting tidbits of evidence support the assertion of there being a love triangle between Walter and Phyllis/Keyes.

Entry 3: My Film Noir Short Story

Bait by Christian Vargas

Will Fischenich, "Fish" they would call me, poor little fish didn't know he had it coming. Not a bad man, just never fully got his life together. Routine job as a bank teller living in a lone apartment in Glendale. Relationship status: single man in his 40s, by choice due to internal issues settling down. 

My life changed that Friday around noon though, as she walked in. Sienna Moore, seductive, fierce, and tempting to look at to the common eye. I had the pleasure to attending her as she asked for a simple cash withdrawal, but with much simplicity in the job being done, words were exchanged as were gazes that I felt had much deeper meaning. A connection was made with every smile she gave me, every clever sentence that left my mouth. By the end of our conversation, she handed me a small piece of paper with her home address and a time that read 8 o'clock that she jotted down with her ring-worn hand. A wink and grin goodbye, and my eyes walked her out.

That day all I could think about was her. Though at first I discarded her as an alluring married woman that gave herself out too easliy, there was something about that invitation that made me feel good about myself, confidence rose within me and I had decided to pull through with a visit later that night. As I walked the dark, empty streets to her house not too far from my flat I continued asking myself what I was doing, a welcome sign to adultery on her side of the coin. I hadn't ever done something like this, and it didn't seem to bother me. But the ambiguity of it all, I liked it.

My cruel fate layed on the other side of that door as I arrived to her small home, then the doorbell. She opens the door and invites me in, sits me down in the living room on her cold black leather sofa. Mrs. Moore tells me how silly she felt doing such a thing, but starts talking about her problems with her husband and how he's an alcoholic that abuses of her, how intruiging I was to her, and how she loves my nickname. Ironically enough she brings out a wine bottle and we drink as we continue to talk about our everyday lives. Kissing and touching begin, then more intimate behaviors. In a corrupt blink of an eye the tables turn as the door knob from the entrance door turns and the husband walks in, shouts and curses angrily at what he witnesses, pulls out his firearm and shoots. Two bodies hit the floor. Sienna Moore, both the luring bait and the unreliable hook, drops her gun after cleaning off the finger prints as she walks away from the scene. Never alone, but always on her own. As for the poor fish, the curiousity of experiencing something new, dangerous but alas captivating, led to my morbid end.         

Entry 1: What Defines Film Noir?

Dark and gloomy senses derive from film noir. This type of hollywood movies deal with '40s-'50s crime, very grim settings, and characters of mischief and violence. "The Neo-Noir '90s" article says that noir film "invites us to glamorously rebel against an age of abstinence and political correctness," and that is clearly seen and expressed in these type of films. It follows complex plots where our hero/ protagonist is not the good-guy archetype that we are used to, but instead has conflicts of his own, both internal and external, and may possibly be misunderstood both by the other characters in the film, and even the audience watching the film. The directors creating these films make sure their characters have depth and are not linear, that there is plenty of distrust amongst the characters to keep a challenging theme in the story. Noir films are also about tragic events occuring with these criminal characters, some of which we as the audience may have liked despite the characters' questionable intentions. The article mentions that prior to the noir films era in Hollyood, it "had diverted a besieged nation with escapist entertainments and patriotic cheer," because that was what the nation as a whole needed at the time was for them to escape a depressing reality. Then it goes on to say that with our nation's victory, "our storytellers let down their psychic guard, and what poured out was dark and troubling fantasies of a dangerous, corrupt new world where the lines between good and evil got crossed." The noir stories are corrupt; where criminals and rebels of the law could quite possibly be considered the good guys and characters we care about despite their ethics, and the bad guys could be considered those who oppose our main characters, whether it be other criminal enemies or the authorites. Film Noir is very interesting storytelling, and its defining properties have everything to do with that.