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.