How Pulp Fiction Revolutionized Cinema
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2024
- Thirty years ago, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction premiered at Cannes and forever changed the cinema landscape. The film inspired everyone, from Christopher Nolan through to Guy Ritchie, Breaking Bad and the Marvel films. Tarantino created an ingenious mix of genre and arthouse cinema. Pulp Fiction set new standards.
Key scenes from the film have been copied countless times becoming part of our collective pop culture memory. It pays homage to the cheaply-produced genre cinema that was long ignored by the cultural elite, which deemed it to be “pulp” or trash. Tarantino charged it with intellectual coolness and humor. The smooth and trashy genre-arthouse blockbuster may have inspired dozens of terrible imitations but also generations of filmmakers and audiences. The influence of Pulp Fiction is visible in pop culture up to this day.
00:51 What Pulp Fiction did Differently
05:39 Pulp Fiction: Post-Modern Masterpiece
08:20 Pulp Fiction's Plot: In and Out of Order
10:38 The Dance: Remixing Pop Culture
12:39 Pulp Fiction Controversies
15:53 How Pulp Fiction Changed the Movie Business
19:02 Pulp Fiction's Children: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
21:34 From Post-Modern to Meta-Modern
#dwhistoryandculture #pulpfiction
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"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd."
Gives me chills every time
Hard to believe pulp fiction is 30 years old already
I wish people would stop saying 30
I think Tarantino said the "out of sequence" style in the movie is a kin to reading a book. Books often have chapters that jump between timelines depending on particular story context, or when character motivations are being revealed. That's why there are chapter title cards when they show scenes that are non-sequential. He wanted to capture the feeling of reading a book, and project it onto the screen. This film is called "Pulp Fiction" after all. And in pulp fiction novels, they contain over-the-top scenarios, quirky dialogue, and rich character dynamics.
In terms of the dialogue itself, and references to past films and culture, Tarantino argues that that's just how people talk in real life. Real people don't necessarily talk about "the plot" of the story they're in, but seemingly "random stuff" that has significant meaning to the characters. A good example of this is the movie _Scream_ (which came out 2 years later). The characters don't know they're in a horror film, but they reference other horror films because 1.) The killer uses them as a way to taunt his victims, and seemingly takes inspiration from them, 2.) The characters have a love/distain for the genre (just like in real life), 3.) Some (if not most) of the characters are movie buffs, which means the killer could be any one of them, and 4.) In real life, people would be analytical in situations that remind them of particular scenes in movies they'd watched.
With that being said: Nowadays, having meta humor or references to other forms of media is seen as "tired", "overused", and an "overcompensation for a lack of story"; like a crutch. When done poorly, they're just references for references' sake (i.e. _Rick and Morty_ , _Family Guy_ , etc). But when done properly, it offers insight into the characters and why they mean so much to them.
Thanks for sharing these insights with us and our community!
Would've loved some credits for the different movies depicted in the video... But it's great!
Butch’s boxing match happens maybe a week after the Mia/Vincent date because they check in with each other at the boxing match. Marcellus is back from Florida by that point and Paul is the new Jules.
The most lasting effect Pulp Fiction has had on me, back then a indie/punk rock kid, was that it made me want to approach other musical styles, especially Afro-American ones. Thanks, Quentin!
What’s “Afro-American”? Like Elon Musk?
Joke's a bit old, isn't it?
@@DWHistoryandCulture I’m not joking. I’m using real life examples to point out why that’s a stupid thing to say. Black people never asked to not be called black.
Saw this amazing film when I was a 15 year old dreaming of becoming a filmmaker and it absolutely blew my mind, I went back and watched it 3 more times that week
Great job on this video. You get ten Royal with cheese.
I will forever hate Forrest Gump for coming out the same year as this generational masterpiece! Definitely deserved Best Picture 👀
Winning the Palme D'or is way more prestigious. He got the award that mattered. And Forrest Gump is a great movie too. A worthy Academy Award winner type film. So everybody got what they deserved.
Great work! 👋
Pulp Fiction, Burnt by the Sun and Three Colors Red……that has to be one of the strongest Cannes Film Festivals ever
I can't imagine a worst example of a supposedly post-post-modern post-Tarantino narrative renovation than the Daniels. Almost everything else is on point.
can you speak more on that
The point about the use of violence starting around 14:25 was very apparent to me when I saw the show in 1994. The theater was a converted church, fallen on hard times, into a pub…with movies…thanks to McMensmins brothers. Food and drink were available during the show.
My date and I were in an altered state. We were laughing uproariously at scene after violent scene. The other patrons were stone cold silent, giving us looks with knives as we would once again melt into laughter while a character on-screen would suffer.
Over the subsequent decades, I don’t laugh when seeing the movie again (maybe a half dozen times by now). Why did we laugh so much in 1994? I suspect because we saw the essence of what Tarantino was trying to portray, which the altered state may have enabled. Our responses certainly were unconscious.
I feel sorry for the other patrons who were there. They were getting a dose of the show on-screen…and near where they sat watching. That had to be uncomfortable.
Amazing video, first time seeing this DW channel and couldn't have a better introduction
So glad you liked it! If you're interested in more cinema related content check out our video on Star Wars director George Lucas: th-cam.com/video/VvIdxnTULJc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=hpT2reza4YdqoKbB or on Native Filmmakers: th-cam.com/video/lYxIYqF2bKY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=tLuwGfcPsllPEFFy! Don't forget to follow us for the latest upload and feel free to share ☺💓
Pulp Fiction is one of those "Beatles of cinema" movies. Inspired everything after it and things weren't the same after it.
Vincent and Mia's dinner is not happening simultaneously with Butch's boxing match. Both Mia and Vincent are in the boxing match, and Mia thanks Vincent for the dinner. So you're out of order too 😮.
That one is up there with "Butch keyed Vincent's car when they dropped off the case." Yeah I know Tarantino once laughed and said it was probably Butch but nobody ever stops to think that they were driving the Nova and took a cab from the junkyard. I suppose they COULD have gotten Vincent's car in between breakfast and meeting Marcellus, but at that point they probably just wanted to drop it off asap with no detours.
George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino both specialized in the pastiche, Lucas with Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tarantino with almost every movie he ever directed... people love that kind of thing
ZED, the vehicle plate used by Jarmusch and Tarantino
I think terrantino get inspirations from Hong Kong Films, i think he reference it in an interview on Chong Chin Express?
Wong kar Wei films were done mostly without a script, and IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE won the Cannes Film festival best actor for tony Leong. The 80's Hong Kong John Woo's action's films were actually very violent.
Thanks for sharing these insights with us!
I've grown to really despise the term "cultural appropriation". This is America, our entire culture takes from every other culture and makes it our own, which is exactly what Tarantino does.
Awesome 🤩
Watched it in 1994 at the movie theater in Rijeka, Croatia.
What was the audience reaction sir?
@@southlondon86
They loved it!
I think most of the audience knew what to expect .
I especially remember the reaction to Butch's girlfriend when she started crying in the Zed's dead scene.
They were all going,: Oh my God, just jump on the bike already!
Awesome video, thanks!
Thanks for this video: I absolutely love the movie and I could never quite understand why? There's nothing in there, really and ... everything Now I have an idea what it is that I like so much
Happy to help and glad you enjoyed it! :)
Pulp Fiction and Tarantino himself owe a lot to Godard for cinematic styling as much as Leone. This should've been adressed too.
9:41 For some reason I remember the film in perfect order.
It was not the last job of the hitmen, you got that wrong.
30 pulp fiction film. ....glad i'm back to SEE this DW historia... documental 👍👍👍👍
Still one of my all-time favourite films.
Is this narrated by the Pop Culture Detective?? They sound so alike
Tarantino 's best film ever. My all-time favourite ❤
5:31 “self referential” is not postmodernism. Pulp fiction is indeed “self-reflexive postmodernism” but there is nothing self referential about postmodernism itself.
He used self reflexivity to have an outside operator examine postmodernism as its staring at itself in a mirror, thereby subvertingthe postmodern tools that directors use.
One example is by turning the anti heroes into heroes, but somehow still maintaining PM themes. This was done through someone being saved at the end of each non linear scene (butch saves Wallace, divine intervention saves Jules, Vincent saves Wallace’s gf, and so on). But if it remained linear, it would be a postmodern film without self reflexivity.
As much as I loved the way this documentary was put together and telling the story and explaining the characters I do have one criticism is that I always had the feeling that the butch character was more of a punched-up washed up has-been who had seen better days and more glory who had lost all he's money and would do anything for a quick buck
True, but the thing that elevates Butch is he lives up to the story of The Gold Watch, quiet possibly for the first time in his adult life. The story of the watch is obviously about integrity and personal pride. He comes from a proud line of warriors, but he hasn't shown the same integrity as his forefathers when the movie starts. He may well be all the things you mention, a cheat, a grifter, a man out only for himself, but he performs a selfless task to save his enemy from a fate worse than death. Saving Wallace is above and beyond the call of duty, but it's what his ancestors would have done. There are huge hints that Butch's GF is pregnant, so we can presume Butch will get to pass on the Watch to his child knowing he lived up to the deeds of his forefathers.
Macellas wallus looks like?
Before seeing the film I got the soundtrack CD from my sister. It seemed as shocking to me as the soundtrack to the film A Clockwork Orange. The two films problematize urban violence, one treats the topic seriously, the other mocks ultra violence as if it were a comic book. The dramatic density of A Clockwork Orange is dissolved in Pulp Fiction, whose circus theatricality makes us laugh as if we were watching a freak show. I hate freak shows but paradoxically I liked this film.
Excellent point
God tier Movies
Thanks a lot dw.
It seemed amazing when it first came out, but now parts of it just seem goofy.
Which parts sir?
There is a respected journalist in Australia whom has been known to say that television is a fundamentally superficial medium. Cinema screens, being two dimensional as well, can be said to be the same. I kinda feel sorry for movie makers nowadays, and by extension for us viewers. The so-called Golden Age of Cinema.. pretty much ending in the 1970s.. told the stories that playwrights and stage actors had been telling for centuries, millennia. William Shakespeare's works being recorded via the printing press. Even so, audience members could talk to actors, a directors, the playwright etc. after a performance.
This connection still exists I suppose but it is a lot flimsier. Of the millions whom watched 'Pulp Fiction' (1994), how many get back to the actors and/or Quentin Tarantino and/or Harvey Weinstein and/or other producers and/or any of the crew? A tiny fraction, if any. That, too, is massively played out in the mass media. Something which has its own pressures and distortions. All this, to me, is what post-modernism is. It is no surprise then that I have drifted away from movies and the cinema. This TH-cam video lol... as ironic as it may be this video is perhaps more informative/enlightening than 'Pulp Fiction' is, or was. I think that is the 'highest' note I can reach in this comment so may as well leave it here.
Thanks for describing in details how "Pulp fiction " inspired by the Past revolutionized movie making of Today !
30 years? That means my parents let me watch this at 9 years old? No wonder my generation is f-ing crazy.
Post Modernism appears to be just an extension of Andy Warhol's views of pop culture
Warhol didn't invent it. Rather he embraced it and became famous for it.
bruce wills part still blows
I find disrespectful how you've desaturated the colours of some of the scenes. If you're not willing to respect the artistic choices of the director, don't alter them.
Sir it’s obviously for snowflakes who will choke to death with shock over the sight of blood.
I think that Boondocks Saints is fucking trash.
14:09 considering the fact that Spike Lee is openly EXTREMELY racist and doesn’t apologize for it, who cares?
Movies are movies so you can show the bloody blood at least on the youtube, otherwise our eyes bleed.
I can dismiss the Weinstein of it all pretty easily. Just don’t read the credits.
This is unbearable, like listening to Lenina Huxley talking about the XX century 😂
I hate non linear movies
70th comment
Shut up : Dw+PF+@P..love life(ve)✨👍
😂😂 This video is awful. I dont even know where to start. Its like he knows only of controversial headlines from people who hate Tarantino but doesnt actually know anything about him at all.
I was enjoying the film until you started in with the annoying social justice lecture
The movie was extremely boring
Another shallow analysis of QT focusing on the pop culture sheen and out-of-order narrative. The heart of his style is the influence from theater - long talky scenes where the dialogue is inherently entertaining on its own. Two generations of film students and critics are STILL learning the wrong lessons from this guy.
I strongly dislike Pulp Fiction. Likewise all of Tarantino’s films (at least the one’s I’ve seen). Gore is just not my thing, and pretending it’s “adult” is a bs justification for childishness and banality.
Who the fuck asked you?
Unfortunately Tarantino shot his wad on Pulp Fiction and all of his other movies are completely forgettable.
The cap is wild Lil bro 🤯
Thanks DW for featuring... Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite all time movies
stop yapping