PULP FICTION
A film review by Alex Winter
Copyright 1994 Alex Winter
The phenomenal response to Quentin Tarantino and his film PULP FICTION scares the crap out of me. He's garnered the Palme D'or at Cannes, critical success all over the world, and been hailed as a great writer-director. This isn't the first time that a new talent was prematurely placed on a pedestal, nor that a film this flawed was received with gushing fanfare. But it's an alarming indication of how little we have come to expect from cinema and art in general.
The biggest problem with PULP FICTION is that it takes Tarantino almost three hours to tell a story that not only could, but should be mercifully shorter. It's a moral allegory, told in vignettes, about lowlifes who can't get their shit together. Its theme is communicated through Jules, a thoughtful but immoral hitman. On a hit, Jules has an epiphany, realizing that the power dynamic he exploits is a facade for the spiritually bankrupt, and he gets out. It's a good idea, and the best films of its kind were never longer than an hour and a half. The length of PULP FICTION can't be blamed on its labyrinthine narrative, which dances back and forth in time. Kubrick's The Killing, made when he was younger than Tarantino, is at least as intricate, juggles as many characters and weaves its web in less than ninety minutes.
PULP FICTION is more gratuitous and meandering than purposefully complex. A lot of what we see and how we see it is extraneous. Like an overzealous freshman writing student, Tarantino is too desperate to please to be concise. And with a vignette format, being concise is essential. He spends a half hour on a disaffected white girl, exploring every detail of her existence, and another forty minutes on a boxer who bungles his way through a double-cross. The girl's plotline makes no sense. The boxer's story kind of fits the theme but is short-changed by the overstuffed structure, which doesn't allow any of the plots to be worked through.
Tarantino's more interested in his semiotic manipulation of movie-cliches and narrative trickery than in telling a good story. His depiction of Los Angeles feels like the vision of a bad Italian comic book artist who never left Napoli. The present-day hitmen are inexplicably dressed like the Rat pack, the dialogue (though hilarious) sounds more like an Eric Bogosian rant than human speech, and everything's steeped in half-hearted symbolism about fate and destiny. There's so much artifice and excess crammed into PULP FICTION that Tarantino doesn't just seem disinterested in being pointed, but terrified of it. It's no help that the cinematography and soundmix are so jarring that they actually cause physical pain.
One of the film's many fans would dispute my points by saying he enjoyed the movie, however meaningless, so why should it be cut? That's an understandable question from someone who expects nothing from film but a titillating puzzle, but not from Tarantino who must want more of a reaction than that to his work. Or does he? His decision to tell stories this way is not just puerile and self-indulgent, it's indicative of the over-regard for mind-games and artifice that's plagued the art world since the arrival of Cubism. And it's the reason why film, our youngest and, potentially, most powerful art form, has not evolved past the cradle. If anything, it's regressed, simply because we're so attached to our brain-power as an end unto itself. What could be a dynamic medium for deep expression is mostly a superficial tool for exercising our intellects, and only filmmakers can change that.
It's ironic that PULP FICTION, a perfect model of masturbatory instead of pointed storytelling, wraps its theme around the Bible. Jules has spent years blindly quoting Ezekial, chapter 25, which speaks of God's wrath against the unfaithful. When he has his epiphany, the spiritual meaning of the verse becomes clear to him, and he's reborn. Tarantino may want to stroll backwards in his bible a few pages to Ecclesiastes, chapter 5: "And what profit hath he that hath labored for the wind?" Certainly, he's gained fame, wealth and creative freedom. But what use is that if he can't muster up faith in his own medium?
(The preceding was my article printed in the New-York-based magazine; "Paper," December issue. It is from my monthly film column.)
Alex Winter
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