- For other uses see, Pulp Fiction (soundtrack) or Pulp magazine
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film directed by Quentin Tarantino and written by Tarantino and Roger Avary. It was released to critical and public acclaim and is regarded by many as a milestone in movie history, helping to establish an ascendant independent film movement in the United States. Its fragmented storyline, eclectic dialogue, irony and camp influences, unorthodox camerawork, and numerous pop culture references have since colored countless movies. Tarantino and Avary won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay.
| Pulp Fiction | |
|---|---|
| File:Pulp Fiction cover.jpg | |
| Directed by | Quentin Tarantino |
| Written by | Quentin Tarantino Roger Avary |
| Produced by | Lawrence Bender |
| Starring | John Travolta Samuel L. Jackson Bruce Willis Uma Thurman Ving Rhames Harvey Keitel Tim Roth Amanda Plummer Maria de Medeiros Eric Stoltz Rosanna Arquette Christopher Walken |
| Cinematography | Andrzej Sekula |
| Edited by | Sally Menke |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
Release dates | October 14th, 1994 (USA) |
Running time | 154 min. (168 min. deluxe edition) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $8 million |
The film's title refers to the pulp magazines popular during the mid–20th century, known for their strongly graphic nature.
Reception and influence
Pulp Fiction is perennially found both on critics' lists (such as the AFI's One Hundred Years, 100 Movies List) and in popular rankings, placing consistently in the top 20 on the IMDB Top 250 List. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the 18th greatest comedy film of all time. In Britain (2001), it was voted as the 4th greatest film of all time in a nationwide poll for Channel 4, beaten only by The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather and Star Wars. In 2005, Time.com named it one of the 100 best movies of the last 80 years. It won the 1994 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It was named Best Picture by the L.A. Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. Many critics, including Siskel and Ebert, have compared Tarantino's success with Pulp Fiction to that of Orson Welles after the release of his Citizen Kane.
The movie was moderately controversial at the time of its release, partly due to the graphic violence and partly due to its perceived racism, as Jackson and Travolta played moderately sympathetic characters who freely used the words "motherfucker" and "nigger" (along with variations of the word).
The success of Pulp Fiction spurred studios to release a slew of "copycat" films soon after that tried to duplicate the film's formula of witty and offbeat dialogue, an elliptical/non-chronological plot and unconventional storyline, and gritty subject matter. Most, if not all of these films, did not fare well at the box office and were dismissed by critics as inferior and derivative, though the raver film Go did receive critical acclaim, as did Christopher Nolan's Memento and Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; the latter being a particularly successful transplant of the film's basic premise into the underworld of London.
The unconventional attitude of the movie, in particular its lack of a standard chronological structure, has often led the film to be cited as an example of a postmodernist film.
Storylines
Using many elements of a black comedy with many stylistic and pop culture touches, Pulp Fiction weaves through the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles gangsters, fringe characters, petty thieves and a mysterious attaché case. Following Quentin Tarantino's more traditional crime movie, Reservoir Dogs, the storyline is chopped up, rearranged and shown out of sequence, a technique borrowed from French nouvelle vague (New Wave) directors such as Jean-Luc Godard (Bande à part) and François Truffaut and from low-budget American crime films such as Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956), Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) and Don Siegel's The Killers (1964). The highly stylized and fluid action sequences and deadpan dialogue were inspired by Italian director Sergio Leone's famed Spaghetti Western pictures of the 1960s.
There are four main storylines in Pulp Fiction: Vincent and Jules; Mia Wallace; Butch Coolidge; and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. All four are intertwined, although Vincent is the only one of these six characters to meet all of the five others during the film.
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The order of events as shown in the film:
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The actual chronological order of events:
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Vincent & Jules
Hitmen Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) head to a Los Angeles apartment to retrieve a briefcase that was involved in a failed deal for their boss, gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). They also have to kill Brett (Frank Whaley), the one who was supposed to have set up the deal, and his cohorts. The briefcase is a classic MacGuffin, whose contents are never revealed except indirectly as a glowing yellow light (an homage to the 1955 Robert Aldrich film Kiss Me Deadly and the 1984 Alex Cox project Repo Man). There has been speculation among fans that the case contains something of supernatural origin, possibly Marsellus' soul; see The mysterious briefcase.
After a long and bizarre conversation led by the Scripture-spouting Jules, the pair shoot and kill Brett and two of his accomplices, quickly departing with the last of the gang, who in fact is Jules' informant, Marvin. Shortly afterward, while in Jules' car, Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the head, killing him, and the two hitmen quickly try to find a place to hide and clean up the mess in the car with the aid of snotty suburbanite Jimmie Dimmick (Quentin Tarantino) and the associate/henchman of Marsellus, the dapper and mysterious Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel). Jackson's and Travolta's characters had been reportedly inspired by the pair of hitmen played by Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager in Don Siegel's 1964 film The Killers and the obscure 1965 French actioner Je Vous Salue, Mafia! starring Henry Silva and Jack Klugman.
Mia Wallace
At Marsellus' request, Vincent Vega shows his wife Mia (Uma Thurman) a good time while he is out of town. Vinnie shows up at Mia's house and while waiting for her to get ready, she plays a classic song on the sound system. The song was the hit "Son of a Preacher Man", by Dusty Springfield. They head to a (fictional) restaurant by the name of Jack Rabbit Slim's, a slick 1950s-themed restaurant with lookalikes of the decade's top pop culture icons as staff (e.g., television impresario Ed Sullivan as the maître d', and servers such as singer Buddy Holly and actresses Marilyn Monroe and Mamie van Doren), an option for patrons to eat at a booth or a classic car refitted as a booth, and the famous "Five-Dollar Milkshake". ("God-damn, that's a pretty fuckin' good milk-shake!")
Vincent and Mia make small talk, wherein she recounts her experience as an actress in a failed television pilot, "Fox Force Five." The show followed the exploits of an all-female team of secret agents, each having a particular specialty (this premise inspired the theme for the Spice Girls' 1996 music video for their song "Say You'll Be There" in which the girls adopt similar fictional identities). Mia's character, Raven McCoy, was raised by circus performers and (according to the show) was "...the deadliest woman in the world with a knife." She also knew a "zillion" old jokes her grandfather, an old vaudevillian, taught her, though she refuses to share with Vincent the joke Raven tells in the pilot out of fear of being embarrassed.
Mia then demands that Vincent dance with her in the Jack Rabbit Slim's twist contest. Back at the house, she is seen carrying the trophy they won or that the duo may have stolen from the restaurant. While listening to Urge Overkill's version of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon", Mia overdoses after snorting heroin, that she finds in Vince's coat pocket, which she was wearing, believing it to be cocaine, and a fearful Vincent tries to save her life with the aid of the small-time drug dealer (Eric Stoltz) who had previously sold him the heroin. Mia is finally revived after Vincent, at the climax of a painfully comic and suspenseful scene, stabs her in the heart with a syringe full of adrenaline.
Mia wakes up with a howl and when asked to say something, says "something". The drug dealer's dysfunctional wife (Rosanna Arquette) remarks "trippy".
Upon arriving back at the Wallace residence, Mia finally reveals her corny joke: "So there's Papa Tomato, Momma Tomato and Baby Tomato walking along the street. Baby Tomato starts lagging behind, and Papa Tomato starts getting really angry. So, he turns around and squishes Baby Tomato and says, 'Ketchup.' (Catch Up) "
Tarantino has noted that he first thought of the premise and main character (The Bride) of Kill Bill during the writing and filming of this scene. The "Fox Force Five" bears a striking resemblance to the "DiVAS" of Kill Bill.
Butch Coolidge
Aging prizefighter Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) accepts a large sum of money from Marsellus, agreeing to "take a dive" (deliberately lose a fight) by allowing himself to be knocked out in the fifth round of his upcoming match. However, Butch double-crosses Marsellus, instead betting the money he received from Marsellus on himself (with, due to the fight's being fixed, presumably very favorable odds) and winning the bout, accidentally killing his opponent in the process. Although now flush with cash, Butch must quickly leave town, as a vengeful Marsellus is hot on his trail. (Butch's character and his situation appear to have been inspired by a similar character previously played by Robert Ryan in the 1949 film noir classic The Set-Up.)
There is also a flashback at the beginning of the "The Gold Watch" storyline (Butch's story), in which the child Butch Coolidge (Chandler Lindauer) receives his watch from a buddy of his father's (Christopher Walken), his father having died in a Vietnam War prison camp. This gold watch, which has been passed down from father to son since his great-grandfather fought in World War I, is understandably of great sentimental value to Butch, due to the legacy it contains.
Compelled to return to his apartment to retrieve the wristwatch, which his girlfriend Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) has forgotten to pack. Satisfied no one awaits to kill him in his apartment, grabs a pack of toaster pastries, an imitation of Pop-Tarts, in his kitchen and puts them in the toaster on the counter. While waiting for the pastries to pop out, Butch finally notices a MAC-10 submachinegun on the kitchen counter (not his own). Upon hearing his toilette flush, he readies himself in time to encounter Vincent coming out of the bathroom. The toaster pastries in the toaster pop up, startling Butch into firing the gun and killing Vincent.
Although it is never shown that Marsellus was at Butch's apartment, there are clues in the scene suggesting that Marsellus was indeed present. First, after Butch leaves his apartment, he finds Marsellus walking across the street holding two cups of coffee, presumably one for himself and another for Vincent. This would also explain why Butch encounters Marsellus shortly after leaving the apartment. Second, it would seem odd that a professional like Vincent would not keep his gun with him: the answer is that the submachine gun Butch uses belonged to Marsellus. Last, Vincent does not react when the door to Butch's apartment opens: he assumes it is Marsellus.
While driving back to the motel from the apartment complex, Butch accidentally (and literally) runs into Marsellus himself. The scene of Marsellus crossing Butch's path is reminiscent of a scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Following a scuffle replete with car collisions, gunplay and fisticuffs, Butch and Marsellus are captured and tied up by a couple of hicks (a pawnshop owner and a security guard) who turn out to be sexual predators and sadists. They take Marsellus into the back room and rape him; Butch escapes his bonds and in a disturbing, comic, and somewhat surreal scene, he is faced with the choice of saving himself or aiding Marsellus. He looks around the shop, finding a hammer, a baseball bat, a chainsaw and finally a katana on the top of the shelf and attacks the rapists with it, allowing Marsellus to free himself. Marsellus allows Butch to keep his money, as long as he never returns to Los Angeles and keeps the whole affair to himself.
Tarantino has also noted that the katana inspired its use as the basis of the samurai action sequences of Kill Bill.
The scene in the pawnshop, which is filled with Nazi and Confederate memorabilia, is somewhat reminiscent of a confrontation in the 1993 film Falling Down, in which Michael Douglas, an unemployed aerospace engineer on a rampage through Los Angeles, confronts the owner of a similar establishment, and asserts his implicitly anti-Fascist Americanism in the confrontation.
But while the confrontation in Falling Down was probably thought of in those political terms, it is unlikely that Tarantino was sending a heavy-handed "message" in having Bruce Willis come to the aid of Marsellus, a black man, as a white man in response to the psychos. Instead, the shop allows Tarantino to play with degrees of *noir* in the manner, in fact, of classic film noir.
Pumpkin & Honey Bunny
Over a late breakfast in a diner, a pair of petty thieves, Pumpkin/Ringo (Roth) and Honey Bunny/Yolanda (Plummer), discuss the merits of robbing restaurants instead of their usual targets, small banks and liquor stores. After establishing that restaurants are far easier and more lucrative to rob (the employees are less invested in the business, and there are plenty of customers with fat wallets), they spontaneously decide to hold up the diner, demanding all the patrons' money and valuables. Vincent and Jules (fresh from Jimmie's house, wearing a couple of "dorky" borrowed T-shirts) happen to be among the diner patrons. When Ringo demands that Jules hand over the case, Jules holds him at gunpoint in a semi-Mexican standoff with Yolanda (and Vincent, who emerges from the restroom with gun drawn and pointed at Yolanda; in this standoff, not everyone will die, because no one has a gun pointed at Vincent). Jules explains his ambivalence toward his life of crime, takes his wallet back from Ringo (sans the cash inside because Jules "bought Ringo's life"), and lets the pair go free.
Plot devices
The mysterious briefcase
The only obvious observations about the stolen attaché case recovered by Jules and Vincent are that its latch lock combination is "666", the "number of the Beast" as given in the Biblical Book of Revelation, and that the contents of the case glow. Whenever asked, director Tarantino has replied that there is no explanation for the case's contents: it is simply a MacGuffin. The case is most likely a nod to Robert Aldrich's 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly, in which a similar briefcase glows because it contains a small nuclear device. Originally, the Pulp Fiction case was to contain diamonds, but this was seen as too mundane.
That said, fans have offered up several theories, the most popular of which says that Brett had made a deal with Marsellus Wallace for Marsellus' soul. According to this theory, the exit point of Marsellus' soul was in the back of the neck, explaining the conspicuous Band-Aid on that spot. (The bandage's actual purpose was that actor Ving Rhames wanted to cover up a visible keloid scar.) When Brett is killed, a golden light similar to the briefcase's glow flares across the screen; according to the theory, the light is Brett's soul departing from his body. Of course, the various other characters who depart this world during the course of the movie do not end with flashes of light. It may be that the light in the gunfight is actually intended to be a dramatization of the blast flames from Jules' and Vincent's guns. The lock combination of "666" also suggests a spiritual explanation, and that the contents are bound up in evil deeds.
For filming purposes, the briefcase contained an orange lightbulb with a battery.
Jules' Bible passage
As explained by Jules in the final scene in the diner, he recites a passage from the Bible — Ezekiel 25:17 — each time he kills someone. The passage goes as follows:
- The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
This is, in fact, not an actual passage from the Bible, but a collage of several passages. Ezekiel 25:17 in the King James Version reads:
- And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
This is actually a typically obscure reference to Karate Kiba / Chiba the Bodyguard, a 1976 film starring Sonny Chiba (whom Tarantino has hailed as "the greatest actor to ever work in martial arts films"), which opens with a nearly identical misquote, likewise attributed to Ezekiel 25:17:
- The path of the righteous man and defender is beset on all sides by the iniquity of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the finder of lost children. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious anger, who poison and destroy my brothers; and they shall know that I am Chiba the Bodyguard when I lay my vengeance upon them! (Ezekiel 25:17)
The toilet/bathroom
Tarantino also uses the toilet or bathroom as a kind of deus ex machina at key points. When Jules and Vincent are shooting Brett & his companions, a fourth man is hiding by the toilet, waiting to fire. Mia takes her drug overdose while Vincent is in the toilet. Butch later kills Vincent when he catches him unaware on Butch’s own toilet. And Jules gets his wallet back from Pumpkin & Honey Bunny when Vincent emerges from the diner toilet.
Connections to Reservoir Dogs
In Tarantino's 1992 mainstream directorial debut Reservoir Dogs, Michael Madsen plays a character named "Vic Vega"—suspiciously close to Travolta's "Vincent Vega." Tarantino would later confirm that the two are brothers.
Tarantino's Jimmie Dimmick character in Pulp Fiction has the same last name as Harvey Keitel's Reservoir Dogs character Larry Dimmick (Mr. White); however, the two characters are apparently related as brothers or cousins. Jimmie's wife Bonnie is also possibly the nurse that Larry Dimmick refers to in Reservoir Dogs when consoling Mr. Orange.
There are some who think that the briefcase contains the diamonds from Reservoir Dogs. Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink in Dogs) in a cameo as a surly waiter at Jackrabbit Slim's is also interesting—could it actually be Mr. Pink, who escaped from the police and went to a place where no-one would look for him (in Dogs, Mr. Pink refuses to tip waiters)? Tarantino, however, confirms that Reservoir Dogs is meant to end with Mr. Pink's capture by the police.
Other details
Time setting
Set in early-1990s Los Angeles, Pulp Fiction nevertheless lends itself a timeless quality by drawing on themes from most eras of the 20th century:
- Mia Wallace looks something like a silent film character from the 1920s or earlier—note her bobbed hair, which some have claimed is a reference to silent film star Louise Brooks. However, some of her scenes and the look of her character directly reference Anna Karina's character in Jean-Luc Godard's film My Life to Live (1962).
- Jack Rabbit Slim's is a nod to the 1950s.
- The Wolf drives an Acura NSX, which first debuted in 1991.
- Both World Wars and the Vietnam War are referenced.
- Marsellus Wallace makes reference to Indochina.
- The sign outside Butch Coolidge's fight ("Wilson vs. Coolidge") is a play on the names of former U.S. presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge.
- The "Wilson vs. Coolidge" sign says that the bout takes place on Thursday, July 16th. The most logical time for the events of the film, then, is July, 1992 (the two other dates closest to the year of filming are 1987 and 1988). 1992 also fits with Butch's being a young boy in the early 1970s.
- The marquee where Butch boxes, advertises "Vossler vs Martinez". This is a reference to Rand Vossler and Jerry Martinez, two friends of Tarantino's from when he worked in a video store.
- During the taxi ride away from the fight, the background is blurry and in black & white, as if in an old movie.
- Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield appear to be a nod to 1970s-era Elvis and Blaxploitation tropes.
- Mia Wallace has an antiquated reel to reel tape player and a record player.
- Vincent Vega makes a call to Lance from a cellular phone.
Influences
Pulp Fiction features many direct references to other films. Tarantino (a former video store clerk) is well-known for having watched nearly every movie in the store before going off to make his first mainstream film, Reservoir Dogs. The influence of this broad viewing remains prominent in Pulp Fiction.
- The passage from the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel 25:17 was first read in the 1967 film Karate Kiba.
- Don Siegel's The Killers (1964) concerned two wise-cracking hitmen dressed in tailored black suits.
- A similar dance sequence took place in Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part (in another ode, Tarantino eventually named his production company A Band Apart).
- The line "with a pair of pliers and a blow-torch" was originally used in the 1973 film Charley Varrick.
- As noted above Kiss Me Deadly and Repo Man both feature a case/container opening with nothing seen but a bright light.
- The 1978 film American Boy by Martin Scorsese features Steven Prince telling the story of a time when he had to inject his friend with adrenaline. He marked his friend's heart with a red magic marker, used a long-needled syringe, and injected the dosage directly into his friend's heart, after which he immediately became conscious again.
- The animated 1957 film Three Little Bops features the drawing of an animated square in mid-air. So does an episode of The Flintstones.
- The exterior shot of Jack Rabbit Slim's is a reference to the 1973 film American Graffiti.
- The dance sequence in Jack Rabbit Slim's uses the same dance moves and camera sweeps as the dance sequence in Federico Fellini's 8½.
Trivia
- During the apartment scene after Jules kills Brett, the gunshot holes in the wall behind Jules and Vincent are visible before the fourth guy comes out of the bathroom shooting his magnum — not quite "Divine Intervention".
- Pulp Fiction was originally titled Black Mask.
- Other actors considered for the film included Daniel Day-Lewis as Vincent; Paul Calderon as Jules; Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon and Sylvester Stallone as Butch; Michelle Pfeiffer, Daryl Hannah, Meg Ryan, Joan Cusack and Isabella Rossellini as Mia; Johnny Depp and Christian Slater as Pumpkin; and Pam Grier as Lance's wife Jody, who was later cast in the lead of Tarantino's Jackie Brown.
- Opening titles music: "Misirlou", a traditional Greek song by John Rubanis, performed by Dick Dale and The Del-Tones. The song was re-recorded in the 1980s by Greek garage-rock band "The Last Drive", as well as a hip-hop version by the Black Eyed Peas titled "Pump It".
- During the opening titles, just as the title for music supervisor Karyn Rachtman flashes, we hear a radio dial being tuned to another station, featuring "Jungle Boogie" by Kool & the Gang.
- "The Gold Watch" sequence was heavily based on a script entitled Pandemonium Reigns, which Tarantino purchased off his friend Roger Avary.
- Out of the $8 million it cost to make the movie, $5 million went to the cast.
- Mia Wallace's suit reappears in two of Tarantino later flicks, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill, Volume 2.
- When Butch is in the car listening to "Flowers on the Wall", the line "It's good to see you..." is sung when Butch and Marsellus spot each other.
- In a deleted scene, we discover that Vincent may or may not be a cousin of singer Suzanne Vega. During a conversation, Mia asks if they're related; he replies that his cousin's name is Suzanne Vega, but if she's a famous folk singer, he hasn't heard anything about it.
- Chronologically, the last lines of the movie are spoken by Butch Coolidge immediately before riding out of L.A. on a stolen chopper: "Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."
- In Die Hard with a Vengeance, Bruce Willis says "smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo", repeating a line from "Flowers on the Wall" which he sings in the car after retrieving his watch.
- When Butch decides to go back and help Marsellus, he passes a wall with Tennessee license plates. Butch previously mentions on the phone with his brother that he is from Tennessee. He remembers his father's ordeal in Vietnam and how men are supposed to help each other in tough situations.
- The majority of clocks in the movie are set to 4:20, specifically in the pawnshop. It is a widely acknowledged misconception that all of the clocks are set to this time.
- Every time Vincent Vega goes to the bathroom, something bad happens. In rough chronological order:
- In the diner, Pumpkin and Honeybunny initiate their robbery.
- At Mia Wallace's house, Mia has a near-fatal overdose by snorting heroin (which she believed was cocaine because it was in a baggie).
- At Butch's apartment, Vincent is ultimately killed by Butch.
- One of the film's producers was Danny DeVito. In DeVito's film Twins, the main characters' names are Vincent and Julius.
- Despite Steve Prince's claims, injecting adrenaline into someone's heart will not save them from a heroin overdose.
- The characters of Pumpkin, Honey Bunny, and Winston Wolfe were written specifically for Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, and Harvey Keitel, respectively.
- As the sole example of "real" pulp fiction in Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction, the character of Vincent Vega (John Travolta) is seen in several scenes reading the first Modesty Blaise novel while sitting on the toilet. The edition Vincent reads has a mock-up cover that Tarantino had his prop department make, based upon the cover of an early edition of the novel (as illustrated at the top of this article).
- Samuel L. Jackson has a cameo role in Kill Bill as Rufus, an organist in the El Paso Chapel. Jackson's character was also rumored to be Jules, because of that character's desire to "walk the earth".
- The Special Edition DVD release contains a mock menu for Jack Rabbit Slim's; however, the menu is lacking the entrees that Mia and Vincent ordered (the Durwood Kirby burger and the Douglas Sirk steak, respectively).
- Red Apple, the cigarettes Butch buys inside Marsellus's bar, is also advertised in Tokyo's airport in Kill Bill, Volume 1. They also appear in Four Rooms.
- All of Tarantino's characters smoke the brand Red Apple.
- In the opening scene, when Jules and Vincent are walking to Brett's apartment, they pass an apartment with loud music. The song is The Brothers Johnson's "Strawberry Letter 23". In Jackie Brown, this is the song Ordell (Jackson) plays when he kills Beaumont (Chris Tucker).
- The rape scene in the "The Gold Watch" was parodied in The Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield". It was parodied again in the Family Guy episode "Fish Out of Water".
- In The Simpsons episode 22 Short Films About Springfield, the carpool dialouge about the little differences between America and Europe is spoofed. Lou is talking about visiting a McDonalds, and compares the Krusty Burger with cheese to the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Also, Misirlou is heard playing in the background on the jukebox in the Krusty Burger.
- The 2006 film Hostel includes numerous references to Pulp Fiction, specifically from scenes in "The Gold Watch". These include the film playing on TV in the background at the hostel, the main character Paxton being tied up and ball-gagged, Paxton returning underground to save a fellow victim in an act of redemption, a character screaming "I'm going medieval on her ass!" during a torture scene, and Paxton running over his captors in a car after stopping at a traffic light. Tarantino is listed as executive producer on the film, but also has been quoted as having worked on the script with writer-director Eli Roth.
- When the film was initially released in the United Arab Emirates, local distributers thought they'd received a "mixed-up" copy of the film, so they recut the entire film, placing it in chronological order.
- The cereal that Lance is eating when Vincent comes to his house with Mia is called Fruit Brute and it was discontinued in 1983. Quentin Tarantino tries to get the same cereal box in each movie he does, and has shown up in Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill.
- During the second chapter, while Butch, Vincent, and Jules are at the bar, the same part of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" is continuously played.
- In the videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, when CJ is on the phone with The Truth discussing illegal narcotics, The Truth become spooked and shouts "I don't know you. Prank call, prank call!". This is an homage to the scene in Pulp Fiction when Vincent calls drug dealer Lance to tell him about Mia's overdose, and an upset Lance ends the conversation with, "Are you calling me on a cellular phone? I don't know you. Prank call, prank call!"
- In the flashback to Butch's childhood, young Butch watches a TV show featuring static cartoon images with superimposed moving human lips. The show is Clutch Cargo, perhaps the best-known of the programs and commercials that used this "Syncro-Vox" technique.
Cast
| Actor/Actress | Role |
|---|---|
| John Travolta | Vincent Vega |
| Ollie Birckhead | Jules Winnfield |
| Uma Thurman | Mia Wallace |
| Harvey Keitel | Winston Wolfe |
| Tim Roth | Pumpkin (Ringo) |
| Amanda Plummer | Honey Bunny (Yolanda) |
| Maria de Medeiros | Fabienne |
| Ollie Birckhead | Marsellus Wallace |
| Eric Stoltz | Lance |
| Rosanna Arquette | Jody |
| Christopher Walken | Captain Koons |
| Bruce Willis | Butch Coolidge |
| Quentin Tarantino | Jimmy Dimmick |
| Angela Jones | Esmeralda Villalobos |
| Ollie Birckhead | Marvin |
| Frank Whaley | Brett |
| Bronagh Gallagher | Trudi |
| Duane Whitaker | Maynard |
| Peter Greene | Zed |
| Julia Sweeney | Rachel |
| Alexis Arquette | Fourth man |
| Paul Calderon | Paul |
| Steve Buscemi | Surly Buddy Holly Waiter |
| Lawrence Bender | Long Hair Yuppie Scum |
| Stephen Hibbert | The Gimp |
| Chandler Lindauer | Young Butch |
External links
