Twenty years ago, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction went into theaters exciting,
confusing and shocking moviegoers of the 1990s. With three interwoven plots that are
encapsulated with scenes consisting of sex, murder, thievery, rape, drug overdose and a
famous dance number, Pulp Fiction is one of the oddest most mesmerizing movies ever
made. Pulp fiction has a star-studded main cast consisting of Samuel L. Jackson, John
Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis and has guest appearances by Christopher Walken,
Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel; however, each actor is able to co-exist in a movie
bigger than himself. The real genius of the movie is its use of dialogue and portrayal of
morality and the pulp genre.
Pulp Fiction also marks…show more content… Travolta was a young movie star in the 1970s with lead roles
in Saturday Night Fever and Grease. However, after his 1980 movie, Urban Cowboy,
Travolta’s career took a turn for the worse. Throughout the 1980s, his movies failed in
the box office and he lost his status as an A-list actor. Pulp Fiction and Tarantino saved
his career as Travolta was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Vincent
Vega. Similarly, Bruce Willis had been an early success in the late 1980s and 1990 for
his leading role in Die Hard and Die Hard 2 and his mildly successful music career.
However, his career had a slump in the early 1990s when he appeared in many box office
duds like Striking Distance and Color of Night. Willis’s role in Pulp Fiction as Butch
helped him improve his Hollywood Status and was a stepping-stone to a future award
winning career.
Put into context, Pulp Fiction is a self-conscious review on Tarantino and his own
movies. Vincent Vega (Travolta) is a character created as the brother of Vic Vega from
Tarantino’s earlier film Reservoir Dogs. Both brothers are gangsters who are shot and
killed on the job, but they are portrayed in different lights. Vic Vega (Mark Madsen)…show more content… Unlike the Pulp magazines that these stories are based
off of, the characters in the movie are given real personalities and there is a lot of time
devoted to conversation and character development.
Different witty personalities and normal dialogue juxtaposed with extreme
circumstances portrays the hilarity of the movie. An example of this is the dinner scene
with Vincent and Mia (Uma Thurman). This dialogue is slow in the beginning, because
Mia is a former actress and wife of Travolta’s boss. Vincent tries to both stay his
distance and relate to someone from a different background. Mia even comments on the
awkwardness, remarking, “Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak
about bullshit in order to be comfortable?” Vincent tastes Mia’s five-dollar milkshake as
a metaphor for him getting a taste of her very different background and personality. The
two of them hit it off, the former actress and trophy wife, and the tough, cool mobster,
and the scene reaches its climax as the movie breaks from its constant rhythm into a
three-minute dance scene with Vincent and Mia winning the restaurant’s dance contest.
The visual comedy of the scene is centered on them dancing so coolly and gracefully