Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Pulp Fiction: Catch up



I saw Pulp Fiction twice with my mate Anthony on opening day, and a hundred times since, and I'm still finding new hidden depths in Tarantino's movie.

It took me years to realise that Mia and Vincent hadn't won the twist contest trophy, and that they'd stolen it. I missed the vital clue on the radio that made it clear they'd absconded with the prize, but got there in the end.

And I still only just realised recently that there hadn't been any kind of injustice. For half of my life I always thought they'd rightfully taken the trophy, because they so obviously deserved to win the trophy, so somebody must have cheated them. 

But that wasn't it al all. They hadn't won the twist contest because they were bloody awful.

Of course they're awful - they're throwing goofy moves and are completely out of time with the music - something that should have been obvious right from the start, when the very first footage of the movie I ever saw was on a late night TV news show, showing background footage of them filming that scene to completely different music.

They're just so cool, and un-selfconscious and into it, and the camera fucking loves them and gets right in, swirling around their gyrations. From an objective point of view, from a distance, they must look laughingly bad.

This is a good metaphor for all of Tarantino's films - they might be dopey and incredibly dorky sometimes, but they're so cool it doesn't matter.  

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