Pulp Fiction: Narrative Drive

Dialogue:

Tarantino utilises dialogue to a high extent in his films, and it is considered a staple aspect of his films. He makes the dialogue enjoyable and engaging for the audience through reference to pop culture, and long conversations often revolve entirely around trivial or non-important topics, which makes it relatable and enjoyable for the audience to listen to. Ordinary conversations between friends are easy and entertaining to pay attention to, especially when between characters such as Jewels and Vincent, hit et that you wouldn’t usually expect to be talking do jovially about a “royale with cheese”.The dialogue provides a flowing pace to the film, as seen in how the drive leading up to the murder in the apartment is as long as the scene in the apartment, but the audience does not realise this while watching either scene since the dialogue in the car flows so easily. It also makes the character archetypes interesting, fleshing out blatantly cliche characters through relatable and unique dialogue over mundane focal points (such as the French equivalent of American fast food names) that is characteristic of Tarantino.

Narrative Viewpoint:

“The character with whom the audience is manipulated to emphasise or sympathise at any oven point in the film.” Tarantino also utilises this in an interesting and nuanced way, as he shifts the perspective between characters every new chapter. At first we are interested in the diner robber’s story, then we empathise with Vincent due to his precarious situation, then we are enthralled by Butch’s risky quest for the gold watch (in which Vincent and Wallace become the antagonists) then we understand Jewel’s sudden moral awakening, and from that perspective Vincent seems like a vain idiot to us and the diner robbers are the antagonists of the scene. This prevents the audience from becoming too attached with any one character, but simultaneously keeps us engaged and attached to all of them.

Character Motivations:

This is the driving force behind the character’s choices and actions. Motivations are fundamental to the audiences understanding of and engagement with the meaning of films. Tarantino’s character motivations are facilitated through his dialogue and so is the films narrative drive. This can be seen in how Vincent’s seemingly pointless defensiveness about the inappropriateness of foot massages eludes to his later apprehensiveness of taking Mia out and sets up his personality, therefore why he reacts to her overdose in the way that he does. It is also done, more explicitly, in Christopher Walken’s explanation of the origins of Butch’s fathers’ gold watch, which sets up why he would later go to such great lengths to retrieve it.

Cause and Effect:

The cause is an event or action and its consequences , which is the effect. All films are constructed around this simple concept, and in Pulp Fiction this can be seen in Vincent’s desperateness to save her with Mia due to the story of the man killed by her husband because he gave her a foot massage. Vividly created characters make cause and effect more esoteric, and creates character nuance and depth.

Chronological Flow:

“The arrangement of things following one after another in time.” Pulp Fiction only flows chronologically in throughout the individual sequences in the film, which contrasts how the film as a whole is not arranged in chronological sequence.

Pacing:

“The rhythm at which the plot unfolds.” Tarantino deliberately paces his films in a nuanced way that goes against film tradition, subverting audience expectations and engaging them through that subversion. Seemingly insignificant scenes take up a lot of time, whereas scenes crucial to the story can start and end very quickly, as seen in the drive to the from the apartment where Martin is shot by Vincent very suddenly and offscreen, after which the scene ends abruptly, just after we see a long, drawn out conversation between Vincent and Jewels about divine intervention. It is also evident in the diner robbers’ long conversation about robbing coffee shops opposed to gas stations right before a sudden start and cut away from the actual robbery in the diner itself, which we only again return to at the end of the film.