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Pulp Fiction (1994) Secret Life

Jules Winnfield’s ‘Ezekiel’ Passage.

 “ 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 goodwill 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. ”

 Jules Winnfield, The jheri-curled hitman, delivers the above passage three times in the film – when he and Vince Vega recover Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase from Brett’s apartment, repeated at the beginning of ‘The Bonnie Situation’ segment of the film, and in the epilogue at the diner.   It is based upon Ezekiel 25:17, a much shorter passage from the King James version of the bible which 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’.   It’s possible that a version of the speech originally appeared in an early draft of the script for From Dusk to Dawn.

It appears that Tarantino’s use of the passage is a homage to Sonny Chiba, who delivers a very similar speech in the 1973 film Bodigaado Kiba (The Bodyguard).    Also, a character in the crime novel Modesty Blaise – which Vince Vega is seen with in two of the film’s scenes – delivers a similar Biblical rant.   And like Pulp Fiction – a tag for which Modesty Blaise undoubtedly qualifies – the book has a non-linear narrative chronology.

The Contents of Marcellus Wallace’s Briefcase

Theories about what is inside the briefcase belonging to Marcellus Wallace that Vince Vega and Jules Winnfield retrieve from Brett and his gang have been in circulation since the day the film was released.   The most common theory is that it contains Wallace’s soul.   When Tarantino first introduces us to Wallace we see a close-up of a band aid on the back of his head, and the theory maintains that this is covering the exit point of his soul.   Supporters of this theory also point out that the combination to the briefcase is 666 – the number of the Devil.

Sadly, the truth is a little more mundane.  Quentin Tarantino has dismissed the theory and stated that the band aid was there to cover a wound actor Ving Rhames suffered while shaving his head (a scar from the injury can be seen on the back of his head in subsequent films).   When the director noticed it, he had the idea of opening the ‘Vincent Vega-Marcellus Wallace’s Wife’ sequence with a close up of the band aid.

When asked what it is that resides in the briefcase, Tarantino’s answer is usually along the lines of ‘whatever you want it to be.’  Co-writer Roger Avary said the original intention was for the case to contain diamonds, but this struck them both as neither exciting nor original, so they decided that the contents wouldn’t be revealed and that it would be up to the viewer to decide.   In effect, the briefcase is a MacGuffin, an object that is of itself unimportant but which is used as a device to drive a film’s plot forward.

No discussion of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction would be complete without reference to the 1955 noir film Kiss Me Deadly, in which a similar briefcase with mysteriously glowing contents plays a major role.   In Kiss Me Deadly, the contents are some kind of atomic explosive.   Tarantino has said that Butch Coolidge, the character played by Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, was based on the Mike Hammer character played by Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly, and given Tarantino’s propensity for referencing other films and TV programmes in his movies, it is not unlikely that the undisclosed contents of the case are intended as a homage to that film.

In a promotional interview for Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse, Tarantino reveals the contents of the case.   However, in keeping with the grindhouse theme, an intertitle reading ‘Missing Reel’ appears on the screen and the film jumps to a subsequent scene in which Rodriguez enthuses over how radically one’s understanding of the film is altered by knowing the contents of the case.

The Time on Clocks

Another enduring myth about Pulp Fiction is that all the clocks in the movie show the same time: 4:20.   This is not the case.   Different times are shown in at least two scenes in which clocks are visible.   When Vince, Jules and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie’s kitchen, the clock shows 8:15, and when Vince and Jules go to recover the briefcase it is ‘7:22 in the a.m.’  

 The myth seems to have arisen from the fact that all the clocks in the pawn shop into which Marcellus chases Butch are set at 4:20, and the fact that 420 (four-twenty) is urban slang for time to light up a joint.

Chronology

 Events unfold onscreen in the following sequence:

 1.      Prologue - the diner

2.      The prelude to ‘Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace’s Wife’

3.      ‘Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace’s Wife’

4.      ‘The Gold Watch’ - flashback and present

5.      ‘The Bonnie Situation’

6.      Epilogue - The Diner

If they were told in chronological sequence, they would run as follows:

 1.      The prelude to ‘Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace’s Wife.’

2.      ‘The Bonnie Situation’

3.      Prologue - the diner

4.      Epilogue - the diner

5.      ‘Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace’s Wife’

6.      ‘The Gold Watch’ - flashback (as Butch Coolidge recalls it in a dream immediately before his fight).

7.      ‘The Gold Watch’

 Connections to other films

"Tarantino's characters inhabit a world where the entire landscape is composed of Hollywood product. Tarantino is a cinematic kleptomaniac—he literally can't help himself."

Gary Groth 

Pulp Fiction contains homages to many other movies, as well as connections to Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino's first film.

 ?         Vincent Vega (John Travolta’s character) is the brother of the Mr. Blonde character (played by Michael Madsen) from Reservoir Dogs.   Tarantino once toyed with the idea of making a film with them as the lead characters.

?         Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino) from Pulp Fiction and Larry (Mr. White) Dimmick (played by Harvey Keitel, who also plays Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction) are apparently related in some way.

?         The fictional restaurant Big Kahuna Burger appears in both films.

?         The contents of the briefcase were originally intended to be the diamonds from the heist in Reservoir Dogs, but the idea was dropped as it was felt to be too mundane.

?         Vince Vega and Mia Wallace’s dance sequence at Jack Rabbit Slim’s was inspired by the dance performed by Odile (Anna Karina) and her would-be gangster friends in Jean-Luc Godard’s  Bande à part (1964) - not Saturday Night Fever (in which Travolta also dances), as many believe.

?         The scene in which Marcellus (Ving Rhames) spots Butch (Bruce Willis) as he passes in front of his car is based on the scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) in which the boss of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) who is fleeing with money stolen from her employer, is spotted by her boss as he walks in front of her car at traffic lights.

?         Maynard and Zed, the two men who hold Marcellus and Butch captive are inspired by the redneck hillbillies in John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972).

?         Zed’s name is the same as that of a character played by Sean Connery in John Boorman’s Zardoz (1974).  ‘Zed’s Dead,’ which is chronologically the last line of the film is also one of the last lines from Zardoz.

?         When Butch asks Marcellus what now after he has rescued him from Maynard and Zed, Marcellus tells him, ‘I'ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin' niggers, who'll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch.’  In Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick (1974), a character called Maynard says the line ‘They're gonna strip you naked and go to work on you with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch‘.

?         The variety of weapons Butch finds in the pawnshop before returning to rescue Marcellus possibly allude to a number of films:  Hammer (The Toolbox Murders), baseball bat (Walking Tall, The Untouchables), chainsaw (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead II), samurai sword (Seven Samurai, The Yakuza, Shogun Assassin, and many more).

?         The scene in which Butch kills Maynard with the samurai sword is an exact copy of a scene from Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, and is actually filmed from identical angles.

 The Significance of the Bathroom

Vincent really shouldn’t visit the bathroom in Pulp Fiction because every time he emerges from the bathroom he is faced with a negative development: Honey Bunny and Pumpkin stage an impromptu hold up of the diner he and Jules visit after disposing of Marvin’s body while Vince is in the bathroom; Mia Wallace snorts some of Vince’s heroin with near fatal consequences while he is in the bathroom trying to talk himself out of making a pass at her; Vince emerges from the bathroom to unexpectedly find Butch waiting for him with a gun.

 The bathroom is prominently featured in other significant scenes: an unnoticed gunman hides in the bathroom while Vince and Jules exterminate his friends, and triggers Jules’ epiphany when his shots leave both hitmen unharmed; Mia ’powders her nose’ in the bathroom at Jack Rabbit Slim’s immediately before she and Vincent enter the dance competition; Butch and Fabienne have an important scene in the bathroom; Vince and Jules have a spat over a bloody hand towel in Jimmie’s bathroom as they clean up after accidentally killing Marvin.

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