Pulp Fiction

Release Date: October 14th, 1994

Director: Quentin Tarantino | MPAA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 9.5/10

"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 the 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 I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." -Ezekiel 25:17

So goes the calling card of Jules Winnfield, Samuel L. Jackson's infamous hitman whose gravity at the center of Pulp Fiction hits with just as much fiery force at it did thirty years ago, even in spite of the overwhelming memification of the film over those three decades. But for as existentially powerful as such words sound, and for as much as they reinforce a fire-and-brimstone view of the God of the bible, there's one small detail that is often overlooked by those who have not perused the lengthy books of the Hebrew prophets: these words aren't actually in the bible. At least not most of them.

But this isn't just a misquote - it's an intentional stroke of genius from one of our great modern cinematic artists, whose 1994 episodic masterpiece uses this grand, legend-making language to craft a mythological universe, one with its own worldview assumptions, heroes and anti-heroes, and cosmic justice. This goes beyond just the "Tarantinoverse," a fictional world where each of his films take place, a world designed in a lab for the age of internet discussion boards (I'm looking at you, Redditors). Indeed, in much the same way the Greek poets built a world to communicate their foundational assumptions about reality and how it functions, so Quentin Tarantino has done for American cinema, taking his encyclopedic knowledge of film and cultural artifacts high and low and shaping his texts to capture the assumptions and desires of our age. From justice and vengeance, humanity's constant grasping at immortality, and the moral ambiguity of a world full of corrupt humans who still manage moments of goodness and beauty, Tarantino's filmography has always been working to shape an imaginative lens through which to understand film, the world, and ourselves, and so much of it can be traced back to Jules and his prophetic plagiarism.

We meet Jules shortly after a cold open in an L.A. diner, where Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) are drinking coffee together and casually discussing the best strategy for their primary income: robberies. It's in the midst of their conversation--which ends in a freeze frame as both characters jump to their feet for their violent stick up routine and Dick Dale's Miserlou bursts through the speakers--where we see the sort of darkly humorous, rapid-fire, and wittily off-putting dialogue that has become a staple of Tarantino's writing and world-building over the years. Cue the title cards and cut to Jules and his fellow hit-man partner, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) talking about cheeseburgers and weed in Amsterdam, on their way to what we expect--and what turns out to be--a violent job. Immediately the lines between "good guy" and "bad guy" are not just blurred, but are completely thrown out the window, like the butt of a finished cigarette. We see in these two men, in the diner stick up, and in the proceeding episodic descent into the criminal underworld, a striking fact: they are all just as human as any of us watching. And not only this: the same inhumanity we want to peg to them is pegged to us. So when Jules repeats his biblical non-quote before his first assassination, it becomes quite clear: the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men really do press in on all sides.

What follows are the exploits of a variety of shady but compellingly drawn criminals, whose lives are woven together in a non-linear timeline which trusts the audience enough to connect the dots. A mysterious briefcase whose contents only radiate some off-screen glow; a boxer (Bruce Willis) battling with his own pride and hunger for money that is tasked with falling in the fifth for the financial benefit of a violent gangster (Ving Rhames); the wife of that gangster (Uma Thurman) battling her own addiction demons and being "babysat" by none other than Vincent himself; there are even some vile and racist pawn shop owners we meet that get thrust into the story for good measure. Somewhere in the middle of all the messiness (there is no modern filmmaker better at making a good bloody mess), Tarantino never loses sight of his faux-biblical epigraph. He wants us to explore--though likely not answer directly--whether the Divine is really somehow woven into the muck and mire of these deeply human stories, and Jules becomes the primary vehicle of this exploration. Following a remarkable stroke of luck (or fate?), he has a theological epiphany, one which causes him to commit to changing his life for good. He repeats his Ezekiel quote once more in the closing minutes of the film, this time not as an executor of justice, but of mercy. The words of his scripture have remained the same, but he has somehow changed, the events of his valley of darkness causing him to question his own place and role in it.

We don't know what decade the film is set in - one could just as easily argue for the '50s, the '70s, and the '90s at different points. We don't know how realistic things are supposed to be - the almost dreamlike nature of the film burns at the edges of every shot. We don't even know what bible Jules is reading from - it's surely not Ezekiel as we read him! And yet this world somehow speaks, shouts, and shoots its way to our own, forcing us to ask our own questions alongside the characters. What does it mean to be "righteous" in a world full of evil? What are the rewards for the righteous in that kind of world? What do we do with our craving for justice and vengeance? And where is God in the midst of all of it? Entire books can be (and have been) written on the film and the way it might be answering these sorts of questions, and such books are certainly worth reading, but one thing is for certain: these stories are more than just pulp.