Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown - Movie Review Example

number 30 June Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown American independent film is a unique mixture of creative self-fulfillment of a film director and his/her astute response to pressing challenges within the framework of contemporary context. Independent film industry in the United States has always been a stepping stone to a more lucrative career for a great number of gifted film directors. Quentin Tarantino is one of them. His signature style started to shape since the day one of his directors career, from his very first films. The peculiar feature of his one-of-a-kind style includes aestheticization of violence, inconsistent timeline of narrative and fine-spun conversations of his characters. In this essay I will dwell on two of Tarantinos early masterpieces, namely Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, in order to look closely at his creative skill and development and identify some of the aspects of his signature style incidental to most of his films. Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown are probably the most significant of Tarantinos works. Each played its fateful role in his distinguished filmmaking career. Pulp Fiction was the second film made by Quentin Tarantino as a film director. While Pulp Fiction won Tarantino a morning glory, Jackie Brown, which was released three years later, was perceived by critics as an important follow-up that firmly re-established Tarantino as a supernova of American film industry. Although Jackie Brown grossed twice as less in box office sales as compared to that of Pulp Fiction, it certainly dismissed any doubts that Quentin Tarantino could end up as a king for a day. Pulp Fiction is the most famous and successful film directed by Quentin Tarantino to date. Apart from having favorable critical response and startling box office, the film became one of the landmark achievements in Quentin Tarantinos professional filmmaking career and a watershed masterpiece that influenced greatly the American film industry at large (Rennett 403). Being one of the most idiosyncratic crime films in the history of cinematography and probably the most prominent independent films of its era, Pulp Fiction managed to break into mainstream and instantly turned into cult classic. The movie is famous for its nonlinear storyline and lengthy humorous dialogues that neighbor the scenes full of violence. After the stunning success of Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino tried to keep a low profile but was doomed to stay on the spot. His breakthrough success kept him in the public eye. The critics were afraid that Tarantino would be trapped in fame of his success and get paralyzed by it. However, Tarantinos follow-up, namely his brilliant crime thriller Jackie Brown, which he directed, produced and written for the screen all by himself (the movie was an adaptation of Rum Punch, an Elmore Leonards novel) was another low-budget miracle of independent film industry that came through with flying colors. Jackie Brown helped Tarantino strengthen credibility as one of the most visible screenwriters of American film industry and market himself as an attractive brand that was able to address the needs of wide audience (Rennett 391). This movie gave Tarantino an opportunity to add a new dimension to his artistic vision and refine on his directors and screenwriters techniques, such as cutaways, flashbacks based on nonlinear structure and a lot more. Unlike Pulp Fiction Tarantino did not apply non-chronological order of scenes in his next movie and mostly employed traditional editing techniques, such as continuity editing sequence, for instance. He often used such old-fashioned editing techniques as dissolves to make transitions between shots in Jackie Brown. The accents in narrative shifted as well: Tarantino paid much more attention to peripheral plotlines in Jackie Brown, as compared to Pulp Fiction, by focusing on the supporting characters like Louis Gara and Melanie Ralston, for instance. Due to Tarantinos cut-and-paste approach to popular culture and filmmaking, some film critics often call him "a director as a music DJ" (Rennett 392). Tarantino takes to popular culture like a duck to water and can afford writing screenplays and directing on his own terms (White 344). He had got in the Hollywood movie industry long before his directorial debut and his first major success. In late 80-ies Tarantino wrote a screenplay for his first amateur movie. He even started shooting the movie, but failed to complete it and eventually sold the script. The film based on Tarantinos script was released in 1993 to much critical acclaim and had stunning commercial success. It was titled True Romance. At that time Tarantino has already written and directed his first motion picture, namely Reservoir Dogs. Commercial success of the aforementioned movies paved the way to his next full-length film, Pulp Fiction, where the influence of a variety of prominent film directors was clearly seen. As Tarantino confessed in one of his numerous interviews, nothing could compare with the joy of breaking rules in filmmaking. The ability and willingness of Jean-Luc Godard to break cinema rules has always fascinated Tarantino, while the irresistible style of such great film directors as John Woo, Sergio Leone and Jean Pierre Melville helped him understand what kind of movie he wanted to make (Renee n. p.). Tarantino often paid homage to the classical movies that inspired him in his own films. For instance, Jackie Brown borrowed some stylistic elements (and even some actors, including Pam Grier) from the movie titled as Foxy Brown, which was directed by Jack Hill in 1974; while Pulp Fiction was influenced by a film noir classic titled as Kiss Me Deadly, which was directed by Robert Aldrich in 1955 (Renee n. p.). Today Tarantino has become one of the worlds most visible and influential filmmakers himself and such movies as Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown contributed greatly to his success. As it was mentioned above, Pulp Fiction is famous for its nonlinear structure with a division into several novels that are presented in non-chronological order, but there is a number of other worthy stylistic features and vivid directorial tricks in the film. Every novel has its title and intertwined storyline. The narrative of the film is structured in a way that is similar to the structure of a book. The mood and tone of Pulp Fiction is set by the first sequence of the film with its lighthearted music that is not aimed at creating suspense even though the characters of the film kill other people once in a while or are on the brink of death themselves. The opening scene (after the short prelude) starts with a witty dialogue of two gangsters, Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield. Music plays a significant role in the film and sounds from every corner all the way down (almost in every single scene of the movie: either from a car radio or as a background soundtrack). This feature makes Pulp Fiction quite similar to Jackie Brown, where music contributes greatly to creating the mood of the movie as well. Both of the films are heavily influenced by the music of 1950-ies and 1960-ies. The film score of Pulp Fiction includes iconic surf rock, pop and soul hits, such as Dick Dales song titled Misirlou or Dusty Springfields song Son of a Preacher Man, while the score of Jackie Brown contains such famous soul and rock-n-roll hits as Bobby Womacks song titled Across 110th Street or The Delfonics popular single titled Didnt I (Blow Your Mind This Time), which pops up in the movie once and again and symbolizes the sympathy (or even love) of one of the supporting characters, Max Cherry, to the protagonist named Jackie Brown. Music contributes greatly to create a mood of Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction. I must confess that I cant help liking such directorial approach. Both of the movies are known for bizarre eclectic dialogues of their characters, which were delivered immaculately by such actors as John Travolta, Samuel Jackson, Uma Turman, Bruce Willis and Quentin Tarantino himself (in Pulp Fiction) and Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Samuel Jackson (as Ordell Robbie) and Pam Grier. Tarantinos acting as Jimmie in Pulp Fiction deserves high price. Samuel Jackson played a hard-edged killer obsessed with religion named Jules Winnfield. His character is tough but fair and quite easygoing, especially when it comes to his friends and colleagues. Jackson played a merciless gangster in Jackie Brown as well. Just like in Pulp Fiction the character of Samuel Jackson, who is named Ordell Robbie, is quite an easygoing gangster, but unlike the Pulp Fiction character named Jules, the only thing Ordell is interested in is money. Ordell kills his close friend without hesitation, when he lets him down. In both movies Samuel Jacksons acting makes the grade. The violence of Pulp Fiction is often intertwined with humorous lengthy dialogues of its characters, while the tone of dialogues and monologues of Jackie Brown is much more restrained and brisk. In the famous Pulp Fictions scene titled as the Prelude to "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallaces Wife" the coldblooded murder of three guys by Vincent and Jules is precluded with a lengthy dialogue between Vincent and Jules that flows almost without interruption as the scenes change one another: Jules drives the car and pulls it near the block of flats, then both of the characters slowly walk through the hall and get up by the elevator. They continue their dialogue about some gossips, which involve their boss and his wife, even while standing right behind the door to the room, where they would kill three people a few minutes later. The mood of the scene is changing closer to the destination of the characters. As Jules drives the car the music on the background is playing incessantly (namely the song titled Jungle Boogie, which is performed by Kool & the Gang), but when the characters open the trunk to get guns out of it, the music stops and does not resumes till the end of the whole scene, which is not accompanied with any music at all. Such trick of the director could have created some tension and the effect of suspense but easy conversation of the characters goes on and sands off the rough edges of the situation they are being involved into. It must be noted that the intense artistic vision of Tarantino is articulated by him as a director and screenwriter due to high degree of his personal control over production stage (Rennette 393). The camera placements in the scenes, when Vincent and Jules are talking in the car, in the elevator and on their way to the room, are worth attention either. The visual style of the aforementioned scenes, which are shot in confined places, is deliberately minimalistic: the camera changes angles only a few times, which helps to make the scenes almost static and shifts the focus on the dialogue of the characters. To the contrary, the next scene, when Jules and Vincent enter the room, is much more intense and due to quite dynamic change of camera placements, extensive use of close-ups and continuity style of editing. The establishing shot of the scene is followed by a close-up of Jules face (which is used repeatedly all the way down as the scene unfolds) shortly after the aforementioned characters enter the room. In this scene Tarantino applies cheat cuts and cutaways (when Jules grabs the hamburger, for instance) several times to make transitions from one shot to another. The pace, with which close-ups of characters applied, is increasing closer to the burst of violence when Jules and Vincent shot dead three men, which is the culmination of the scene. I liked the way Tarantino built up tension in this scene, not to mention other techniques used to create the irresistible atmosphere of the scene and the movie at large. Many of the aforementioned techniques are used in a similar scene that involves violence in Tarantinos next movie, Jackie Brown; although the directorial approach here is slightly different. I am referring to the scene when the character of Samuel Jackson, a gangster named Ordell, kills his mate, Louis Gara (Robert De Niro). The car, which Louis Gara is driving with Ordell sitting on the passenger seat, is the set up of the scene. Unlike the similar scene in the Pulp Fiction, the car scene in Jackie Brown is much more intense and colorful. The camera placement in Jackie Brown scene is different and is characterized by dynamic change of camera angles with abrupt cutaways and lengthy close-ups. The music is playing on the background of this scene and accentuates its suspense. Close-ups of Ordell and Louis faces skillfully articulate their emotional condition. Their intense dialogue suddenly ends with a murder. In Pulp Fiction and, to certain extent, in Jackie Brown Tarantino took a try and dispelled some myths of the mainstream film industry by applying nonstandard out-of-the-box solutions typical of independent low-budget moviemaking. He gave a full expression to his own artistic identity without fear and rewrote the code of a successful film from scratch by blurring the boundaries between genres and stopping pandering to the public taste. Tarantino managed to shape his own target audience instead by mixing the elements of a crime drama, black comedy, thriller and a lot more all the way down his during successful filmmaking career. Pulp Fiction became a milestone in the history of modern American cinema, which gave a significant impetus to the development of independent film industry both in the United States and worldwide. Although Jackie Brown failed to become a massive influence like Pulp Fiction, it perfected Tarantinos directorial style with his endless intertextual references to other films, songs, literary works and various elements of popular culture, which won him glory and made him one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of American cinema. Works Cited Jackie Brown. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Bridget Fonda, Chris Tucker, Michael Keaton, Pam Grier, Robert De Niro, and Samuel L. Jackson. Miramax Films, 1997. Film. Pulp Fiction. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Uma Thurman. Miramax Films, 1994. Film. Renee, V. "Tarantino on His Influences: If You Love Cinema You Cant Help but Make a Good Movie." Nofilmschool.com. 13 July 2013. Web. 30 June 2015. Rennett, Michael. "Quentin Tarantino and the Director as DJ." Journal of Popular Culture 45 (2) (2012): 391-409. Print. White, Glyn. "Quentin Tarantino." Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers. Ed. Yvonne Tasker. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print. Read More