That was a gracious apology!
<-----------Smiling and giving you a big smooch on the cheek.
I’m just not the sort of girl who tells people to “f*ck off”.
Plus I’ve gotten annoyed at “clueless” newbies myself on other communities, so can understand occasional grouchiness.
Good to see we’re all good with each other, then.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
So, was I the ONLY one who loved the conversation between Vincent and Jules about “Royales with cheese”?
I love it, but not so much in-and-of-itself, but because of where it goes, with the absurdity of their nonchalant (and palpably terrifying) conversation about fast-food with Marsellus’ ill-starred “business partners.”
“Uhh… because of the metric system?”
“Check out the big brain on Brett!”
The conclusion reached in a film course I took was that the bullet hole thing was intentional. The whole concept of the movie is playing with time, taking a normal story arc and jumbling it all up and how you can still retain a plot even though the individual pieces of the plot aren’t in order.
Think of along the same lines of the car going from Black (bad–with evidence of a violent death inside it) to White (innocence, all evidence cleared up).
But unlike the car bit, the bullet hole thing was WAY too subtle on screen. Unless you were REALLY paying attention. Lets not forget the whole bainaid thing.
Warning-- this post is long and spoiler-laden.
One of the central themes of the movie. Washing-up takes on a symbolic meaning, too. The first time Vincent washes up, what’s he thinking about?
Vincent dries his hands on a towel while he continues his
dialogue with the mirror.
VINCENT
...it's a moral test of yourself,
whether or not you can maintain
loyalty. Because when people are
loyal to each other, that's very
meaningful.
Same goes for Butch:
ESMARELDA
No c'mon, you're him, I know you're
him, tell me you're him.
BUTCH
(drying himself with a
gym towel)
I'm him.
ESMARELDA
You killed the other boxing man.
BUTCH
He's dead?
ESMARELDA
The radio said he was dead.
He finished wiping himself down.
BUTCH
(to himself)
Sorry 'bout that, Floyd.
He tosses the towel out the window.
A little later:
BUTCH
(in a Mongoloid voice)
My name is Fabby! My name is
Fabby!
FABIAN
Shut up fuck head! I hate that
Mongoloid voice.
BUTCH
Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, I take
it back! Can I have a towel
please, Miss Beautiful Tulip.
FABIAN
Oh I like that, I like being called
a tulip. Tulip is much better than
Mongoloid.
She finishes drying her hair and wraps the towel like a turban
on her head.
BUTCH
I didn't call you a Mongoloid, I
called you a retard, but I took it
back.
She hands him a towel.
Jules rises and dries his hands. Vincent takes his place at
the sink.
VINCENT
Just tell 'im not to be abusive.
He kinda freaked out back there
when he saw Marvin.
JULES
Put yourself in his position. It's
eight o'clock in the morning. He
just woke up, he wasn't prepared
for this shit. Don't forget who's
doin' who a favor.
Vincent finishes, then dries his hands on a white towel.
VINCENT
If the price of that favor is I
gotta take shit, he can stick his
favor straight up his ass.
When Vincent is finished drying his hands, the towel is
stained with red.
JULES
What the fuck did you just do to
his towel?
VINCENT
I was just dryin' my hands.
JULES
You're supposed to wash 'em first.
VINCENT
You watched me wash 'em.
JULES
I watched you get 'em wet.
VINCENT
I washed 'em. Blood's real hard to
get off. Maybe if he had some
Lava, I coulda done a better job.
JULES
I used the same soap you did and
when I dried my hands, the towel
didn't look like a fuckin' Maxie
pad.
The two men, trembling, scrub themselves.
THE WOLF
Don't be afraid of the soap, spread
it around.
The Wolf stops the hose, tossing it on the ground.
THE WOLF
Towel 'em.
Jimmie tosses them each a towel, which they rub furiously
across their bodies.
THE WOLF
You're dry enough, give 'em their
clothes.
JIMMIE
Okay fellas, in the one-size-fits-
all category, we got swim trunks,
one red -- one white. And two
extra-large tee-shirts. A UC Santa
Cruz shirt and an "I'm with Stupid"
shirt.
JULES
I get the "I'm with Stupid" shirt.
Think about the significance of the print on the t-shirts for a second. Got it? Sometimes baptisms “take”, and sometimes they’re just empty ritual.
Within the movie, every time someone is seen washing themselves, there’s an association with moral purity. Things turn out badly for folks who come out of the bathroom without washing first, too. The last time Vincent comes out of the bathroom, we hear him flush, and then he comes straight out-- no pause to wash first, and after a poop, too. The dirty bastid. Mia stands at the sink in the bathroom of Jack Rabbit Slim’s, but doesn’t wash, she does a big line, after which she significantly says, “I said Goddamn!” The script specifies that she is imitating Steppenwolf. (“Goddamn the pusher man…”) This may foreshadow the ill-fortune she’s going to have later. If so, she’s not washing, and it might be possible to interpret her words as a sign that she doesn’t take personal responsibility for her actions. The script specifies that during her OD, “Mia is on all fours trying to crawl to the bathroom.” Afterwards, like Jules and Vincent, she is given a clean T-shirt.
The one other character that we see in a bathroom who doesn’t wash is “The Fourth Man” (Yet another paratextual film reference, which has a sort of thematic integrety with Vincent’s “just having returned from Amsterdam,” and Mia’s assertion that she goes there once a year. Oh yeah, and the whole mystical vision thing.) After hearing Jule’s neo-biblical spiel, The Fourth Man makes the wrong decision, (violent aggression) and it doesn’t work out very well for him.
“Make it clean” comes up in other contexts, too:
When Lance is looking for his all-important “Black medical book” during MIA’s OD:
JODY
While you're lookin' for it, that
girl's gonna die on our carpet.
You're never gonna find it in all
this shit. For six months now,
I've been telling you to clean this
room --
And of course:
Jules DROPS his wallet in the bag. Using his gun as a
pointer, Pumpkin points to the briefcase.
PUMPKIN
What's in that?
JULES
My boss' dirty laundry.
PUMPKIN
You boss makes you do his laundry?
JULES
When he wants it clean.
PUMPKIN
Sounds like a shit job.
JULES
Funny, I've been thinkin' the same
thing.
I noticed Vincent’s inability to wash the blood off his hands first, it being the most obvious-- then, on repeated viewings, all the other incidents take on extra colours. I love this movie.
I once read a lengthy essay that asserted that the contents of the case were, and I quote “Shiny New Cherrios”.
Personally, I think it’s the diamonds from Reservoir Dogs. Supposedly there was a throwaway line of dialog in a movie that Tarantino wrote but didn’t direct (True Romance I think) where one character asks another “Are you still running diamonds for Marsellus Wallace?”
SC_Wolf, “Shiny New Cherrios”? Wow. (If it were Fruit Brute, that would have made sense. Tarantino’s a fan- a 20-year-old box of it shows up in both PF and RD. 
)
I’m pretty convinced that the briefcase is intended to reference the “Great Whatsit” of Kiss Me Deadly. Partly because of the familiar look of it, but also because I concur with the opinion of the fellow who wrote this essay about KMD (from which the pic is lifted.)
This is pretty much a standard reading, and I think that identifying the contents of Wallace’s case as Hammer’s “Great Whatsit” fits in nicely with some of the main thematic elements of Pulp Fiction. Of course, when you start deconstructing film, subjectivity plays a big part. The “Cherrios” guy probably had some internally-consistent reason for drawing his conclusions, too. Ultimately, art is always a conspiracy between the artist and the viewer.
If pressed for a nice literal answer to what might be in the case, my guess would be a large quantity of drugs. Mainly because Jules asks “Flock of Seagulls” “Where you got the shit hid at?” and also because Pumpkin asks Jules “Is that what I think it is?” It’s hard for me to imagine diamonds presented in a way that it would make sense to use the singular. A big old bag of smack, (or even several bags) would still be a “that,” but I think that the discrete quality that diamonds have would make even a single sack of them “those.” It would also make more sense being in the hands of a bunch of snot-nosed apartment-dwellng punks-- they might have a chance to try (and apparently fail) to make the grade as dealers, but I can’t picture them fencing jewels.
I’d certainly choose the diamond explanation over the “It’s Marsellus Wallace’s SOUL! They took it out through the back of his NECK and covered it the hole with a BANDAID!” meme, though. What the hell?
And your user name reminds me of the whole sheep/wolf/shepherd thing that keeps coming up-- “Wolf” the fixer, Esmarelda Villa Lobos (“I’m an American, our names don’t mean shit,” etc.)
Then of course, there’s the theory that whatever it was in the Pulp Fiction case got repackaged into a different case for the DeNiro flick Ronin. It’s a stretch, but for some reason, the quirky little theory appeals to my sensibilities.
I think it’s either a lightsaber with BMF engraved on the handle, or the repackaged briefcase from Repo Man. Well, more the second.
I think I’m converted to the BMF lightsabre theory.
Because that would be beautiful.
Forgot the Onion link!
“…motorcycle-borne equine-anal head lodging…”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
You quoted me out of context. The scene I’m describing in my post leaves one with that impression if the movie has not yet been viewed.
Also, someone else said almost exactly what you just did. lol. And we discussed it then too.
No, and again, several of us discussed this, they (they meaning producers, writers etc) don’t “glorify” the hitmen, they do worse, they make them look like just everyday joes, doing an ordinary job, as if they are going to a factory or something.
Not to simplify this, there’s more, but I’m in the midst of a migraine which tends to make me less able to clarify my thoughts and put them down on “paper”.
Good God! Have you never heard of Mazes And Monsters?
User Comments:
(vascrypt@yahoo.com)
Date: 13 October 2001
Summary: A long look at what we lost
Forget the plot. There is a new and very significant reason to see this film. It gives us a good, long look at what we lost.
The last fifteen minutes of the film were filmed at the World Trade Center.
Um, ok…? There’s a lot of WTC footage out there.
Goodness SAKES! Are you in the industry in some way? That is a hell of a lot of symbolism.
I’m still not sure if I can say I “liked” the movie, or that it was a “good” movie.
It was definitely intriguing and held my interest. I really appreciate the time you took in lining out some of the more subtle references though.
And yes, I’ll probably watch it again.
(I still hate the big mac scene though, LOL).
MyFootsZZZ - “Me: Hi, found what I wanted?”
I was just curious, did you actually say this? Someone else may have picked this up in a thread I have not read, but I just must get this out of my head. Please tell me this is a typo because if not, then I will have to say that you should not be driving or owning any major credit cards. And if you corrected this in a later thread, I haven’t read it so…
The “?” is a typo… I didn’t mean to ASK her if I found what I wanted.
I DID STATE that I found what I wanted. I said that because they always ask me if I found everything ok, (which she had asked me anyway).
The “?” is a typo… I didn’t mean to ASK her if I found what I wanted.
I DID STATE that I found what I wanted. I said that because they always ask me if I found everything ok, (which she had asked me anyway).
