He’s Samoan.
Jules: You remember Antoine Roccamora, half black, half Samoan, used to call him Tony Rocky Horror?
Vincent: Yeah, maybe. Fat, right?
Jules: I wouldn’t go so far as to call the brother fat, I mean he got a weight problem. What’s the n!gger gonna do? He’s Samoan.
I love how Travolta and Jackson bring these characters to life with nothing more than quality dialog about absolutely nothing important.
“Vincent is a stupid fuck” and “Vincent is a professional hitman” aren’t exactly oppositional concepts. Hitmen in general are seedy lowlife fuck ups. That’s why they’re the guys who end up holding the gun when a mob boss decides someone needs to go.
My only problem with Temporary Name’s other wise excellent rundown of where Vincent’s head is at is, Vincent knows what happens when you shoot a guy in the face - and while he would generally have no qualms about killing a guy like Marvin for not backing him up in an argument, he would definitely be conscious of not getting his nice suit drenched in blood. I don’t think he intended to shoot Marvin, he just intended to intimidate Marvin into agreeing with him by pointing a loaded, cocked gun in his face. And then Jules hit that bump.
Hey, the car didn’t hit no motherfucking bump!
FWIW I think Vincent was an idiot for keeping his finger on the trigger, but I ton’t think it was intentional. Interesting theory though.
Given that Vincent instantly realizes that being in a bloody car with a dead … fellow is not a good thing, it wasn’t intentional.
He was being very sloppy with the gun. When he turns around to talk to Marvin he bounces the gun on the top of the seat back and then a second later the gun goes off.
Lots of questions though. Why does Vincent have the gun in his hand? He would have put it away, right? Why does he bring the gun around onto the seat back? Maybe a cop is driving by, sees two gangsters doing gangster stuff with one of them pointing a gun a … fellow in the back seat, it’s going to be an explosive situation.
In short: Vincent’s an idiot. One of about a dozen dumb things he does in the movie. Leaving the gun on the counter, calling Lance on a cell phone saying that he’s coming over, not checking the bathroom (but that’s also on Jules), arguing with Jules about the Ringo and Honey Bunny situation as Jules is trying to defuse it, not knowing what a pilot is, not realizing until too late he should have brought the … shotguns, not using the same cleaning method as Jules, being a junkie and a hitman, etc.
Still love the film, and can’t seem to turn it off when I find it on cable… still get a chuckle out of Mr. Wolf’s non-verbal reaction to Jimmie’s high-quality coffee
I think Tarantino imagined a black guy saying “dead nigga storage”, rightly thinking it would be hilarious, but wrongly thinking a white guy could pull it off.
It’s an understandable mistake, in the 1990’s I thought it could be funny when white guys said nigger in a funny way if they meant no harm. But now it’s like… yikes, dude.
I was a huge fan of Reservoir Dogs, to the point where I could probably recite the movie from memory at the time. Naturally, I made sure to see Pulp Fiction on its opening night.
My reaction? I thought the movie was cool while it was running, but then instantly forgot all about it afterwards. Lots of well-made scenes, but very esoteric - none of it had any connection to real-life situations or emotions that I could tell. It felt like watching a grad school thesis.
Yes, I had a much more fun time watching Killing Zoe!
I think the intent of Jimmie dropping an n-bomb was to show that while he had moved to the burbs and all that he still was a gangster at heart. He just didn’t care who he offended. Well, in terms of his equals and below which includes Jules and Vincent. Mr. Wolfe, OTOH, was someone you showed Respect to. That’s a good general rule of thumb for surviving in a criminal organization.
BTW, Jimmie’s house in Toluca Lake was up for sale last year. Well, the actual house was in Studio City. And it was listed as a teardown. For $1,395,000, sold for $1.34M. Wait, a teardown for 1.3 million???
You could buy a lot of bedding for $1.3 million.
I attest from 80’s experience…get enough cred with the gang and you can at least get a pass on N***a.
Also…lets be precise. Its the 90’s and Jimmy isnt calling Jules a n****r. He’s referring to that piece of shit in the trunk.
Now OF COURSE…these days just for prides sake, Jimmie is probably going to be acquainted with the wall behind him.
When I was teaching English as a foreign language, I’d show Pulp Fiction to my advanced students once a year, and we’d spend several class sessions analyzing it. What struck me around the tenth time I saw it was how it can be interpreted as a religious work. For example:
Brett and his buddies are betrayed by a Judas (Marvin). Marvin is shaken at what he’s done and subsequently dies a horrible death.
Jules is a Bible scholar (well, kinda) and immediately recognizes he’s been spared by Divine Intervention.
Two criminals, Vincent and Jules. One repents, the other does not. Guess who is eventually delivered to perdition?
Mia is all but dead, but is resurrected with the help of a drug dealer who looks like Jesus. (And religion is, of course, the “opiate of the masses.”)
Butch betrays Marsellus and kills two men (the boxer and Vincent) without remorse. But he’s redeemed by going back to save Marsellus (and slaying more evil doers).
Butch is inspired to save Marsellus by a message delivered in a dream that he wouldn’t ordinarily have remembered.
In the end, Butch rides off on Grace, which can be seen as a gift from God.
There are more points, but I’d have to see the movie again to remember them all. The whole structure of the movie, shown out of sequence and filled with continuity markers, gives the viewer a God’s-eye view of events, and even the sense of an alternate timeline emerging: Yolanda’s “I’ll kill every last one of you motherfuckers!” was different the second time she said it and, from what I’ve read, it differed in the script. Note too that there’s an abrupt change of camera angles at that point, as though we’ve just entered another dimension.
Also, the focus of the film changes dramatically when the different segments are reassembled in correct chronological order. It becomes more the story of how Jules is saved by repenting (he survives the incident in the coffee shop and presumably goes on to walk the Earth, like Caine in Kung Fu), while Vincent scorns the thought of giving up “The Life” and meets his unsavory end at the hands of the soon-to-be-redeemed Butch.
It’s hard given the standard rules of story not to see a religious reason for a bunch of things. What are the odds that two people who shared something weird end up meeting again a decade later and that shared something is key to what’s happening to them now? Pretty remote but it happens in a ton of stories.
Explanation: God Did It.
Or …
The author wanted to make the story interesting. Without an interesting story, why bother?
Note that one explanation is “in universe” and the other looks at the writing process.
Some people want to immerse themselves and think of it as “real” and some don’t. Like the Baker Street people who pretend that Sherlock Holmes was real.
But the real question is: What is the “religious” explanation for Captain Koons’ visit to young Butch? Esp. the part about where the watch was kept hidden.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Wow. We did Stuart Little. Your way seems better.
Great movie. Several great quotes. If I have one complaint it’s that the movie starts in the middle (of the plot).
The “message” in the dream was that in a crisis, two men don’t abandon each other. This opens the way for Butch’s redemption (he simply can’t leave Marsellus to the Hillbillies; he may be free to leave the pawn shop, but he’s overcome with guilt), forgiveness (for cheating Marsellus), and (presumably) salvation (at the end he does have grace/Grace).
The part about where the watch was hidden was just pure Tarantino humor. Or maybe it was meant to show that sacrifice entails hardship. I dunno, never thought about it before. Good question!
Betrayal, life, death, resurrection, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, forgiveness, salvation, sacrifice, loyalty, devotion, grace… The movie is just too full of such themes for it to be mere coincidence.
Missed the Edit window on this one! :mad:
Betrayal, life, death, resurrection, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, perdition, salvation, sacrifice, loyalty, devotion, grace…
One of my students (a Russian) came up with an interesting interpretation. I asked who he thought the main character was, expecting him to say either Jules (for his repentance) or Vincent (for his damnation). He said “I think it’s Marsellus, because everything revolves around him. He’s the one who sets everything in motion. The lives of the others depend on him.”
This is something I had never thought of. Maybe Marsellus is The Dark Lord? 
And maybe The Wolf is actually an Angel of Salvation, come to rescue Vincent and Jules from an untenable situation?
I think it’s also noteworthy that Jules quotes “The Good Book,” while Vincent reads Modesty Blaise while on the crapper. And, like a good Elvis man, he also dies on the crapper. (Elvis may have been the “King of Rock and Roll” with his own “throne,” but he wasn’t “The King of Kings.”*)
*Okay, I know this is a bit of a reach, but do you have another interpretation? :dubious:
No pun intended. :smack: