So Jules calls Marsellus for assistance with the body in car and Marsellus tells him he’s sending along Winston Wolf.
Winston takes a call from Marsellus. He’s in a bedroom. Before we see him, the camera briefly pans across the entrance to another room. I see maybe a dozen smartly dressed men and women having some kind of party. There is also a table, on which people seem to be playing some kind of casino game. Winston himself is dressed formally in black tie. Everybody looks as fresh as a daisy.
It’s 8.20 am.
Is this just a standard Los Angeles party that continues well into the following morning, or is there some symbolism or homage I am missing?
I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d guess it’s an almost exact copy of a scene in some movie from the late '60s or early '70s that’s stuck in Tarantino’s OCD brain. He doesn’t have an original bone, but he’s a great synthesist.
I always figured he was at a funeral, and that he was an undertaker or something of that nature–as in, he could “handle” bodies. That interpretation seemed to make sense until now. I hadn’t noticed anything that looked like a game before.
I don’t think it symbolized anthing. I figured Tarantino just thought it made a better contrast to show that Wolff was able to get on the job within ten minutes while in the middle of a party than it would have been if he had been sitting at his kitchen table having a quiet breakfast and reading the paper.
Because you’d have to rent a U-Haul and that takes precious time. Plus, renting a U-Haul entails filling out forms and you definitely don’t want to leave a paper trail in a situation like that.
There’s definitely a table at the far end of the room. It’s covered in what looks like green baize, and several people are sitting round it playing some kind of game.
I always thought it was a deal where Wolf is so friggin’ cool, that at 8:30 in the morning, while you’re still unwrapping your egg-a-muffin, you’ll find him at a coctail party in a tuxedo.
Jack Batty; “I always thought it was a deal where Wolf is so friggin’ cool, that at 8:30 in the morning, while you’re still unwrapping your egg-a-muffin, you’ll find him at a coctail party in a tuxedo.”
lissener; “It’s meant to imply that the Wolf lives in a world where there’s always a cocktail party going on.”
Tarantino has always been unapologetic about creating realities of his own design; if it suits his movie to have a man so cool he’s at a cocktail party at eight in the morning, then by Christ there will be cocktail parties in LA at eight in the morning.
There’s a scene in “Kill Bill” where Uma Thurman is on a plane coming back from Okinawa, and she’s got her new sword with her on the plane. Many people pointed out that this seemed unlikely in a world where they won’t let you take anything sharper than a beach ball onto a plane. Tarantino acknowledged this and said words to the effect of “That’s absolutely correct, but the world of Kill Bill is not the real world, it’s a fantasy world. In that world, you’re allowed to take your sword with you on a plane. And if it’s a Japanese airline, they have a thing in your seat to hold your sword.”
