Pulp Fiction is Epic!
Part of the International Baccalaureate’s Diploma Programme curriculum is a 4,000 word essay entitled “Extended Essay”. It’s a research based project and as long as the student can connect their topic to a subject that they take and justify why said topic is relevant; they can basically write about anything they want.
I wanted to write about this movie, and couldn’t.
The reason was mainly because if I did I’d be assigned my lovable-but-ultimately-crazy theatre teacher as my mentor and as much as I love her she is ultimately crazy. So that was a no-go.
Instead I wrote a paper on history. More specifically, I dissected the movie Rambo II in an attempt to understand the political climate of the US at the time of its release. I honestly thought it was brilliant, but my report card would suggest otherwise. I guess schools don’t appreciate it when students extrapolate knowledge of a subject into an area of their interest…Oh wait! However that’s a post for another time.
My original essay idea would be to search for and analyse Brechtian techniques used by Director Quentin Tarantino in his own movies, and what effects these had on an audience and how these effects differ if the media on question is on stage of projected on the silver screen. Honestly, a brilliant a idea. I would love to have dissected the 7 Tarantino films for all of their epicness, but ultimately did not.
So here I am now. Yesterday, I watched Pulp Fiction and now I want to write this project. In a more condensed form of course, cause really, who is going to read 4000 words on medium. So, here it goes, a simplified dissection of Brechtian Techniques employed by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction.
Bertolt Brecht was a playwright who is credited at creating a theatrical movement known as Epic Theatre. At the time, theatre plays were romantic hyperbolic recreations of life. Everything was grandiose and colourful and overly dramatic and filled with love and richness. Society would watch on stage what they aimed to in the future own. And then came Brecht, who argued that plays were not only great instruments of communication but were the perfect vehicles for change. His play were not romantic retellings of life, his were bare and grounded. He argued that if society saw their own reflection in characters they could reflect upon said characters actions and therefore change their own. To accomplish this, Brecht would use the Verfremdungseffektk, which is german for distancing/alienation effect. He thought that what prevented audiences from reflection was their inherent absorbance into the spectacle. The audience was just too entertained to think! So Brecht countered this by creating certain conventions that sought out to destroy this illusion; these are the Brechtian techniques and these together create Epic theatre.
…and some of them can be found in Tarantino’s movies.
The Fourth Wall
The fourth wall is an invisible wall that separates the audience from the performance. On stage exists at somewhere between the stage and row one, depending on the theatre of course, and on film, it’s usually the edge of the screen said movie is being show on.
To break the fourth wall in theatre someone on stage must address the audience, by acknowledging their existence the illusion that the play is its own reality is broken. The same can be said about film. A popular use of this in modern media; Kevin Spacey in House of Cards. Frank Underwood will look directly into the camera and talk to us the viewers throughout an episode. Except, film is its own reality independent or not if the actor looks directly in the camera. Subconsciously, as a viewer, we know it’s Kevin Spacey looking into a camera and not at us, something Theatre has a upper-hand on. Either way, the aim of this technique is to remind the audience that they are watching a movie/play and to remove them from their immersion.
When Mia and Vincent are sitting in the car outside Jack Rabbit Slim’s there is a moment where Mia breaks the fourth wall. She turns to Vincent and says; “You can get a steak here Daddy-o, don’t be a — ” and makes a square outline in the air with her fingers. What the characters don’t see, but we as an audience do, is the then drawn in perimeter of the “square” Mia had just drawn. Like what?!
Let me ask you this? When does a movie purposely introduce graphics that are never addressed by any of the characters, cannot be seen by any of the characters or plays no role in forwarding the plot. Why is the answer to that question never? Because it takes us out of the movie.
Our brain is not confused by the rectangle. Where did it come from? Why does Mia suck at drawing squares? Can Vince see it? Will they address it? No… Ok, that was only for us, who put it there? Why? Does Mr.Tarantino not believe in our ability to draw imaginary lines in our mind’s eye?
This line of questioning achieves the following. For that instant you forget about how good this movie has been so far and you instead observe the bigger picture. You begin to reflect on Vega’s intentions and responsibilities. What is the pressure put upon him? What of Mia? Her intentions have not been the clearest either up to this moment.
By removing you from watching the story unfold, you are placed in a position where you can judge it. And I'd venture on saying that’s what Tarantino wants; why else would he write broken, human characters if not for his audience to judge them.
Dialogue
Arguably, the most recognizable feature of any Tarantino film is the dialogue, and in Pulp Fiction it is no different. It is colloquial, it is realistic and at time full of non-sequiturs. This type of dialogue can be seen to draw parallels to Epic Theatre’s use “gestic” language;
This is Brecht’s term for that which expresses basic human attitudes — not merely “gesture” but all signs of social relations: department, intonation, facial expression. The Stanislavskian actor is to work at identifying with the character he or she portrays. The Brechtian actor is to work at expressing social attitudes in clear and stylized ways. — Moore 2001.
How does this translate into Pulp Fiction?
Firstly, the quote compares Stanislavskian acting style to Brechtian. Stanislavski was a Russian playwright and director who argued that actors needed to feel the emotion of their characters to properly act like them and not the other way around. (He would abandon this concept by the later years in his career but that did not stop many spinoff practices being born from it; most famously, method acting, is used by Hollywood actors today. The pros and cons of this practice is a whole other blog in its own right…) Brecht argued that emotions are not the genesis of an actor’s movements, but the contrary, that how an actor moved should influence how the character feels. Actors should not have to connect emotionally to their character to play them, actors should move with their characters.
A “gestus” is the term used in Epic Theatre for a movement that illustrates a character's social status or intention or alliance or occupation, etc. In sum their attributes. This can be anything from a small tick to the way the character carries their own weight.
Linking back to dialogue, a “gestic” language is a language that by which one can determine a character’s attributes. Normal real-life language is arguably very “gestic”; we use colloquialisms inherent to our society all the time.
And, do the characters of Pulp Fiction do the same? Yes! Obviously. Does Ringo speak the same as The Wolf? Nope. Why? Gestus.
Ringo’s dialogue refers to his social class, his intention & his “occupation”. The way he calls Yolonda “Honey Bunny” or the way he uses curses or the language he uses when trying to sound threatening to the diner manager or the language he uses when dealing with Winnfield. This is the polar opposite to that used by The Wolf.
Tarantino uses “gestus” in his dialogue and with that the audience know a lot about his characters without much exposition on any of them. Because really, what do we know about any of these characters? Other than Butch’s watch’s backstory (Walken ❤) the rest of the action takes place in media res. Everything we know about these characters comes through in the gestus of their dialogue.
Music
Epic theatres commonly will use music to set-up a mood for an upcoming scene, and you cannot say that theme song does not get you pumping as soon as you hear it.
I feel like galloping out of an exploding mine shaft when I hear that song… It’s not only that either, how many times is a scene introduced through radio or a song? It’s always expositional. There is no soundtrack that swells as Wallace is over-run or when the Gimp is awaken. Music is not used to further emotional scenes, it’s used to establish them.
(Sidenote; music as a tool to juxtapose an emotion being displayed is also a very Brechtian thing to do. This movie does not have an example of that per say, but trust me when I say its common. Next time you watch a movie in which something extreme happens on screen, like a violent fight, and the music that accompanies it is a polar opposite, now you know this is all Brecht trying to get into your head.)
Montage
This is the most self-explanatory of all the points. Montage is a technique Brecht would use as he argued that by forcing the audience to create the timeline of the story they have to reflect upon all the actions and all their consequences. He also hoped that audience members may create different timelines based on their own personal hierarchy of importance, differences that may start arguments that would lead onto change.
Guess what movie takes place in a montage..?
Furthermore, Brechtian plays would commonly use cards to introduce characters and scenes to the audience; and that definitely does not happen in Pulp Fiction at all.
The cards would be used for two main reasons. Firstly, to break the fourth wall. Secondly, and arguably most importantly, in traditional epic theatre plays a single actor could play many characters and never leave stage to swap between them. The cards helped the audience keep track.
Conclusion
There are others, but let us just conclude something. There are many similarities between Tarantino’s directing style and Epic Theatre conventions. However, there is one key difference that completely eradicates any and all chances of Pulp Fiction ever being considered an Epic piece. I explained previously that Brecht wanted the theatre to be used as a tool for societal change, a mirror by which society could see it’s reflection and judge their actions. And so I ask, what societal change is Pulp Fiction trying to start?
What are the morals in Pulp Fiction? That other countries use metric? To not f*ck Wallace like a b*tch? To not do drugs? To leave your gun on safety? To not trust your wife with packing your bags? — There is not one, really. And that’s the crippling factor that prevents Pulp Fiction from being ever considered a Brechtian piece, it is a portrait of it’s society but it does nothing to change it.
Therefore, to conclude, Pulp Fiction is epic, but it is not Epic.
Sources Cited
Moore, Andrew. “Studying Bertolt Brecht.” Brecht. N.p., 2002. Web. 9 Sept. 2015. <http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/drama/brecht.htm>.
