Pulp Fiction (1994) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Roger Ebert said it this way:

"Quentin Tarantino is the Jerry Lee Lewis of cinema, a pounding performer who doesn't care if he tears up the piano, as long as everybody is rocking. His new movie "Pulp Fiction" is a comedy about blood, guts, violence, strange sex, drugs, fixed fights, dead body disposal, leather freaks, and a wristwatch that makes a dark journey down through the generations.  Like those old pulp mags named "Thrilling Wonder Stories" and "Official Detective," the movie creates a world where there are no normal people and no ordinary days - where breathless prose clatters down fire escapes and leaps into the dumpster of doom."

(Note: for a more detailed definition of the term "pulp fiction", see my comments about Jackie Brown)

Looking back on Pulp Fiction, it no longer seems so dazzlingly original because its influence has been felt in so many subsequent films. At the time, however, it was a one-film revolution. It has exerted such a powerful influence on the past few years, that we have been inundated with films with circular and interlocking stories. We have heard endless banal irrelevant and comically inappropriate dialogue. We are used to seeing John Travolta and Tim Roth among us. We know that Samuel L Jackson is a big star. None of those things were true before Pulp Fiction came along. (Travolta was a former star, for example.)

It would be interesting to hear how Tarantino decided to edit the final cut.

Obviously, the last thing that happens chronologically (since Travolta dies in that episode) is Willis and Medeiro's motorcycle ride to freedom, but that is not the end of the film.

The first thing that happens chronologically is Jackson and Travolta's conversation about "Royale with Cheese". That begins the first of the three stories, and we see that particular scene near the beginning of the film, but the entire story actually concludes at the end of the film, and the short interlude in the opening credits, featuring Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer, actually occurs chronologically at the end of the first story.

So the film is ordered like this:

• End of Story 1, preview (Roth and Plummer)
• Beginning of Story 1 (Royale with cheese)
• Story 2 (Travolta and Thurman)
• Story 3 (Willis)
• Middle of Story 1 (Keitel)
• End of Story 1, fleshed out (back to Roth and Plummer, now joined by Travolta and Jackson)

Therefore, the stories are told in 1, 2, 3 order in one sense, except that story 1 is left hanging, to be continued after the other two are done. The scene which concludes the film - Jackson and Travolta leaving the restaurant in their "volleyball" clothes - actually occurs before the date with Thurman, which in turn occurs before the Willis/Medeira flight.

Travolta is in all three stories, but only makes a brief cameo appearance in the Willis story.

I don't have any objection to the final order. I think it works fine. But I'm wondering when and how the decision was made, because you'd think that at one time they probably intended it to end with Willis and Medeira on the chopper.

Trivia: Steve Buscemi plays a tiny role as Buddy Holly in Jack Rabbit Slim's diner.