Pulp Fiction: Postmodernism In Mainstream Cinema

Pulp Fiction is a film that revolutionized the way movies were made, and since its premiere has left lasting influences on cinema as an art form. This essay will focus specifically on the popularization of non-linear story telling and use of postmodernism in mainstream cinema. In addition, it will examine use of cynicism and irony within the film to speak to the disenchantment of Generation X and the responses to the film which solidified it as a cultural phenomenon. Pulp Fiction not only impacted the beliefs and values which defined mood of the period they were born into, the film techniques and distinct aesthetics of both films are what made postmodernism in mainstream cinema not only possible, but popular. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino champions the postmodern aesthetics of past imitation and intertextuality. In Pulp Fiction the famous diner scene takes place in a collage of intertextuality where the decor of the diner references films from the 50s and 60s while the employees are dressed as icons from the past such as Marilyn Monroe and Buddy Holiday (Tóth, 2011). Moreover the characters within the film are created from characters

Examples of this type of dialogue can be found in the conversation between Jules and Vincent when they talk about their boss being in Paris, and in the conversation between Mia Wallace and Vincent in the diner. It is this speech, though seemingly brisk and empty, that allows Tarantino to exemplify his mastery of subtext. “In Pulp Fiction they talk about hamburgers, they talk about coffee. They talk about tomatoes, and potbellies, and oral sex and the Bible. They talk about anything and everything that has nothing to do with what’s really going on. Because what they’re really doing is threatening, and apologizing, and flirting, and falling in love, and sparring, and opening up” (Cinefix,