Pulp Fiction (1994) & Postmodernism

Pulp Fiction, directed and written by Quentin Tarantino and his 2nd film, was released in 199.
It is an American crime film that follows the story of criminals in Los Angeles. The film is
made famous for its non-linear form of storytelling and graphic violence in contrast to
comedy.
Postmodernism, is a concept and style, that arose in the late 20th century, which aims to
represent a departure from modernist conventions and styles.
The film is often regarded for the postmodern themes that it addresses, including the
irregular non-linear nature of the story, the intertextual almost self-referential nature, and
its hyper reality.
The main and most prominent example of postmodernism present in ‘Pulp Fiction’ is the
aforementioned non-linear form of storytelling, which is told via 3 separate segments titled,
“Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife”, “The Gold Watch” and “The Bonnie Situation”.
Quentin Tarantino’s disregard and rejection of a traditional and conventional form of
narrative in the film demonstrates the postmodern qualities of ‘Pulp Fiction’ perfectly as it
flips the traditional form of storytelling on its head and does something different. The film
instead of going from A-Z like the more conventional form of storytelling goes from B to A to
Z and then back to B. The film demonstrates smaller stories within a larger narrative with
each segment having multiple things going on. The film is almost confusing on purpose,
meaning the audience have to be fully invested to follow what’s going on, Writer Ali,
demonstrates this idea when she says, “The audience have to think hard to work out where
the narrative actually began if it were chronological. The demand for more audience
participation is yet another example of postmodernism, as gone are the days where
directors are simply presenting to a passive audience.” (Ali, 2010) The idea that the
audience is participating in the film is almost like as an audience member you are immersed
in the film as if you have caught bits of the action while passing by. This more immersive
form of entertainment is an extremely postmodern approach as movies are traditionally a
more passive experience in which the director presents ideas to you in a simple straight
forward way, but instead ‘Pulp Fiction’ does the opposite and expects the audience to piece
the story together, almost like cops piecing together stories and evidence given to them by
the different criminals.
The self-aware nature of the film begins prior to the title card, giving dictionary terms for
the phrase Pulp Fiction, this combined with titles cards interspersed between the segments.
This creates an awareness of construction to the film, showing the audience the way, it is
spliced together, this more self-referential and constructive is a common postmodern film
approach. The self-referential nature is also complimented by the natural, almost hyper real
feel of the film that is created through the very casual nature of the film, film writer Ali also
says, “Within the film there are scenes in which so-called "natural" conversation has been
used, for example when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules
Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are talking about how McDonalds names it's burgers
differently all over the world. This creation of hyper reality is
something Baudrillard felt strongly about, arguing it was a prominent aspect of postmodern
media.” (Ali, 2010) Another form of intertextual referencing that is featured in the film is
when Butch is selecting a weapon of choice to seek revenge on Zed, each weapon he picks
up references a different movie from Texas Chainsaw to Evil Dead 2.
Overall Pulp Fiction is a prime example of a postmodern film, mainly down to its non-linear
storytelling and hyperreal themes that set it apart as a rejection of modernist storytelling.