Film through Marxian Critical Analysis - Movie Review Example

Pulp Fiction Pulp Fiction: An examination of the film through Marxian critical analysis of Client of Pulp Fiction 2 Pulp Fiction: An examination of the film through Marxian critical analysis Introduction The Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction is a large scale work of art that exemplifies the post-modern film through its use of narrative and its stylistic approach. The underlying themes are vast and defy simple explanation, but the film is successfully popular due to its pop culture referencing and sensationalistic violence the rides atop the complexity of the intellectual narrative. Through a brief analysis of the film, an understanding of the nature of the work brings forward the high quality of the intent behind its construction. Looking at the film through a Marxian critical analysis can further the understanding of the way in which the themes within the film have been developed. Analysis of the Film Quentin Tarantino’s achievement in his film Pulp Fiction was to create the ultimate example of a post-modern film. The work has a sense of nostalgia while creating something that was new and interesting for a generation that was looking to find out I there was something new to be seen. Tarantino created a work that was written in such a way as to engage the viewer in confusion that had to be unraveled and evaluated for its ultimate content. The use of pop culture imagery and dark counterculture lifestyles creates a universe that feels as though it is just off center to reality. The storyline is non-linear, creating complex web of interconnections between the characters. It is not hard to understand the film, but there is a world of theory that can be explored in the narrative allowing for a fresh perspective to be gained through multiple viewings. The unconventional structure of the film is counterbalanced by the heavy use off pastiche creating a sentimentality of the nostalgic to be evoked. At the same time, the violence in the film Pulp Fiction 3 has a surreal quality while remaining intense in harsh strokes. The quotes that come from the dialogue have become a part of contemporary slang, giving the film elevated status in pop culture. The achievement of this film is that it appeals both intellectually and gutturally. When it was released, it was a huge success, re-launching the career of John Travolta and instantly elevating Tarantino into celebrity. The film became influential in subsequent work and instigated a new point of view. Analysis from a political point of view allows for an understanding of the position that was held in the early 1990’s as the political landscaping was changing. Released in 1994, the film reflects a growing conservatism that was cynical reaction to a liberalist attitude whose idealism had fallen short of the dream. Creating an immersion into violence, the film creates the feeling that order can be maintained only from a patriarchal dominance that has swift and bloody retribution. According to Kittelson (1998), the character of Marsellus looms as a father figure in the background, directing the play as he holds court over the lives of the characters. There is an immediate respect for his power and his centralized control which is reflective of an underlying core philosophy of the American dream which may promote the idealism of a free and democratic nation, but appreciates the power and control of a central dominant figure. The idolism the pervades the nations identity, this need to find the anti-hero that can be equated with Don Corleone from the film The Godfather, is counter-balanced by this abuse of the liberties through the acts of violence in the film (156). If Pulp Fiction is examined from a Jungian perspective, one can find a sense of the relationship that Jung made between psychotherapy and alchemy within the narrative. Jung asserted that the development of the psyche could be exampled in the efforts of the alchemists Pulp Fiction 4 who searched for ways to turn other metal into gold. The search to create perfection in oneself is mirrored in the discourse that is created within Tarantino’s work (Hauke and Alister 2001: 4). This is blatantly exampled in the character of Jules Winnfield played by Samuel L. Jackson. This character goes on a religious journey throughout the film examining what he does and the consequences looking to find meaning. In contrast, the character of Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, merely accepts what happens and clearly examines the consequences as problems to be solved in ways that will keep himself from harm. His dialogue with Jackson serves as a counterbalance to the internal search through which Winnfield is progressing. The key to Pulp Fiction can be found within the narrative. The broad appeal is directly associated with the way in which it can be examined from multiple perspectives. The glue that sticks the narrative together is a suitcase which literally glows when opened as it is the symbolic “gold” for which the Jungian theory can be adapted (Hauke and Alister 2001: 4). The suitcase was what Hitchcock would refer to as a “McGuffin”, a term used to describe a meaningless element that serves as a point of continuity that advances the plot without being explained. According to Hughes (2006), the contents, which are never revealed in the movie, have been explained to be the diamonds from the movie Reservoir Dogs with which there is a clear connection between Vincent Vega played by Travolta and the character of Vic Vega played by Michael Madson who were proposed to play the Vega brothers in an unrealized project. The contents of the briefcase was also theorized to be the soul of Marsellus. According to an interview done by Samuel Jackson when asked about the contents said that inside the briefcase was a twelve volt battery and a light bulb, thus suggesting that no matter what the fantasy, reality has a simple explanation (190). Pulp Fiction 5 Marxian Theory in Film The theories of Carl Marx on social development were based on the idea that the nature of man had been defined by man and not by God. He considered history as a self-realization rather than a designed fate. The core of an understanding of Marx is to see that it is a critical theory designed to understand the mass culture. In order to create that understanding, Marx focused on labor as central to the creation of a materialistic life. His theories intended to make the connections from feudalism to an industrialized society which then turned to capitalism. His ideal end to this evolution was then communism where all shared in the wealth equally. He believed that the workers would eventually take over the state and lead society to socialism. Looking at film through the lens of critical Marxist theory requires one to examine the work he did on ideology. According to Simpson, Utterson, and Shearson (2004), ideology is the relationship that is developed between the imagined reality and real existence (67). Film represents the ultimate imagined reality that can be examined for its reflections on the real world. As exampled in the film The Purple Rose of Cairo by Woody Allen, the medium of film creates an alternate reality that sometimes seems to be blurred. In this film, an actor leaves the film in order to interact with the life of a woman, creating a relationship with the fantasy world that can be examined for its disastrous results. The fantasy is ideal, where the reality of the world cannot become that ideal. This dichotomy of the idealized reality to the truth of existence is at the core of the theatrical experience. In creating works that reflect an aspect of this idealism, film makers have the opportunity to perfect that idealism, comment on it, or shred it for its false nature. When a film is developed with a satirical commentary on social existence, the idealism is then examined Pulp Fiction 6 for what it is - a created construct of a world that does not and will not exist. Pulp Fiction examines an aspect of this idealism and takes it apart through a narrative that involves a multitude of characterizations. In the patriarchal world that is lead by Marsellus, the ideology of a single leader social structure is examined. The Male Ideology of Pulp Fiction First and foremost, the narrative in Pulp Fiction and in most of Tarantino’s films is done from a male perspective. His female characters are mostly objectified and without a core presence, although this does change quite a bit in his two films for the Kill Bill sequence. Kill Bill, however, can arguably be defined by a sense that the female characters take on male attributes rather than reflect much in the way of the female voice. According to Coperias (2000), in Pulp Fiction there is a first attempt by Tarantino to portray a woman who is not only strong, but admired. The character of Honey Bunny stands up holding a gun and in a psychopathic tinged shout of swear words threatens the entire place. Her male accomplice then promptly says “I love you, Honey Bunny.” (231). This is how female power is introduced into the catalog of Tarantino films. Therefore, to discuss the ideology of Pulp fiction is to understand that this philosophy is designed from a specifically male perspective rather than a balanced androgynous concept of the human existence. Coperias (2000) says of the character of Mia played by Uma Thurman “Woman’s body is constantly trivialized and becomes here an excuse for swearing for obscene comparisons. Mia’s main textual significance is that of an extended sexual metaphor” (232). The objectification of the female presence has with it the obvious confusion that is associated with the male perspective on the female. As Tarantino in person can be somewhat of a reminder of a Pulp Fiction 7 classic male figure who is ever confounded by the female sex, his films reflect this by both diminishing the female and putting her on an unreachable pedestal, dangerous and aloof. To examine the ideology of the film, then, is to understand that is not a human perspective but a male perspective. In this male perspective, the emotional context of life is reduced to action and contemplation. This is not to suggest that this is a sense of reality, but from a stereotypical perspective on the male point of view. The film creates its reality as if the culture that the audience is experiencing has very little to do with the average experiences of the world. Therefore, the world is reduced to its base, violent nature appealing to the male perspective in that the part of the world that is most often foreign to men, the emotional, nurturing part of the world, is glaringly absent. The “Pulp” of Pulp Fiction The concept of ’pulp” fiction is that it was printed in magazines using cheap paper. The idea is that it was not the highest quality writing and that it came cheap. This ironic title for the film was intended to suggest the superficial quality of the characterizations that both purposely lacked dimension and were representational rather than developed as realistic recreations of individuals. According to Blessing and Tudico (2005), the film represents a “conversation between nihilism and relativism”(258), both suggesting that there are no moral values and that moral values are relative to the situation. Blessing and Tudico (2005) suggest that the relativism within the film is important as it allows the audience to sympathize with the main characters despite the moral depravity of their violent lifestyles (261). As referenced in Jameson (1991), the pastiche quality of the film represents the way in which the post-modern world has defined itself. He says that “Modernist styles thereby become Pulp Fiction 8 post-modern codes”, suggesting that the pop culture referencing becomes a language that can identify and communicate with the current social structure. The consumerism culture that creates identifiers that relate to the branding and packaging of identities as they relate to materialism responds to pop culture language as a descriptive device to establish cultural identity. Baudrillard, as interpreted by Douglas Kellner (2008) suggests that culture, through the advent of Pop Art, has been reduced to signs of its existence, meaning literal signs such as the Coke bottle or Campbell’s soup can from Andy Warhol, rather than through the moral values that were expressed in earlier forms of art. Modern and post-modern cultures define themselves through what they buy rather than by internal systems of values. In seeing culture through the point of view of consumerism, social values are reduced to commodity fetishism from which the desire for brands and their related identity becomes central to consumerism (De Grazia 1996: 133). Instead of being an individual defined by morals and values, the post-modern cultural social experience becomes defined by materialistic desires. In the film, the lack of dimensional characterization and the infusion of intense pop cultural references exemplifies this point of view, both exalting and satirizing it. According to Wayne’s (2003) discourse on Marxism and the veil through which social construction has become like the presence of spectres that haunt current social culture, the film embraces the idea that reality has become void of substance and been replaced by the fetishism that drives the consumerist ideal. Conclusion The film Pulp Fiction exemplifies the post-modern cinema as it embraces the pop culture histories through a pastiche of thematic narratives and superficiality. The film creates a commentary on the way in which consumerism has become the core of the social identity. Using Pulp Fiction 9 satire and irony in order to visit these concepts, the film relates a tale that embraces a nihilistic point of view that is morally set against a cultural relevance in order to suggest that the consequences may or may not be relevant to a moral center. While there is a sense of values that are not relevant to reality within the film, the examination of ideologies that are relevant to the consumerist culture that has a developed identity that is fraught with materialism allows a discourse on post-modern concepts of social construction. Looking at the film through the lens of Marxist philosophy provides a framework within which the language of the film becomes subject to the ideological narrative. Pulp Fiction 10 Quentin Tarantino Directorial Filmography 1985 - My Best Friend’s Birthday (unfinished) 1992 - Reservoir Dogs 1994 - Pulp Fiction 1995 - Four Rooms 1997 - Jackie Brown 2003 - Kill Bill Vol. 1 2004 - Kill Bill Vol. 2 2005 - Sin City (guest director) 2007 - Death Proof 2009 - Inglorious Bastards Pulp Fiction 11 Bibliography Blessing, Kimberly Ann, and Paul J. Tudico. 2005. Movies and the meaning of life: philosophers take on hollywood. Chicago [u.a.]: Open Court Coperias Aquilar, Maria Jose. 2000. Culture and power challenging discourses. Valencia: Servei de Publ. Univ. de Valencia. Covington, Peter. 2008. As Sociology for Aqa. Folens Ltd. De Grazia, Victoria. 1996. The sex of things: gender and consumption in historical perspective. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press. Easthope, Antony. 1996. Contemporary film theory. Longman critical readers. London: Longman. Hauke, C. and Ian Alister. 2001. Jung & film: Post-Jungian takes on the moving image. New York: Psychology Press. Hughes, Howard. 2006. Crime wave the filmgoers guide to the great crime movies. London: I.B. Tauris. Jameson, Frederic. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Retrieved on 4 May 2010 from http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/jameson/excerpts/ postmod.html Jabri, Vivienne. 1999. Women, culture, and international relations. London: Rienner. Kellner, Douglas 2008. “Baudrillard and the art theory “ Found in Jean Boudrillard: Fatel Theories, by David B. Clarke and Marcus Doel. New York: Taylor and Francis Kittelson, Mary Lynn. 1998. The soul of popular culture: looking at contemporary heroes, myths, and monsters. Chicago: Open Court Pearson, Roberta E. and Philip Sampson. 2001. Critical dictionary of film and television theory. New York: Taylor and Francis. Simpson. Philip, Utterson, Andrew, and Karen J. Shepardson. 2004. Film theory: Critical concepts in media and cultural studies. New York: Taylor and Francis. Wayne, Mike. 2004. “Spectres, Marx theories of value and the horror film” Film International. Vol. 10, 4-13. Pulp Fiction 12 Wayne, Mike. 2003. “The world made spectral”. Found in Marxism and medium studies: Key concepts and contemporary trends. New York: Pluto, 183-219. Read More