Name: Big Picture: Pulp Fiction (1994)
Start: 2025-09-10T19:00:00-04:00
Location: Tampa Theatre

Part of the Big Picture: Sound Tracking film series in September.
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2h 34m / R / Crime, Drama
TRAILER:

VENUE: Historic Duncan Auditorium
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Under no circumstances do any more words need to be written about Pulp Fiction. Forget the books and college courses and video essays; director Quentin Tarantino himself, not known for modesty or reticence, has said everything that needs to be said at least twice. That being the case, we push on anyway! You’re here, we’re here, let’s talk about Pulp Fiction.
Specifically, let’s talk about the music of Pulp Fiction. Tarantino, coming off of Reservoir Dogs, knew music could work magic. The unforgettable “Stuck in the Middle with You” scene, and the needle-drop on “Little Green Bag,” got people talking. But Dogs wasn’t the success it would be later, after re-examination in the wake of the meteoric impact of Pulp Fiction. So Tarantino cranked everything up. There’s no score in the conventional sense, but the songs Tarantino chose lead the movie. Many of the most memorable scenes pop to mind with just their titles. “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon.” “Son of a Preacher Man.” “Misirlou.” The soundtrack album went triple platinum, back when albums did that.
And the dance scene. You know the dance scene. It’s Quentin Tarantino’s thesis statement; it contains everything you need to know about him as a filmmaker. A fake Marilyn Monroe and a fake Ed Sullivan, a reference already lost on half the audience thirty years ago, stand up in the middle of a corny, incoherently themed hamburger restaurant and announce a dance contest. There’s a trophy and everything. Uma Thurman (as Mia Wallace), dressed like someone cut up a Bande à part poster with a razorblade, a look so iconic it feels instantaneously familiar, insists she and her date enter. And so John Travolta (as Vincent Vega), who the audience knows as formerly one of the biggest dance stars in the world, whose career has most recently traveled through Look Who’s Talking, Look Who’s Talking Too and the even-worse-than-the-last-one Look Who’s Talking Now, stands up with a weirdly unconvincing swagger, takes off his shoes to reveal a pair of cheap gold-toe socks, and changes the course of Hollywood for the next two decades.