See the world's best properly cited quotes from Pulp Fiction. Share quotes with friends. Our favorite quote: 'I do believe Marsellus Wallace, my husband, your boss, told you to take ME out and do WHATEVER I WANTED. Now I wanna dance, I wanna win. I want that trophy, so dance good.' — Mia Wallace. Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is considered by many modern critics and audiences alike to be one of the most influential and iconic films of all time. With its progressive narrative structure, witty and pop culture laden dialogue, great acting, and use of extreme violence, it transcends many conventional Hollywood genres and becomes its own sort of mash up film.
Music from the Motion Picture Pulp Fiction | ||||
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Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | September 27, 1994 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 41:11 | |||
Label | MCA | |||
Quentin Tarantino film soundtrack chronology | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Rolling Stone | (favorable) [2] |
Music from the Motion Picture Pulp Fiction is the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction. No traditional film score was commissioned for Pulp Fiction. The film contains a mix of American rock and roll, surf music, pop and soul. The soundtrack is equally untraditional, consisting of nine songs from the movie, four tracks of dialogue snippets followed by a song, and three tracks of dialogue alone. Seven songs featured in the movie were not included in the original 41-minute soundtrack.
The album reached No. 21 on the Billboard 200, while Urge Overkill's cover of the Neil Diamond song 'Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon' peaked at No. 59 on the Billboard Hot 100.[3]
Tarantino used an eclectic assortment of songs by various artists. Notable songs include Dick Dale's now-iconic rendition of 'Misirlou', which is played during the opening credits. Tarantino chose surf music for the basic score of the film because, 'it just seems like rock 'n' roll Ennio Morricone music, rock 'n' roll spaghetti Western music.'[4]
Many of the songs on the soundtrack were suggested to Tarantino by musician Boyd Rice through their mutual friend Allison Anders, including Dick Dale's 'Misirlou'. Other songs were suggested to Tarantino by his friends Chuck Kelley and Laura Lovelace, who were credited as music consultants. Lovelace also appeared in the film as Laura the waitress.
In addition to the surf-rock rendition of 'Misirlou', other notable songs include 'Jungle Boogie' by Kool & the Gang, Dusty Springfield's version of 'Son of a Preacher Man', 'Flowers on the Wall' by the Statler Brothers and 'Bustin' Surfboards' by The Tornadoes, from 1962, which had been one of the first instrumental surf songs to hit the United States music charts after notables such as 'Walk--Don't Run' by the Ventures.
Excerpts of dialogue include Jules' 'Ezekiel 25:17' speech and the 'Royale with Cheese' exchange between Jules and Vincent.
A two-disc collector's edition of the album was issued in 2002 — the first disc contained the songs, including four additional tracks; and the second disc was a spoken-word interview with Tarantino.
Woody Thorne's 1961 song 'Teenagers in Love' and Link Wray's 1965 single 'Rumble' are two of the three songs missing from the collector's edition soundtrack. The last song is unique to the movie: it is Ricky Nelson's 'Waitin' In School' as performed by the actor Gary Shorelle, which plays as Vincent and Mia enter Jackrabbit Slim's.
The soundtrack reached No. 21 on the Billboard 200, and at the time, went platinum (100,000 units) in Canada alone.[5] By November 12, 1994, total sales of more than 1.6 million were reached[6] and by 1996 over 2 million units had been sold.[7] In 1995 the soundtrack reached No. 6 on the charts according to SoundScan.[8]
The soundtrack helped launch the band Urge Overkill, which covered Neil Diamond's 'Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon' (produced by Kramer) in 1993, into a mainstream market. Sony 'received a nice sum' for 'Son of a Preacher Man'[8] and Kool & The Gang enjoyed a resurgence when 'Jungle Boogie' was released on the soundtrack.[9]
The Orange County Register described why the soundtrack of Pulp Fiction stood out from all the others: 'Unlike so many soundtracks, which just seem to be repositories for stray songs by hit acts regardless of whether they fit the film's mood, Tarantino's use of music in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction exploded with a brash, Technicolor, pop-culture intensity that mirrored the stories he was telling.'[10]Karyn Rachtman was the music supervisor on both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.[11]
Analyzing the success of Tarantino's marketing, Billboard chalked up MCA's compilation to identifying the market niche: 'Pulp Fiction...successfully spoke to those attuned to the hip, stylized nature of those particular films.' The eclectic 'mix-and-match strategy' is true to the film. 'In some cases, like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, which were not geared toward any specific demographic, the soundtracks were still very focused albums,' said Kathy Nelson, senior VP/general manager at MCA Soundtracks. 'In both cases, the body of work — both the music and the film — has a specific personality.'[12]
In 1997, Gary Thompson of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that Pulp Fiction 'reinvigorated surf rock'.[13] That statement would be defining for Del-Fi Records, owned by legendary producer Bob Keane; the Pulp Fiction soundtrack contained two songs that were originally released on Del-Fi: Bullwinkle Pt II by The Centurions, and Surf Rider by The Lively Ones. Del-Fi Records released a compilation CD in 1995 entitled Pulp Surfin' featuring songs by those bands plus sixteen other surf tracks from the vaults. The cover artwork was yet another parody of the Pulp Fiction movie poster.
Inspired by the soundtrack, advertisers started to use surf music in their commercials 'to help sell everything from burritos to toothpaste', making surf music hugely popular again.[14]
More than two years after the film was released, the influence and monetary success was still being felt in the industry. 'Mundane commercials using Dick Dale '60s surf licks, the kind made popular again by the Pulp Fiction soundtrack...following a trend — in this case, a two-year-old hit movie.'[15]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Artist(s) | Length |
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1. | 'Pumpkin and Honey Bunny/Misirlou' | Quentin Tarantino/Fred Wise, Milton Leeds, S. K. Russell, Nicholas Roubanis | Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer/Dick Dale & His Del-Tones | 2:27 |
2. | 'Royale with Cheese (dialogue)' | Tarantino | Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta | 1:42 |
3. | 'Jungle Boogie' | Ronald Bell, Kool & the Gang | Kool & the Gang | 3:05 |
4. | 'Let's Stay Together' | Al Green, Al Jackson, Jr., Willie Mitchell | Al Green | 3:15 |
5. | 'Bustin' Surfboards' | Norman Sanders, Leonard Delaney | The Tornadoes | 2:26 |
6. | 'Lonesome Town' | Baker Knight | Ricky Nelson | 2:13 |
7. | 'Son of a Preacher Man' | John Hurley, Ronnie Wilkins | Dusty Springfield | 2:25 |
8. | 'Zed's Dead, Baby/Bullwinkle Part II' | Tarantino/Dennis Rose, Ernest Furrow | Maria de Medeiros, Bruce Willis/The Centurions | 2:39 |
9. | 'Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest/You Never Can Tell' | Tarantino/Chuck Berry | Jerome Patrick Hoban, Uma Thurman/Chuck Berry | 3:12 |
10. | 'Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon' | Neil Diamond | Urge Overkill | 3:09 |
11. | 'If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)' | Maria McKee | Maria McKee | 4:55 |
12. | 'Bring Out the Gimp/Comanche' | Tarantino/Robert Hafner (sax solo by James Gordon) | Peter Greene, Duane Whitaker/The Revels | 2:10 |
13. | 'Flowers on the Wall' | Lewis C. DeWitt | The Statler Brothers | 2:23 |
14. | 'Personality Goes a Long Way' | Tarantino | Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta | 1:00 |
15. | 'Surf Rider' | Bob Bogle, Nole 'Nokie' Edwards, Don Wilson | The Lively Ones | 3:18 |
16. | 'Ezekiel 25:17' | Tarantino | Samuel L. Jackson | 0:51 |
A two-disc collector's edition was released in 2002. It features remastered versions of the original sixteen tracks, along with five bonus tracks, including an interview with director Quentin Tarantino on the second disc. The additional tracks are:
Region | Certification | Certified units/Sales |
---|---|---|
Argentina (CAPIF)[16] | Platinum | 60,000^ |
Australia (ARIA)[17] | 2× Platinum | 140,000^ |
Belgium (BEA)[18] | Platinum | 50,000* |
Canada (Music Canada)[19] | 3× Platinum | 300,000^ |
France (SNEP)[20] | Platinum | 300,000* |
Europe (IFPI)[21] | 3× Platinum | 3,000,000* |
Italy (FIMI)[22] | Gold | 50,000* |
Japan (RIAJ)[23] | Gold | 100,000^ |
New Zealand (RMNZ)[24] | Platinum | 15,000^ |
Norway (IFPI Norway)[25] | Gold | 25,000* |
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[26] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
Sweden (GLF)[27] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
United Kingdom (BPI)[28] | 3× Platinum | 900,000^ |
United States (RIAA)[30] | 3× Platinum | 3,500,000[29] |
*sales figures based on certification alone |
This is wonderful dialogue (I have only sampled it). It is about something. The dialogue comes at a moment of desperation for Butch. He agreed to throw the fight, then secretly bet heavily on himself, and won. He will make a lot of money, but only if he escapes the vengeance of Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and his hit-men Jules and Vincent (Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta). In a lesser movie, the dialogue in this scene would have been entirely plot-driven; Butch would have explained to Fabienne what he, she and we already knew. Instead, Tarantino uses an apparently irrelevant conversation to quickly establish her personality and their relationship. His dialogue is always load-bearing.
It is Tarantino's strategy in all of his films to have the characters speak at right angles to the action, or depart on flights of fancy. Remember the famous opening conversation between Jules and Vincent, who are on their way to a violent reprisal against some college kids who have offended Wallace and appropriated his famous briefcase. They talk about the drug laws in Amsterdam, what Quarter Pounders are called in Paris, and the degree of sexual intimacy implied by a foot massage. Finally Jules says 'let's get in character,' and they enter an apartment.
Tarantino's dialogue is not simply whimsical. There is a method behind it. The discussion of why Quarter Pounders are called 'Royales' in Paris is reprised, a few minutes later, in a tense exchange between Jules and one of the kids (Frank Whaley). And the story of how Marsellus had a man thrown out of a fourth-floor window for giving his wife a foot massage turns out to be a set-up: Tarantino is preparing the dramatic ground for a scene in which Vincent takes Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) out on a date, on his bosses' orders. When Mia accidentally overdoses, Vincent races her to his drug dealer Lance (Eric Stoltz), who brings her back to life with a shot of adrenaline into the heart.
And that scene also begins with dialogue that seems like fun, while it's also laying more groundwork. We meet Lance's girlfriend Jody (Rosanna Arquette), who is pierced in every possible place and talks about her piercing fetish. Tarantino is setting up his payoff. When the needle goes into the heart, you'd expect that to be one of the most gruesome moments in the movie, but audiences, curiously, always laugh. In a shot-by-shot analysis at the University of Virginia, we found out why. QT never actually shows the needle entering the chest. He cuts away to a reaction shot in which everyone hovering over the victim springs back simultaneously as Mia leaps back to life. And then Jody says it was 'trippy' and we understand that, as a piercer, she has seen the ultimate piercing. The body language and the punchline take a grotesque scene and turn it into dark but genuine comedy. It's all in the dialogue and the editing. Also, of course, in the underlying desperation, set up by thoughts of what Marsellus might do to Vincent, since killing Mrs. Wallace is much worse than massaging her foot.
The movie's circular, self-referential structure is famous; the restaurant hold-up with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) begins and ends the film, and other story lines weave in and out of strict chronology. But there is a chronology in the dialogue, in the sense that what is said before invariably sets up or enriches what comes after. The dialogue is proof that Tarantino had the time-juggling in mind from the very beginning, because there's never a glitch; the scenes do not follow in chronological order, but the dialogue always knows exactly where it falls in the movie.
I mentioned the way the needle-to-the-heart scene is redeemed by laughter. That's also the case with the scene where the hit-men inadvertently kill a passenger in their car. The car's interior is covered with blood, and The Wolf (Harvey Keitel) is called to handle the situation; we remember much more blood than we actually see, which is why the scene doesn't stop the movie dead in its tracks. Scenes of gore are deflected into scenes of the Wolf's professionalism, which is funny because it is so matter-of-fact. The movies does contain scenes of sudden, brutal violence, as when Jules and Vincent open fire in the apartment, or when Butch goes 'medieval' (Marsellus' unforgettable word choise) on the leather guys. But Tarantino uses long shots, surprise, cutaways and the context of the dialogue to make the movie seem less violent than it has any right to.
Howard Hawks once gave his definition of a good movie: 'Three good scenes. No bad scenes.' Few movies in recent years have had more good scenes than 'Pulp Fiction.' Some are almost musical comedy, as when Vincent and Mia dance at Jackrabbit Slim's. Some are stunning in their suddenness, as when Butch returns to his apartment and surprises Vincent. Some are all verbal style, as in Marsellus Wallace's dialogue with Butch, or when Capt. Koons (Christopher Walken) delivers a monologue to the 'little man' about his father's watch.
And some seem deliberately planned to provoke discussion: What is in the briefcase? Why are there glowing flashes of light during the early shooting in the apartment? Is Jackson quoting the Bible correctly? Some scenes depend entirely on behavior (The Wolf's no-nonsense cleanup detail). Many of the scenes have an additional level of interest because the characters fear reprisals (Bruce fears Wallace, Vincent fears Wallace, Jimmie the drug dealer wants the dead body removed before his wife comes home).
I saw 'Pulp Fiction' for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994; it went on to win the Palme d'Or, and to dominate the national conversation about film for at least the next 12 months. It is the most influential film of the decade; its circular timeline can be sensed in films as different as 'The Usual Suspects,' 'Zero Effect' and 'Memento,' not that they copied it, but that they were aware of the pleasures of toying with chronology.
But it isn't the structure that makes 'Pulp Fiction' a great film. Its greatness comes from its marriage of vividly original characters with a series of vivid and half-fanciful events and from the dialogue. The dialogue is the foundation of everything else.
Watching many movies, I realize that all of the dialogue is entirely devoted to explaining or furthering the plot, and no joy is taken in the style of language and idiom for its own sake. There is not a single line in 'Pearl Harbor' you would want to quote with anything but derision. Most conversations in most movies are deadly boring, which is why directors with no gift for dialogue depend so heavily on action and special effects. The characters in 'Pulp Fiction' are always talking, and always interesting, funny, scary or audacious. This movie would work as an audio book. Imagine having to listen to 'The Mummy Returns.'