Pulp Fiction

For all the apparent nihilism and colorful violence, Pulp Fiction is thematically unified by Flannery O'Connor style moments of grace. As with O'Connor, not everyone actually finds grace in those moments, but in all of the episodes the climax is a character given a chance to pause and reflect on what is right, what is honorable, what makes one a good person- Jules letting Ringo go, Vince with his decision about remaining loyal to his boss, and Butch with his decision to go back into the den of the rapists.

I realize I'm not the first person to point this out, but what I think is interesting is the way in which the viewer understands and feels the honor of those choices, even when they don't actually make a lot of sense. The one that comes to mind is Butch: the obvious interpretation is that Butch recognizes that, even for a man he was minutes earlier prepared to kill, he can't allow rape and torture. The issue is that immediately after he frees Marcellus, Marcellus tells him he's going to have one of their kidnappers tortured. By the logic of his previous decision, Butch should act to prevent this. Instead, he nods amicably, appearing to accept this as a reasonable course of action.

There are a couple of possible explanations. One is that, to Tarantino, it's the rape that was key, and not the torture. This is backed up by the sex dungeon aspect of the basement they're taken into, and the callous killing of the gimp, but it's problematic; the crime becomes one less of inhumanity which can't be allowed and more one of disrespect, in which a man who is manifestly not a bitch is fucked like one.

Another explanation is that Butch's empathy comes from shared experience- he may not like Marcellus, but he knows him, and he was almost in the same position a moment earlier- rather than a general humanitarian urge. This is somewhat less problematic, since it merely puts a limit on Butch's grace that is fairly consistent with the character we've seen. But for the viewer, it's not clear why this would be satisfying.

My worry is that one respects Butch's decision and the grace he earns from it (as opposed to say, Vince's, which is played mostly for laughs) because of the way the episode functions, and not inherently because it is right or agreeable. That doesn't make Pulp Fiction a worse movie, but it makes me a more easily manipulated audience member, and I'm never comfortable with that.

On the other hand, Jules' grace seems very real to me- the miracle bullets can be very easily seen as the random working of chance, the same chance that kills Marvin for no reason, but Jules makes it into an opportunity to awaken himself in a way all his quoting of the Bible never accomplished. It's... well, it's beautiful, and I think Jackson's performance of the "I'm trying to be the Shepard" speech at the end exemplifies why Tarantino's movies endure in a way most of the people imitating him do not- it wasn't just about post-modern takes on French New Wave movie trickery, it was using that to express something fundamental and meaningful. Even if the Roger Avery part still worries me.