8 Reasons Why Jackie Brown Beats Pulp Fiction
2. The Film Relies on Its Gimmicky, Jump-Around-In-Time Structure.
Pulp Fiction is more an assembly of cultural products than a seamless whole. Bridget’s list pointing out her favorite pieces of the puzzle reveals its nature as the successful experiment or developing artist, rather than a mature work.
And the glue that holds it all together is Tarantino’s gimmick of the fractured narrative. (Nobody would be talking about Pulp Fiction today if its stories were told chronologically.) The three main stories of Pulp and its framing diner sequence cannot stand on their own. That’s not the case with all films done in this style. QT friend and collaborator Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City works both as a Pulp-structure film and as stand-alone stories. (Perhaps because he started with such strong source material?)
QT got lucky in how well his pieces fit together. But there was one that someone should’ve pushed him to rewrite in his original script…
Oh please. What nonsense. Pulp Fiction rules. Jackie Brown is third rate.
Jackie Brown is only 2 1/2 hours? I could swear it is 6.
While I liked Jackie Brown very much — it takes staying power, but I enjoy long movies, as long as they’re well plotted — Swindle’s criticisms of Pulp Fiction are deconstructionist and inane. You can’t delegitimize a movie by disassembling it, any more than you can delegitimize a painting by pointing out the chemical composition of the paints.
Saying that the characters aren’t likable, the stories aren’t compelling, and the casual racism is unnecessary is “deconstructionist”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
And I don’t know what it means to “delegitimize” a movie, especially when it’s still a great movie — just not as great as its cultists believe.
Well, since I’m not a “cultist,” whatever that is, I’ll feel free to ignore that last.
Mr. Swindle, if you don’t know what “deconstructionist” means, you need to expand your vocabulary. And you need to keep in mind the First Law: Everything Has Parts. If the parts are derived from others’ creations, or from contemporary ideas or myths, that doesn’t mean their assemblage into something new and entertaining isn’t…well, new and entertaining. We mortals make nothing entirely from all-new parts; that’s a privilege reserved to God.
As for the “casual racism,” aren’t you aware of how casually blacks and lowlifes employ the N-word? (PJ Media’s mindless, mealy-mouthed censoring mechanisms would disagree, which is why, despite my complete unconcern with anyone else’s pansy-assed opinion, I feel forced to use that ridiculous indirect reference to a mere string of letters.) For that matter, aren’t you aware that racism is a set of beliefs about the inferiority or superiority of a race? A mere word cannot be racist – especially not a word freely used by those who would like you to accept that you are a racist merely for spelling it out.
Oh, but wait: The smart guy who Marcellus Wallace sends to bail out the gangsters in the final segment is white! Is that what you consider “casual racism? ”
Pulp Fiction’s treatment of the behavior of urban gangsters is relatively realistic. Its use of folded time-sequencing, though not original, brought something extra to the story. It embedded several motifs that — again, while not unique — were fresh and piquant in that movie’s setting. The performances were good — especially Jackson and Thurman — and the overall production was of high quality. Your opinion may vary…but given the insubstantiality of the criticisms you lodged in your piece, I feel as free to dismiss them as you feel to dismiss mine.
Have a nice life.
As stated, you use words without knowing what they mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstructionism
You’re accusing me of embracing a Marxist school of literary criticism. If one is not permitted to say that the characters in a film are unpleasant, the stories not particularly amazing, and the racist language unnecessary (and not “realistic”) then what are the aspects of a film that can be critiqued without inspiring the accusation of stealth Marxism?
each twice, and, serendipitously, for a 3rd time, Jackie Brown, just last night! It is better by far, a great movie.
Thanks, that was a great movie. I watched the Braves beat the Rockies between 1:30 and 1:31 but it was a great movie.
Dave? Dave? Dave, it’s alright man. You gonna be fine. Everybody gets knocked the F- out once in a while. But you gonna be fine man, just fine. Now let me see if I can find yo azz, cuz she just kicked it off completely…
I saw Pulp Fiction once.
ONCE!
To me it was Disjointed and I could not understand what all the Hype was about.
Give me ‘The Kremlin Letter’ or ‘Taken’ any day!
What’s wrong with liking both movies equally?
Because we need to articulate universal standards of artistic quality in order to promote the production of better work. I’d rather more filmmakers look to make films like Jackie Brown rather than Pulp Fiction.
There are reasons why Mozart is better than Green Day and Mamet is better than Kushner (and Shakespeare better than both). And these are some reasons why I think Jackie Brown is a more satisfying film than Pulp Fiction.
Those who prefer Pulp Fiction are free to do so however most who dislike Jackie Brown just haven’t given it a chance. Sometimes you really do need to give a film a second chance. So many of my favorite movies today are ones that I hated upon first viewing and didn’t rediscover until a friend who liked it insisted I rewatch. I perform that same public service now.
I don’t agree we need universal standards of artistic quality. Whose going to enforce that? Art is what it is. Art snobs are why garbage like Piss Christ are held up as something greater than it would be if you let the viewing public decide. Of course that doesn’t always work either. Edouard Manet was a fine painter, one of my favorites, but he defied French painting traditions of the time and the artistic quality enforcers were none to happy with his choice to paint a realistic women of the day, rather than an idealized view of a historical or biblical figure.
Everything doesn’t have to be Mozart to be enjoyable, and frankly, while I love Jackie Brown, it isn’t Mozart.
And trying to be Mozart would only diminish it.
I was unaware that in the real world most murderous thugs are likable and politically correct. Tarantino should have done more research.
Jackie Brown has Pam Grier. Game, set, match.
That was going to be my comment.
I’m really torn between Bridget Fonda catching a bullet in mid-sentence and John Travolta delivering one in mid-sentence. Both caught me off guard but I was slightly more shocked by far watching Bridgett drop like a rock on the hot concrete than watching the bloody mess in the back seat.
I like them both, but Pulp absolutely moved faster and was much more full of the quirky mind of QT. Just keep it up QT, I’ll come back.
What a world what a world.
I liked Jackie Brown better as well. I was surprised that it did not sell more tickets.
Chris Tucker was great as Beaumont. The two DEA cops (Michael Keaton) were were true to form as aggressive, young cops — enjoying their work.
In the final scene where Jackie invites Max to got to Spain, she is brimming with mature, female confidence. That is a perfect scene.
I would like Jackie Brown a lot more if it were not for the interminable department store switch scene; why Tarrantino had to show the same sequence over from the different perspectives and not intercut them makes the movie overlong and creates a real loss of momentum in the story telling
Jackie Brown is, in my opinion, the superior film, but it also a traditional film. I wouldn’t pooh-pooh Pulp Fiction, however. Maybe after 18 years of having its dialog ingrained in our society’s lexicon it may seem cliché, but it was a pretty original piece in its time, and frankly I think its dialog was quite clever.
I do agree that Jackie Brown was Tarantino’s best work. I was a much bigger fan of the second Kill Bill than the first, except for the Sony Chirba Okinawa scene, which stole the show for me. Between Pai Mei and Michael Madsen’s Bud, the second film just had more depth. It was only the ending I thought was silly.
I’ll confess I never understood what everyone was so obsessed about, with Pulp Fiction. Just because he chopped up the story and rearranged it, and had the various characters discuss mundane things before going to kill people, it’s suddenly the most wonderful masterpiece in the history of movie making, right behind Citizen Caine or Gone with the Wind. It’s a brutal nasty film about a bunch of mean bastards, and the fact that QT dressed it up with all this extraneous stuff doesn’t really shield your eyes, at least not if you look closely. I worry about people who are too obsessed with this sort of thing, I really do.
Jackie Brown is a much better movie, perhaps QT’s best. It has one other strength that you missed in your outline: it’s based on an Elmore Leonard novel. For those who aren’t aware, Leonard has been writing for more than half a century (literally) and is so old that he wrote a short story, 3:10 to Yuma, which was made into a movie with Van Heflin and Glenn Ford back in the ’50s. Both stars are gone now, but they remade the movie a few years ago with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. I think Leonard must have more of his books made into movies than almost any other writer in the history of Hollywood (Get Shorty was his too, along with a whole bunch of other movies) and he knows how to write a cast of characters and usually invents an interesting plot. Rum Punch (the book version of Jackie Brown) was worth developing into a movie. Reportedly QT has some of Leonard’s other books optioned. You hope QT does one or another of them eventually.
PS I forgot, Leonard is also the creative mind behind Justified, the cable TV show with Timothy Olyphant playing the quick-draw U.S. Marshall sent home to Kentucky because he’s shot too many bad guys. Wonderful stuff.
This is your homework assignment. Make a list of all the Elmore Leonard novels which have been made into movies. Few of them have been major hits, but they’re out there.
Just check his imdb page. He has 40+ entries, including a couple of movies made twice (3:10 to Yuma and The Big Bounce; the latter he hated both times, or so the quote on his imdb page says). He wrote vehicles for both Charles Bronson (Mr. Majestyk) and Clint Eastwood (Joe Kidd) and he did a lot of Westerns, back in the day. When Westerns went out of style, he transferred himself to Detroit and Miami, writing a number of books about both places. Among those which were made into movies were the Burt Reynonds pic “Stick”, Jimmy Smits in “Glitz”, Roy Scheider in “52 Pick-up”, George Clooney and JLo in “Out of Sight” and of course Travolta in both “Get Shorty” and “Be Cool”.
The guy writes a lot.
It has one other strength that you missed in your outline: it’s based on an Elmore Leonard novel.
Huh, what? Swindle plainly says in paragraph 3: “Is anyone surprised that Tarantino’s best work is one based on someone else’s story and characters? He took the plot and characters of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch as his skeleton, applied a Pulp Fiction skin in dialogue and style, and then the actors brought the heart and guts.”
Reading comprehension is fundamental.
You caught me. I think by then I was skimming the article, because I’ve always believed the sentiment stated in the headline, and I strongly believe that the Leonard connection is important to the strength of “Jackie Brown.”
I remember seeing JB when it came out and thinking wow, Tarantino might grow up into more than just a gimmicky cult director like Roger Corman and John Waters (as much as I love them), he might become a really great director like FF Coppola or John Huston. But then with Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds he fell back on the more flat gimmicky stuff, and it seems the great transformation is not to be. I still think he had the potential.
Continuing on David W. Nicholas’s point. Elmore Leonard writes greta dialogue, much of which makes it into the movie.
I agree with your conclusion, but with none of your problems with Pulp Fiction. I just think that along with Heat, Jackie Brown is one of the great great overlooked movies of the decade.
And come on, Bruce Willis’s character is likeable.
“The three main stories of Pulp and its framing diner sequence cannot stand on their own.”
Umm….. That’s kind of the point. With Pulp Fiction, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, because the parts don’t add up. It is impossible to re-sequence the various scenes into a chronologically straight narrative. Despite that, Tarantino somehow manages to tell a coherent story.
I’ve always seen Pulp Fiction as a movie that demonstrated potential rather than good in itself. It is good in parts, and not-so-good in parts. I’ve seen Jackie Brown many times, and it’s the realization of potential. It’s one of a very few crime/heist movies that actually seem possible. Most of them are way out there; enjoyable, but really just fantasies. Jackie Brown has a real feel to it that is very rare. The characters and dialog are much closer to reality, where Pulp Fiction approaches it at times, but then veers off into weirdness that doesn’t fit. Same problem as Kevin Smith’s films, the dialog wanders between realistic and obviously written. A lot of things look better on the page than said out loud, one reason I read the dialog from my own stories out loud to make sure it doesn’t sound stupid. One reason I don’t care for Pulp Fiction as much is its reliance on shock. I don’t shock easily, and shock humor rarely gets more than a chuckle out of me. I wasn’t surprised in the least when Robert DeNiro’s character shot Brigit Fonda’s. It seemed like a logical progression of his character, I just wondered WHEN it would happen. For those who expected more shocks as in Pulp Fiction, no doubt it was a let down. It was also very low key, which turns some people off all by itself. So much of art is subjective, it’s hard to tell what will play well and what won’t.
True story – caught Jackie Brown for the first time via rental; my aunt had already seen it. When Bridget Fonda started in with the “Lewis… Lewwwwwwwis….” I turned and remarked, “He is gonna break her nose if she don’t shut up.” Aunt: “Uhmmmm….”
DeNiro shot Fonda in Jackie Brown, not Pulp Fiction.
The bread is good!
No! The circuses are better!
Pulp Fiction – a blaxploitation black comedy. As is often the case with the black comedy genre the characters are absurd, grotesque caricatures and not supposed to be realistic or likable. And I found almost all uses of the N-bomb to be funny, not gratuitously racist (with one obvious exception which I leave up to fans to determine).
Jackie Brown – a mature drama in which all characters are believeable and worthy of sympathy, even when evil or outright pathetic. Even an unredeemably evil character like Ordell Robbie causes your heart to drop at one point.
Sorry, I will not call one better than the other as they set out to accomplish very different goals.
Jackie Brown for the win! It’s the first movie I liked DeNiro’s character. A five star actor playing second fiddle bit as an addled ex-con. Plus who hasn’t wanted to shoot their gfw in a public parking lot in the middle of the day. Makes me smile just thinking about it.
I also prefer “Jackie Brown” for many of the reasons previously mentioned. Another is the superb character actor Robert Forster, who played Max Cherry. He and Pam Grier have believable chemistry on the screen. Forster’s whole career was preparation for the understated acting in this role. I also appreciate the 70s R&B soundtrack. Pet peeve about “Jackie Brown” is Tarantino’s casual unhappy — or rather alienated — ending, instead of following the more optimistic narrative from Elmore Leonard’s novel.
Hi, David. My choicde lof films probably go back before you were born. One, everyone should watch is; “On The Waterfront.”
After reading this, I’ll give Jackie Brown another try.
But I don’t have much hope here. You see, no one needed to talk me into seeing Pulp Fiction again. It is electric. Jackie brown is a snooze. At the time of Pulp Fiction, I was, as they say, in a very different place. A lot of things from those times have not stayed with me, but Pulp Fiction has.
First, I was already a fan of QT. Not just Reservoir Dogs, but True Romance. Right up there with the first Highlander movie for pure pulp repeatability. Though I agree with you about QT in Pulp Fiction. Bad scene. But what makes it even more questionable than what you pointed out is, QT is a bad actor. In fact, he never acts, he recites. Like an amateur.
Second, anyone who would prefer to hang out with Ordell, has a death wish. He seemed to either kill everyone he encountered, or he tried to kill them. Jules did not. Jules was charming, though evil. Ordell was only evil. Unpleasant evil. I know, what else should evil be? How about being able to pass as normal? Jules, you had to cross, before he took a dislike to you. Same with Vincent. Not Ordell.
Pam Grier is over rated. Great to look at. She has presence. But over rated. Robert Forster is always boring. Always. I am convinced Christopher Guest was lampooning the Oscar buzz about Robert Forster, in his movie For Your Consideration.
As far as the fractured time line goes, it has been been reassembled in chronological order. Maybe I’ll check it out. In fact, I’d rather do that, than watch Jackie Brown again. But one day….
And now I have to ps myself. Damn. No edit feature! (actually, is there?)
I left out a few things. First, I was already familiar with Elmore Lenoard. Once you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. Pulp Fiction had the bonus of reviving John Travolta’s career. And it stayed revived for awhile. Jackie Brown did not do that for Pam Grier. And I should correct myself, one reason she is, well not over rated, but did not have an iconic part outside of B movies. And you should perhaps check out Roger Ebert’s comments about Pulp Fiction’s famous jumbled time line.