Quentin Tarantino left Amsterdam in late 1992, where he stayed on and off for three months, living in a studio apartment without a telephone and fax, writing a screenplay that would later become Pulp Fiction.
Tarantino, 30, wrote the script for the film in more than a dozen notebooks on a plane to Los Angeles. Tarantino gave the script to the typist Linda Chen Proofreader, his good friend.
The script was completed in May 1993. A year later, Pulp Fiction was released in theaters, and Stanley Crouch called it "the pinnacle of his youth" in the Los Angeles Times. Time magazine declared: "It's like an adrenaline rushing straight to the heart." In Entertainment Weekly, Owen Greberman said it was "no less than a revamp on mainstream American cinema."
The film cost $8.5 million to produce and grossed $214 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing independent film at the time.
Legendary film critic Roger Albert called the film the "most influential" film of the 1990s, "writing a script so well in a sloppy, charming way that you take a screenwriting class."
Pulp Fiction reinvigorated John Travolta's career, making Samuel Jackson and Uma Thurman stars, Bruce Willis a new lease of life at the box office, and Miramax's Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein as independent film giants. Harvey called it "the first independent film to break all the rules." It installed a new dial on the movie clock. ”
"It's really hard to imagine that Quentin Tarantino, a largely self-taught, inexperienced audio store employee, could come up with such a deep, intelligent, and hotly creative script that puts him at the forefront of American filmmakers!" Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times.
The British Independent critic Jon Junsen declared, "Ever since citizen Kane came out... No one has yet been able to emerge from a relatively obscure role and redefine the art of filmmaking. ”
Just seven years before the film's release in 1986, Tarantino, 23, was a part-time actor, dropping out of high school, penniless, without his own apartment and rarely bathing.
In the absence of an agent, the scripts he wrote were hardly read. "Too mean, too vulgar, too violent" was the usual reaction, he later said. According to Winsley Clarkson's Biography of Quentin Tarantino, his constant use of profanity at the beginning of F in the screenplay True Love on Fire led a studio representative to write to his early agent, Catherine Gemes, to express strong anger and resentment.
"Like a lot of people who have never made a movie before, I've been trying to trick someone into making a movie." Tarantino said. Although there is no doubt that he is the king of all film knowledge in the Video Archive of the suburbs of Los Angeles, he is a nobody in Hollywood. Surrounded by movies he'd seen, he suddenly came up with one of the three most clichéd ideas in recycling books: like the ones you've seen countless times— boxers should have fought but not fought; thugs should have taken their boss's woman out for the night; two killers came running and killed them all.
It will be a "synthetic thing" made up of three comical films, similar to the stories written by writers such as Raymond Chandler and Daisler Hammit in vulgar magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. "That's why I call it pulp fiction," Tarantino said.
According to a source, he originally named the film after Louis Mahler's 1987 film Goodbye, Kids, but Tarantino jokingly misread it as "falling dog." So Tarantino decided to direct The Falling Dog at the time, so Pulp Fiction would have to wait.
When "Falling Dogs" was confirmed to be made into a movie, no one seemed willing to support the untested Tarantino.
(Falling Water Dog)
But Bender knew someone who knew actor Harvey Keitel, and that changed everything. Keitel heard about Tarantino from a colleague at the actor's studio, theater director Lily Parker. He listened to Quentin have a really good script, so Keitel signed in as a lead actor, and he also helped raise $1.5 million to make the film, but most importantly, he supported Tarantino as director. According to the Los Angeles Times, "The Falling Dog" was "arguably the most talked about film at the (1992) Sundance Film Festival." As a result, Tarantino began to become a little famous.
Meanwhile, Hollywood is talking to Tarantino about his future. This is Pulp Fiction, three intertwined crime stories set in Los Angeles. "Just as New York is an important character in New York crime movies, I'm going to make Los Angeles an important character," Tarantino told me. "Then I started thinking, a story where all the characters overlap with the stars, maybe a small character in the second story, a supporting character in the third story, and so on."
Tarantino made $50,000 on "Falling Dogs" and received $900,000 from TriStar for "Pulp Fiction." Tarantino never really left Los Angeles County. But this time, he decided to go to Amsterdam, the land where marijuana was legalized and prostitution was procured. "My writing experience was interesting!" He continued.
"I don't have to worry about money. By chance, I found an apartment by the canal to rent. I would get up and walk around Amsterdam, then have 12 cups of coffee and write all morning. ”
After the script was finished, it was handed over to Mike Maidavoy, the former chairman of Samsung Pictures, who said: "I read the script and I loved it, there was a scene that was really violent, they shot at a guy in the back seat of the car, and fragments of his brain were splashed everywhere. The director had a discussion with me and I said, 'This is really too much, you're going to be blown back.' He said, "But it's going to be fun!" ”
He turned out to be right, and the audience thought it was funny. But for the last variety of reasons, the film was shot by Miramax Pictures.
Quentin began to choose actors, starting with Vincent's actor John Travolta. Then there's Uma Thurman, Amanda Pramo, Samuel Jackson, Bruce Willis, Phil Rama, and many more, who himself have a short-duration cameo in the film.
The 51-day shoot began on September 20, 1993. On a hawthorne grill in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, illuminated by scorching electric light bulbs, the film shot the first of 70 locations and scenes. The couple played by Tim Rose and Amanda Pramo is the process from breakfast to robbery.
Tarantino said he was at the "pinnacle of creativity and imagination" at the time. I'm just fulfilling my dreams. Bender said that to make an $8.5 million movie look like it cost $25 million, he decided to shoot it with "the slowest film Kodak made," which required ultra-bright lighting.
Most actors were afraid to revise Tarantino's script lines, but Travolta felt he had to invent a cool way of speaking in order to properly express certain lines. His opening remarks are about a quarter of a pound in Paris: "Cheese Hof." Travolta explains: "I remember thinking that if I slowed down, it would be fun to pronounce it with the full 'lip-shual'. I turned up the pronunciation of the word so that my lips and teeth could protrude the lines. "I know, he's such a person, and anything weird is acceptable.
Later, while Vincent and Jules were still on their way to the murder contract, they discussed in detail how Mia Wallace and her savage husband had thrown a gangster off a fourth-floor balcony because he had given her a foot massage. Tarantino inspired this seemingly improvisational scene.
The film quickly switches to Marcellus Wallace's huge head, which the viewer can only see from behind. He was in the bar, and Vien Remis had a Band-Aid on his head to bandage the wound. Tarantino insisted on keeping it open.
In one of the scenes, Travolta indulges in a perfect stage play and takes Mia Wallace on a date. They drove to a themed restaurant, which was actually built in a warehouse in Culver City.
After winning the dance competition, Travolta talked to herself in the bathroom of Mia's house, knowing that if he didn't get out of the madmaids in the living room, he would be killed. Meanwhile, she was rummaging through his trench coat, where she found a packet of grade III heroin, which she instigated, causing herself to foam and nearly die of overdose. Travolta had to pierce Thurman's heart with a large syringe. Luckily, Mia woke up.
This scene makes pulp fiction a classic, but in fact, the entire 154-minute film is a series of shots that people can't look at directly. But what does that mean? Today, Samuel L. Jackson's answer is closest to the answer. He said, "Those who deserve to be saved will be saved." The two robbers, pumpkin and dear rabbit, were saved. They got another chance—and that was their redemption. Uma had a chance to die. She wasn't dead. Butch had another chance. Marcellus Wallace even got another chance. ”
The film was eventually filmed, produced and released.
At the 1995 Academy Awards, Weinstein confidently ensured that the film was "a success from the start" and became the U.S. box office champion. The oscar success will allow the film to be reborn at the box office and in the home video market.
Pulp Fiction was nominated not only for Best Picture, but also for six other awards, including Best Actor (Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Jackson), Best Supporting Actress (Thurman), and Best Director (Tarantino).
In order to win the best picture award, pulp fiction had to compete with another awe-inspiring film, Forrest Gump.
According to Jamie Bernard's biography of Tarantino, Miramax spent $300,000 to $400,000 on the Oscars campaign, and only about half of What Paramount spent on Forrest Gump. Weinstein used his money wisely.
Simpson said: "He was like a forensic scientist who did demographic analysis of possible voters. Meryl Heist (now President of Television at Weinstein) was Arguably Harvey's right-hand man when it came to winning the Oscar vote. She would go to the Silicon Valley-based Film House, a retirement community for those in business. It was as if everyone was a member of the Academy. You get about 400 votes. She would go out and have lunch with the little old ladies, make a personal connection with each of them, and say, 'Watch this movie and vote for our movie.' ’”
At the Academy Awards on March 27, 1995, the Award for Best Original Screenplay was announced earlier that night.
When host Anthony Hopkins said the winners were Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avari, the TV screen went black for a moment. Because when the opening music of Pulp Fiction resounded through the Temple Auditorium, the two former videographers embraced on the stage. Tarantino said: "I think this is probably the only award I've won here tonight. ”
He's right. This night belongs to "Forrest Gump". But the future belongs to Quentin Tarantino.