PART ONE: CRIME

February 10 2021: Round One
Goodfellas .V. Pulp Fiction
Facebook Result: Pulp Fiction.
Correct decision? No.

Why the NYC real-deal trumps the LA shlock crime fiesta

1994. Tonya Harding & Nancy Kerrigan, Fred & Rose West, Rwanda, Ayrton Senna. The Channel Tunnel, Mandela is president, Andreas Escobar and the Playstation.

Speed. Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Lion King, Forest Gump, Natural Born Killers, The Shawshank Redemption

And Pulp Fiction. And with the noise that the real world was making and the cinematic competition – it really needed to stand out.

It’s a great film, no doubt. It’s long (154 minutes) and the non-chronological / fractured narrative of the intertwining stories is compelling. There’s a great cast. Travolta owes Tarantino everything for rescuing his ‘Look Who’s Talking’ career, a global star was made in Samuel L. Jackson and appearances from (amongst others) Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken make the time spent a rollercoaster of star-spotting, reference-getting and trying to get your head around the fact that the final scene sees a central character walking to his doom – a doom that we have already witnessed.

It’s great. The first time. I saw Pulp Fiction on the big screen twice on consecutive days. One group of friends went one night, another the next. I went with both. And like so many things in life – nothing was as good as the first time.

Goodfellas, on the other hand, improves with repeated watching. Taking the LA landscape aside – while also acknowledging some fine character creations – Pulp Fiction’s USP is the fact that the stories are out of order, John Travolta does that weird dance and that bloke gets shot in the face.
Goodfellas, however offers film making that is both classic and innovative. Performances that are memorable for their acting, not just the character’s actions – and while there may well be more myth around Henry Hill than the ‘true story’ aspect than the film-makers may like to admit – it is based on reality – and not the fevered imagination of Mr.T who, let’s face it – is desperate to be cool again after the hoopla over Reservoir Dogs had (rightly) faded.

Sure, the build-up to the first ‘Ezekiel 25:17’ speech is a great moment for Jackson – he delivers it well and looks good doing it – but Pesci’s ‘I amuse you? You think I’m funny?’ is a masterclass in menace. There is no violent climax to this scene, in fact quite the opposite, but here the quality of the acting, the believability of Tommy’s unhinged personality leaves us genuinely frightened of this man’s psychotic unpredictability. Jules Winfield – a man to be respected and probably best avoided for sure, but he’s only going to shoot you if he’s paid to and you maybe had it coming. Tommy would do it for fun.

While storytelling in any medium benefits from imagination, the manner in which those stories are told is the issue with Pulp Fiction. When the famous faces, surf soundtrack and the deliberately obscure references and memes are removed one is left with a series of set-pieces that arguably only sustain their impact because of the messed-up manner of their sequencing.

Pulp Fiction only really asks questions of itself. Goodfellas is a film that invites its audience to consider whether violence and crime (real crime, with real criminals ) is being glamourised or fetishised or how masculinity, misplaced loyalty and greed and corrodes humanity. Pulp Fictions biggest question is ‘what’s in the briefcase.’

Ultimately Pulp Fiction is an exercise in a film (and its creator) seeking to generate their own mythology. While undeniably excellent as a piece of cinema, it is fundamentally superficial in terms of why it was made at all. Many will have been wowed by the tricks and tropes at the time and will certainly been influenced by this – it’s easy to imagine a direct line that leads between Guy Ritchie watching this youthfully wide-eyed and the snaking plot lines of Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Goodfellas is simply a better made film. Yes – the 184 second steadicam follow-shot at the Copacabana is the most cited example, but while Tarantino just needed to go to LA and start work Scorsese has to recreate the New Yorks that span of Hill’s life and he does it perfectly.

Which is more quotable? Pulp Fiction. Which poster hangs on more walls? Pulp Fiction. Which has the better songs – well, actually they both score highly – but the Pulp Fiction CD will surely have outsold Goodfellas. But….

While ‘Royale with cheese’ may be memorable, it’s actually disposable. Perhaps this is the intention? Pulp? To be discarded, to have little value – but it seems to be taking the idea to a subtle extreme that Tarantino doesn’t seem capable of. Jules’ conversation with Pumpkin might seem deeply philosophical on first viewing – but is it actually saying anything more than a plot device to explains why Travolta gets machine-gunned by Bruce Willis and not him?

The brief descent into hell experienced by Marcellus Wallace and Butch is a horribly voyeuristic sequence of violence and revenge (‘You hear me hillbilly boy? I’m gonna get medieval on yo ass’) – but doesn’t the sound that Henry Hill’s gun makes on the skull of the young punk he pistol-whips stir-up a more visceral, wince-inducing reaction?

Isn’t the violence of reality more shocking than that which is created?

So – Despite everything, Round one of Film Wars sees Pulp Fiction advance to face-off against another adversary. What crime movie could possibly be better?

We’ll see.

Feel free to comment….