Girl, You’ll Be a MPDG Soon
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Lady P makes a bid for a late-career resurgence as Flixwise host. She is joined by fellow UW-Madison grad students Megan Boyd and Tim Brayton to discuss the legacy of the 127th film on the Sight and Sound International Critics Poll, Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994). With the recent release of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, director Quentin Tarantino has indulged a nostalgic remembrance of movies past. This episode follows his lead by revisiting Pulp Fiction, one his best known and most influential works.
While the film remains a crowd pleaser among cinephiles and casual moviegoers alike, there are elements of the fractured narrative that may have played better to a mid-1990s crowd. The panel discusses the ways in which the radical structure enhances some elements of the story while doing a disservice to others. They also take time to lament how this film’s legacy is in some ways tainted by its association with a subset of overeager film bros. Along the way, the panels veers into conversations about the film’s melange of pop-culture references including the various music drops and the puzzling wig selection.
For more podcasts with Tim check out our Hunchback of Notre Dame and Best of 2018 episodes. Also you can listen to him on the regular at his podcast, Alternate Ending.
Tarantino was certainly familiar with the French New Wave, but in my opinion his greatest influence in his early career was Hong Kong cinema (hence the overblown masculinity). The French New Wave influences come indirectly, since Hong Kong Cinema was in turn influenced by it.
On a different note, can we really call Tarantino’s films original? A vast majority of his work is composed of “homage” (*cough* *cough* plagiarism *cough* *cough*), and even though Tarantino puts them elements together masterfully, I wonder how much credit does he truly deserve. While I always enjoy his movies, on an analytical level they rarely amount to more than the references from which they are derived (in my opinion). I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are . . . .
Also, any relation to Woody Boyd ?