Experimental Film Flashcards
What are some of Bordwell’s characteristics of art cinema?
- Loose narratives and looser sense of cause and effect
- Narratives have a drifting, episodic quality
- A realistic cinema with use of real leavtions
- Psychologically complex characters dealing with real problems
- Violations of classical film time and space
- Auteur signatures manifest through violations of classical cinema
Why might filmmakers choose to make experimental films?
to make themselves stand out more as a filmmaker and engage an active audience
What are the 6 key features of postmodernism?
- The End Of Metanarrative; looking for deep and meaningful explanations is pointless. there are no certain explanations of the world, life and culture anymore
- Bricolage: pick and mix our personal style and taste from many different cultures
- Intertextuality
- Depthlessness
- Valuelessness: no one’s moral beliefs can be seen to be superior to anyone else’s
- ‘The Death of the Author’; how the audience consumes and uses culture is more important than what the creator intended
How does the film’s opening scene set up and shape the narrative?
- sets key themes of crime/violence/conflict
- catches audience off guard
How does the representation of Jules and Vincent both confirm and subvert our stereotypes of Gangsters? (depthlessness)
- Confirms: dressed uniformly and professional
- Subverts: don’t act professional, Tarantino makes them dynamic and likeable
What is unusual and confusing for the audience in the films non linear narrative organisation? (confusions of time and space)
- disorientating and hard for the audience to figure out what happens when
- experimental: demands you to be an active spectator
How is intertextuality reference to the real world outside the film used by Tarantino as an auteur technique?
- develops narrative: eg references to Mcdonald’s and Burger King in car scene
- gives a feel of an extended universe
How is conflict used as a narrative in the film?
- used in every ‘episode’
- Jules has an internal conflict: crisis of faith
How is the technique of bricolage used in the Jack Rabbit Slim’s diner sequence?
- Many ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood actors and 50s popular culture
- film posters
How does the film use and subvert standard gangster and crime movie trips and clichés? (parody and pastiche)
- non linear narrative
- morally ambiguous characters
- witty dialogue
- violence for shock value and humour
- open ended storyline
- 50s/60s themes and music even though it’s set in the 90s; gives the film an uncertain time period
Does the film have a strong moral contrast, or are all of the characters equally amoral or immoral?
- No clear moral contrast of good vs evil; characters display signs of amorality and immortality eg Vincent displays moments of vulnerability with Mia
- no criticisms of morality in the film
How do you respond to the film’s narrative resolution? Is it the real ending?
- Active spectator: ending is Butch and Fabienne driving off into sunset (spaghetti western reference)
- Passive spectator: diner scene
How does Tarantino use unexpected plot twists and events to galvanise the audience?
- Mcguffin of suitcase
- when Marsellus and Butch cross paths (ref to Psycho)
- gimp scene
- humour in violent moments eg Marvin’s death
How would you define the film’s genre?
Black comedy and crime
How is Pulp Fiction a postmodern film?
- it ‘looks back’ and makes constant reference to earlier films
- it lacks meta-narrative eg Bible being quoted at inappropriate times
- it is playful eg when Mia draws a rectangle
- does not differentiate between high and low culture eg Butch’s partner referring to Madonna in the ‘Lucky Star’ music video
