Editing Pulp Fiction (section)

==== Cinema ====
''Pulp Fiction'' is full of [[Homage (arts)|homages]] to other movies. "Tarantino's characters", writes [[Gary Groth]], "inhabit a world where the entire landscape is composed of Hollywood product. Tarantino is a cinematic kleptomaniac&nbsp;– he literally can't help himself."{{sfn|Groth|1997|p=189}} Two scenes in particular have prompted discussion of the film's highly [[Intertextuality|intertextual]] style. Many have assumed that the dance sequence at Jack Rabbit Slim's was intended as a reference to Travolta's star-making performance as Tony Manero in the epochal ''[[Saturday Night Fever]]'' (1977); Tarantino, however, credits a scene in the [[Jean-Luc Godard]] film ''[[Bande à part (film)|Bande à part]]'' (1964) with the inspiration. According to the filmmaker;

<blockquote>
Everybody thinks that I wrote this scene just to have John Travolta dancing. But the scene existed before John Travolta was cast. But once he was cast, it was like, "Great. We get to see John dance. All the better."...&nbsp;My favorite musical sequences have always been in Godard, because they just come out of nowhere. It's so infectious, so friendly. And the fact that it's not a musical, but he's stopping the movie to have a musical sequence, makes it all the more sweet.<ref name="T9">Enhanced Trivia Track, ch. 9, ''Pulp Fiction'' DVD (Buena Vista Home Entertainment).</ref>
</blockquote>

[[Jerome Charyn]] argues that, beyond "all the better", Travolta's presence is essential to the power of the scene, and of the film:

<blockquote>
Travolta's entire career becomes "[[backstory]]", the myth of a movie star who has fallen out of favor, but still resides in our memory as the king of disco. We keep waiting for him to shed his paunch, put on a white polyester suit, and enter the 2001 Odyssey club in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he will dance for us and never, never stop. Daniel Day-Lewis couldn't have woken such a powerful longing in us. He isn't part of America's own mad cosmology&nbsp;... Tony Manero [is] an angel sitting on Vince's shoulder&nbsp;... [Vince and Mia's] actual dance may be closer to the choreography of [[Anna Karina]]'s shuffle with her two bumbling gangster boyfriends in ''Bande à part'', but even ''that'' reference is lost to us, and we're with Tony again&nbsp;...{{sfn|Charyn|2006|p=106}}
</blockquote>

Estella Tincknell notes that while the "diner setting seems to be a simulacrum of a 'fifties' restaurant&nbsp;... the twist contest is a musical sequence which evokes 'the sixties,' while Travolta's dance performance inevitably references 'the seventies' and his appearance in ''Saturday Night Fever.'' ...&nbsp;The 'past' thus becomes a more general 'pastness' in which the stylistic signifiers of various decades are loaded in to a single moment."{{sfn|Tincknell|2006|p=140}} She also argues that in this passage the film "briefly shifts from its habitually ironic discourse to one that references the conventions of the classic [[Musical film|film musical]] and in doing so makes it possible for the film to inhabit an affective space that goes beyond stylistic allusion."{{sfn|Tincknell|2006|p=140}}

The pivotal moment in which Marsellus crosses the street in front of Butch's car and notices him evokes the scene in which Marion Crane's boss sees her under similar circumstances in ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]'' (1960).{{sfn|Dawson|1995a| p=178}}{{sfn|Polan|2000|p=19}} Marsellus and Butch are soon held captive by Maynard and Zed, "two sadistic honkies straight out of ''[[Deliverance]]''" (1972), directed by [[John Boorman]].<ref name="Stone" /> Zed shares a name with [[Sean Connery]]'s character in Boorman's follow-up, the science-fiction film ''[[Zardoz]]'' (1974). When Butch decides to rescue Marsellus, in Glyn White's words, "he finds a trove of items with film-hero resonances".{{sfn|White|2002|p=342}} Critics have identified these weapons with a range of possible allusions:
* Hammer&nbsp;– ''[[The Toolbox Murders]]'' (1978){{sfn|Fulwood|2003|p=22}}
* Baseball bat&nbsp;– ''[[Walking Tall (1973 film)|Walking Tall]]'' (1973);{{sfn|White|2002|p=342}} ''[[The Untouchables (film)|The Untouchables]]'' (1987){{sfn|Fulwood|2003|p=22}}
* Chainsaw&nbsp;– ''[[The Texas Chain Saw Massacre]]'' (1974);{{sfn|White|2002|p=342}}{{sfn|Fulwood|2003|p=22}} ''[[Evil Dead II]]'' (1987){{sfn|White|2002|p=342}}
* [[Katana]] (samurai sword)&nbsp;– many, including ''[[Seven Samurai]]'' (1954);{{sfn|White|2002|p=342}}{{sfn|Fulwood|2003|p=22}} ''[[The Yakuza]]'' (1975);{{sfn|White|2002|p=342}} and ''[[Shogun Assassin]]'' (1980){{sfn|Fulwood|2003|p=22}}

At the conclusion of the scene, a portentous line of Marsellus's echoes one from the crime drama ''[[Charley Varrick]]'' (1973), directed by another of Tarantino's heroes, [[Don Siegel]]; the name of the character who speaks it there is Maynard.{{sfn|Groth|1997|pp=188–9}}{{sfn|Dinshaw|1997|p=186}}{{sfn|Mottram|2006|pp=75–76}}<ref>For Tarantino's admiration of Siegel, see {{harvtxt|Dawson|1995a|loc=p. 142}}</ref>

David Bell argues that far from going against the "current of class stereotype", this scene, like ''Deliverance'', "mobilize[s] a certain construction of poor white country folk&nbsp;– and particularly their sexualization&nbsp;... 'rustic sexual expression often takes the form of homosexual rape' in American movies."{{sfn|Bell|2000|p=87}} Stephen Paul Miller believes the ''Pulp Fiction'' scene goes down much easier than the one it echoes: "The buggery perpetrated is not at all as shocking as it was in ''Deliverance''&nbsp;... The nineties film reduces seventies competition, horror, and taboo into an entertainingly subtle adrenaline play&nbsp;– a fiction, a pulp fiction."{{sfn|Miller|1999|p=76}} Giroux reads the rape scene homage similarly: "in the end Tarantino's use of parody is about repetition, transgression, and softening the face of violence by reducing it to the property of film history."{{sfn|Giroux|1996|p=78}} In Groth's view, the crucial difference is that "in ''Deliverance'' the rape created the film's central moral dilemma whereas in ''Pulp Fiction'' it was merely 'the single weirdest day of [Butch's] life.'"{{sfn|Groth|1997|p=188}} ("''[[American Me]]'' did it too," Tarantino observed. "There's like ''three'' butt-fucking scenes in ''American Me''. That's definitely the one to beat in that particular category!"<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Wild |first=David |title=Quentin Tarantino: The Madman of Movie Mayhem |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |date=November 3, 1994 |page=110 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/quentin-tarantino-the-madman-of-movie-mayhem-186995/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220716045218/https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/quentin-tarantino-the-madman-of-movie-mayhem-186995/ |archive-date=July 16, 2022 |access-date=May 21, 2023}}</ref>)

Neil Fulwood focuses on Butch's weapon selection, writing, "Here, Tarantino's love of movies is at its most open and nonjudgemental, tipping a nod to the noble and the notorious, as well as sending up his own reputation as an enfant terrible of movie violence. Moreover, the scene makes a sly comment about the readiness of cinema to seize upon whatever is to hand for its moments of mayhem and murder."{{sfn|Fulwood|2003|p=22}} White asserts that "the katana he finally, and significantly, selects identifies him with&nbsp;... [[honour]]able heroes."{{sfn|White|2002|p=342}} Conard argues that the first three items symbolize a nihilism that Butch is rejecting. The traditional Japanese sword, in contrasts, represents a culture with a well-defined [[Morality|moral code]] and thus connects Butch with a more meaningful approach to life.{{sfn|Conard|2006|pp=125, 133}}

The [[List of biker films|biker film]] ''[[Nam's Angels]]'' is also shown with Fabienne characterizing it as "A motorcycle movie, I'm not sure the name."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.filmsite.org/pulp4.htmls|title=Pulp Fiction (1994, part 4 of 5)|website=filmsite.org}}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>