Pulp Fiction Film Analysis

Pulp Fiction, a gangster film centred around crime and drama, was directed and written by Quentin Tarantino, staring John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Samuel Jackson. The Oscar award winning film details the lives of two hitmen, a gangster, and the gangster’s wife Jules Winnfield (Samuel Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta), are on a mission to retrieve a stolen briefcase from their employer, and mob boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Mia, (Uma Thurman) plays the role as Wallace’s wife, who is spends some time with Vincent, while Wallace leaves town for business purposes. Even though the lives of these individuals seem interesting enough, each of them wove together to create a film involving a series of funny, bizarre, and suspenseful

The first camera angle that plays a significant role in the film is the low-angle shot. A low-angle shot is captured when on the vertical axis, the camera is low, looking up at the characters. According to Tarantino, “the significance of a low-angle shot facing up at the characters proves that the character themselves are superior” (Paris & Simrill 2013). The first examples of low angle shot occurs when Jules and Vincent approach Brett while he is eating breakfast in his home. On a mission to retrieve a briefcase for Mr. Wallace, Vincent eventually finds the briefcase stored in a cupboard. As Vincent looks down to open the briefcase, the camera is facing up at him. The camera pointing up at Vincent is significant because the use of a low-angle shot is used here to reveal that whatever is in the briefcase is much larger and more important than Vincent himself. Continuing in the scene, the low-angle camera moves further down to the ground, zooming in more in Vincent’s as he appears now larger than the briefcase. As Vincent is now the main focus, Jules ask “Vincent, we happy?”, in which Vincent replies, “Yeah, we happy” (Paris & Simrill 2013). This is just one of many significant examples in which low-angle shots play a role within Pulp