In Pulp Fiction much of the main action occurs off screen. It plays up small moments like conversations and pooping leading up to the action but leaves out many large action scenes themselves (like Bruce Willis's boxing match or Marsellus Wallace throwing Samoan Joe off a balcony). Snatch, almost beat for beat, makes a point of showing us that action. We see the big boss being a merciless killer, the boxing matches, gruesome torture. villains being villains, and trophies being hunted. It's like a conversation that Ritchie is having with Tarantino, like "hey I love your style, but what would we learn by doing this instead?"
1- The Characters
Let's start at the top of the food chain in both worlds. We have Marsellus Wallace in Pulp and Brick Top in Snatch. Both of course play the role of the intimidating, incredibly violent mob bosses that everyone fears and works for. "Sure, but there aren't there tons of movies with crime bosses?" you might say, "well, none done quite like this".
Let's start with that gap we mentioned, the gap Tarantino leaves open and Ritchie fills in, what does Marsellus Wallace not do?
Throughout Pulp Fiction characters allude to the violent acts Marsellus Wallace has committed either himself (throwing Tony Rockyhorror out a 3 story window). Or violent acts he's getting others to do such as torturing Bruce Willis' manager or "taking a blowtorch and a pair of pliers to this motherfucker right here". All we ever really see of his brutality is him accidentally shooting some lady in the leg and very intentionally shooting Zed in the dick, both are pretty brief and neither incident seems to say: I'm a heartlessly brutal motherfucker. Wallace is a man wrapped around myth to the viewer, we imagine his acts the same way we imagine the monster in a slasher flick before finally getting a good look at it. Zed's imminent torture is more terrifying in our imaginations than we ever get shown. So Ritchie thinks to himself, "that's cool! But how do you show a heartless, brutal gangster and still make them intimidating?"
That's where we get Brick Top. The entire movie revolves around everyone tiptoeing around this scary and violent psychopath. But we witness all the terrible shit he does. Turkish's opening monologue about Brick Top feeding people to pigs? That's literally the next scene. And not only do we just see him feeding pigs but we see the reaction of these horrors in the faces of the two mammoth boxers witnessing the murder.And every scene after Brick Top is more violent and ruthless than the last. In the commentary Guy Richie was talking to someone about how to make Brick Top as unlikable as possible and that person told him: people hate people that torture dogs more than anything. So that's exactly what we see. So that when he barbecues Brad Pitt's mom, we know for sure he did it.
And the parallels continue with many characters, but like, I mean, there's a lot of characters, in both movies, so... moving on!
2 - The McGuffin
Another instance of Ritchie's response is the rigged boxing matches that are undermined by the boxers. Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, Brad Pitt in Snatch. And you've probably figured out the theme here. Pulp Fiction boxing = completely off screen, we only hear details in a taxicab as Bruce reminisces with some French cabbie over cigarettes. While Snatch makes huge set pieces from the boxing matches, where we feel the tension in all characters involved.
And it goes on from there, from shootouts, to heists, chases, oh and the valuables everyone's chasing.
3 - The Valuable
The most memorable prop in Pulp Fiction of course is a light bulb inside a brief case. We, the audience, give the case value because the characters give it value. They murder people over it like, like all day. Quick aside, did you notice that we see Travolta and Jackson firing their weapons but we really don't see the bullets going into their victims except that Jerry Seinfeld looking mother fucker.
In Snatch, on the other hand, the opening scene is all about attaining and introducing a giant-fuck-off-diamond, the EXTREMELY VISIBLE center-piece that will drive the plot of half the movie. And that people toss around, shoot each other over, chase, cut off limbs, you saw the movie, you get it.
4 - Scenes and Pacing
You can compare this to more than just characters and plots. Whole scenes and themes are total throwbacks and comments on to Pulp Fiction. To test this I played the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack while watching Snatch on mute and a lot of scenes match up rather well. You start when Freddy Four Fingers whips out the guns, start up Misserlou, skip the dialogue parts in the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and it's pretty funny what lines up. I've outlined some examples that worked here:
You can compare this to more than just characters and plots. Whole scenes and themes are total throwbacks and comments on to Pulp Fiction. To test this I played the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack while watching Snatch on mute and a lot of scenes match up rather well. You start when Freddy Four Fingers whips out the guns, start up Misserlou, skip the dialogue parts in the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and it's pretty funny what lines up. I've outlined some examples that worked here:
SNATCH / PULP FICTION
1- Heist Scene / Robbery
2- Meet a likable duo with great dialogue back and forth as they set out to do a job that will inevitably bring about their final scene
3- Meet the Mob Boss (Wallace talking to Bruce Willis with an opening monologue and Brick Top talking having his employees suffocated)
4 - etc. - some parts match up some don't but the overall gist is really the flow of the movie.
The opening credits in both movies rolls in high-octane crazy music. But while Pulp Fiction has a blank screen with text on it, Snatch has a fun, wild cartoonish opening with hilarious violence.
5 - The Car Crash
Shot by shot car crash including, drum roll - the trunk shot. For my money this scene is Guy Ritchie's clearest wink to Tarantino.
1- the cars wreck, fade to black.
2- the characters come to
3- A bunch of people, no, not just people, a bunch of women, which have seriously been absent aside from Mia Wallace and Mickey's mom, are suddenly surrounding the parties involved in the wreck as they come to.
4- And most importantly is THE TRUNK SHOT (known as the Tarantino shot), which makes me think it is a direct and deliberate response to Pulp Fiction. The wink here is equally clever. In a Tarantino film we'd be expecting to see one of the gangsters looking down into the trunk. Instead, in Snatch, we see no one looking into the trunk, defying our expectation. And telling us that Boris has left the trunk.
6 - A Hero
We have archetypal heroes in both movies, and while they have scenes where they take center stage, the entirety of the movie does not hinge on their decisions. Butch is the archetype of the American hero, Butch is a strong, but struggling middle class, boxer descended from war veterans, who has what it takes to stick it to the man. Turkish is a well-informed, quick-witted Brit who always comes out on top in banter, even if he is losing the scene.
7 - Shepard the Weak
The weak are separated from the strong which seems like something you could say a lot of movies, but these do it in a very unique way. Each party in each situation has power, power that changes hands through the course of the scenes. In Pulp Fiction we see Jules (Samuel Jackson's character) go from neutral, exchanging rhetoric w/ John Travolta - to powerful when he commands the room where they shoot everyone - to being at the mercy of Jimmy (Tarantino's character) and Mr. Wolf (Harvey Keitel's character) when they try to get rid of the body - then back on top in the bar scene finale. And you can see this change of power with every character in Pulp Fiction from Mia Wallace to Marsellus Wallace.
And Snatch has the same dynamics, especially as the diamond switches hands between the Americans, the Russians, and the Pawn Shop owners, wait is this some kind of Cold war- nevermind. In most typical Hollywood movies, sure the main character gets captured, or goes through some mediocre played out "trial" but in these movies the shift of power occurs between characters simply interacting. Show me a movie where Kurt Russel has to pander and beg a whiney asshole about some coffee or Stalone gets kidnapped in a pawn shop and - ahem.
And these movies make a point of weeding out the truly weak from the truly strong. At the beginning of Pulp Fiction we may think the restaurant robbers are cool and maybe even badass on first viewing but by the end we see they're nothing compared to real strong people like Jules. And in Snatch we see the same dynamics play out in a restaurant. In a what? A restaurant? HE SAID WHAT?! A FUCKING RESTAURANT. As we see Bullet Tooth Tony completely show up three dudes trying to rob him of his brief case as he casually sips his drink, holding his piece. OH SHNAP!
Is that it? Yeah I think that covers it. If you have your own opinions or things you think shoulda made it on the list, I don't care, I mean I'll read them, but I'm gonna just say I don't care because... well I mean someone's gonna try to be hurtful, I just, I just know it.
The opening credits in both movies rolls in high-octane crazy music. But while Pulp Fiction has a blank screen with text on it, Snatch has a fun, wild cartoonish opening with hilarious violence.
5 - The Car Crash
Shot by shot car crash including, drum roll - the trunk shot. For my money this scene is Guy Ritchie's clearest wink to Tarantino.
1- the cars wreck, fade to black.
2- the characters come to
3- A bunch of people, no, not just people, a bunch of women, which have seriously been absent aside from Mia Wallace and Mickey's mom, are suddenly surrounding the parties involved in the wreck as they come to.
4- And most importantly is THE TRUNK SHOT (known as the Tarantino shot), which makes me think it is a direct and deliberate response to Pulp Fiction. The wink here is equally clever. In a Tarantino film we'd be expecting to see one of the gangsters looking down into the trunk. Instead, in Snatch, we see no one looking into the trunk, defying our expectation. And telling us that Boris has left the trunk.
6 - A Hero
We have archetypal heroes in both movies, and while they have scenes where they take center stage, the entirety of the movie does not hinge on their decisions. Butch is the archetype of the American hero, Butch is a strong, but struggling middle class, boxer descended from war veterans, who has what it takes to stick it to the man. Turkish is a well-informed, quick-witted Brit who always comes out on top in banter, even if he is losing the scene.
7 - Shepard the Weak
The weak are separated from the strong which seems like something you could say a lot of movies, but these do it in a very unique way. Each party in each situation has power, power that changes hands through the course of the scenes. In Pulp Fiction we see Jules (Samuel Jackson's character) go from neutral, exchanging rhetoric w/ John Travolta - to powerful when he commands the room where they shoot everyone - to being at the mercy of Jimmy (Tarantino's character) and Mr. Wolf (Harvey Keitel's character) when they try to get rid of the body - then back on top in the bar scene finale. And you can see this change of power with every character in Pulp Fiction from Mia Wallace to Marsellus Wallace.
And Snatch has the same dynamics, especially as the diamond switches hands between the Americans, the Russians, and the Pawn Shop owners, wait is this some kind of Cold war- nevermind. In most typical Hollywood movies, sure the main character gets captured, or goes through some mediocre played out "trial" but in these movies the shift of power occurs between characters simply interacting. Show me a movie where Kurt Russel has to pander and beg a whiney asshole about some coffee or Stalone gets kidnapped in a pawn shop and - ahem.And these movies make a point of weeding out the truly weak from the truly strong. At the beginning of Pulp Fiction we may think the restaurant robbers are cool and maybe even badass on first viewing but by the end we see they're nothing compared to real strong people like Jules. And in Snatch we see the same dynamics play out in a restaurant. In a what? A restaurant? HE SAID WHAT?! A FUCKING RESTAURANT. As we see Bullet Tooth Tony completely show up three dudes trying to rob him of his brief case as he casually sips his drink, holding his piece. OH SHNAP!
Is that it? Yeah I think that covers it. If you have your own opinions or things you think shoulda made it on the list, I don't care, I mean I'll read them, but I'm gonna just say I don't care because... well I mean someone's gonna try to be hurtful, I just, I just know it.
No comments:
Post a Comment