Film Program & Lecture Series: Lecture #4 Time & Storytelling Film Analysis

Pulp fiction follows the lives of four groups of characters hooked on a life of drugs, guns and crime. A strange mix of circumstances intertwine their stories. 

Pulp Fiction has a non-linear  Zigzag narrative format that jumps  through time. It's difficult to call these jumps flashbacks/ flash-forwards, because these are usually characterised as 'supporting the core narrative', but Quentin Tarantino films are often abstract with storytelling; there is no narrative but a snapshot of character's lives. At the end of this film, viewers resonate with the idea of the snapshot, because we leave feeling as though the film was a minor part in a much bigger scheme, an ongoing plot. This is emphasised by the films final scene, which can be classified as In Media Res or 'into the middle of things'; we finish where we started, knowing that Vincent will later be killed  in Butch's flat.