COMMENTS:

A great director uses personal style to show the world through his/her lens. In doing so, this will change your experience of film, your experience of the world, and perhaps your perception. In my example of film style, I wish to examine the Vincent and Mia Date Sequence in Quentin Tarantino?s PULP FICTION (1994). This sequence can be broken down into five scenes: 1)They meet 2) Dinner at Jack Rabbit Slims, 3) Mia?s overdose, 4) Mia?s revival, and 5) farewell at Mia?s. I wish to concentrate on how Tarantino illustrates the growing intimacy between Vincent and Mia by contrasting the first and last scenes of this Date Sequence.

Tarantino plays with a boy-meets-girl narrative. In the backstory to this scene, Mia is set up as a Femme Fatale, who Vincent must resist: his boss, married to Mia, was rumoured to have killed a flirtatious offender who massaged Mia's feet. At first, Mia is depicted as goddess who watches over Vincent from a security monitor as he awaits her. Mia remains mysterious and never fully shown onscreen. She listens to Son of a Preacher Man ("being good isn?t always easy, no matter how hard I try") and her sultry red lips are shown in close-up when she speaks into a microphone as she directs Vincent to the bar. There is a sequence that cross cuts their chosen vices: Mia does cocaine; Vincent drinks alcohol. The scene ends with a close-up of Mia?s bare feet: she taps her foot and says, ?lets go.? Mia?s sexuality is prevalent throughout this first scene, yet Vincent and Mia never interact onscreen together. Thus, the sequence foreshadows a possible union between these strangers.

During the date, Tarantino uses uncomfortable silence as a means to illustrate intimacy: the moment when they are eating dinner, the silent tension before Vincent plunges an adrenaline needle into Mia?s heart, the exhausted silence in their car ride back to Mia?s, and the pact of silence they make as they depart. Vincent and Mia seal this silence with a handshake that is shown in an extreme close-up. Mia leaves and Vincent blows her a tender kiss goodbye. Therefore, the scene ends on a note of unrequited love. The sexual tension between the characters has been replaced by the bond--and tension--of a life and death experience.

[ By Andrea Ariano • November 11, 2004 ]