Pulp Fiction Summary and Rating

The movie Pulp Fiction doesn’t follow a “traditional” plot line.  To summarize the movie, it started out with two characters in a diner talking about how people rob banks.  They themselves are robbers; however they normally rob liquor stores, which they decide they don’t want to do anymore.  They explain how it would be easier to rob a bank but they don’t want to kill anyone.  From there, they discuss that they should rob restaurants because they wouldn’t expect to get robbed.  As they are eating their breakfast, they agree to rob the diner on the spot and pull out their guns.  The scene ends.

                Next, the movie jumps to the characters Vince and Jules driving in a car.  Their conversation revolves around the legalities of marijuana in Amsterdam in contrast to the United States.  They continue to discuss other differences, for instance Mcdonald’s.  In the U.S. we call it a “quarter pounder with cheese” whereas in Europe they would order a “royale with cheese.”  When they park at their destination, they go into the trunk and retrieve weapons.  Vince and Jules are now discussing Mia Wallace, who is Marcellus Wallace’s (their boss) wife and how she used to be an actress for a “pilot television series”.  Their conversation switches to talking about Antwan, who got thrown out of a building for giving Mia a foot massage, so they assume.  They arrive at an apartment door at 7:22am, and said they still had a few minutes yet so they continued their conversation about how giving a foot massage would be considered cheating.  The reason they are discussing what happened to Antwan was because later that evening, Vince is taking Mia out for Marcellus.

                Once they enter the apartment a few minutes later, there are three young men, who are Marcellus’ business partners.  After listening to the long dialect, I assumed they were hiding/keeping something that belonged to Marcellus which is why Vince and Jules were sent there.  Both Vince and Jules shoot the 3 men, at which time that scene ends.

                Moving to the next scene, we now the character Butch, who is a fighter.  He is talking to Marcellus in a bar about how he is supposed to purposely lose a fight later that evening.  Marcellus hands him money and explains he is to “throw” the fight in the 5^th round and not to let his pride get to him.  Vince and Jules show up at the same bar, wearing different clothes than previously seen.  This made me believe something else had happened.  Vince goes to the bar for a drink, at which point the bartender teases him about taking out Mia later.  Jules went to hand Marcellus the brief case, which was retrieved at the young men’s apartment.

                Next, the scene bounces to Vince at his drug dealer’s house where he buys 3 grams of heroin in which he shoots some into his arm.  From here, it is now night time and Vince is driving to Mia Wallace’s house to pick her up.  When he arrives, she lets him in and speaks to him via an intercom system to let him know she isn’t ready yet.  She then snorts a few lines of cocaine.  Now they are driving to a restaurant for diner and discussing “uncomfortable silences.”  They have long dialect and then Mia decides she wants to dance in a “twist” contest to win the trophy.

                Mia and Vince return to the Wallace’s home and she invites him to come inside for another drink.  He excuses himself to the restroom while she puts on some music and sits on the sofa to smoke a cigarette.  She is wearing Vince’s jacket and reaches into the pocket to find a lighter where she also finds the heroine.  She thought it was cocaine and snorted a line.  At this point, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her nose started bleeding.  By the time Vincent came out of the restroom, she was on the floor foaming at the mouth.  He put her into the car and drove onto the yard of his drug dealer’s house.  The drug dealer wanted Vince to take her to the hospital, however if he would have done that Marcellus would have found out.  After bringing her inside, they stab her in the chest with a giant syringe filled with adrenaline.  At which, she popped up immediately, still having the needle stuck in her chest.  Vince then drops her back off to her house and they agree to not tell Marcellus. 

                The movie now goes to the scene titled “The Gold Watch” which consists of Vince knocking on a door to where Marcellus was inside talking about finding someone.  The next screen jumps to Butch in a taxi after the fight.  The driver takes him to a pay phone where he makes a phone call to a friend.  He took the money Marcellus gave him to throw the fight but he didn’t throw the fight so now he is trying to get out of town.  The driver takes him to a motel where his girlfriend is there waiting for him.  They spend the night and plan to leave in the morning.  When morning comes, Butch asks if she packed everything he had asked, however she didn’t pack his father’s gold watch which has sentimental value.  He then decides to leave her there and try to sneak back into his apartment, knowing Marcellus’ men will be looking for him.

                When he arrives at his apartment, it seems no one is there.  He finds the watch and heads to the kitchen to get something to eat.  When he does this, he notices a gun on the kitchen counter then hears the toilet flush.  He picks up the gun and when the door opens Vince is standing there.  Butch shoots him.  He then leaves the apartment and heads back to his car.

                Feeling proud and accomplished, Butch drives toward the motel.  When he is stopped at the light, Marcellus walks right in front of the car and sees its Butch.  Butch runs Marcellus over and then runs into another car himself.  Marcellus got up, and took out his gun and shot butch in the leg.  Butch tries to run away, Marcellus following closely behind.  Butch hides in a pawn shop but Marcellus finds him.  They begin to fight in the store; however the owner breaks it up by holding a shotgun at them.  The owner makes sure they are both knocked out and calls “Zed.”  When the two regain consciousness, they are tied up in the basement of the store where they are assaulted.  Butch breaks free and instead of leaving, he goes back to help Marcellus.  Marcellus and Butch decide that there are no more problems between the two of them as long as Butch leaves by that evening and never comes back. 

                The movie now jumps back to the previous day when Jules and Vincent are at the young men’s apartment; however now we see there is another guy hiding in the bathroom with a gun.  The guy comes out and starts shooting but miraculously misses both Jules and Vincent.  They both end up shooting the 4^th guy and Jules has an epiphany and no longer wants to work for Marcellus. 

                After a few more unimportant scenes, Jules and Vincent end up in the diner for breakfast.  This now ties back into the 1^st scene of the robbers.  Jules ends up pulling a gun on the male robber when he tries to take the brief case that belongs to Marcellus.  After dialogue between him and the robbers, he ends up giving them the cash that’s in his wallet and making them leave. This concludes the movie summary.

                I found this movie somewhat hard to follow. The time I was watching, I was confused as to where the plot was going and it didn’t make sense to me.  Once I was watching the last scene, everything started to make sense and come together.  Having the scenes sequenced like this gave the movie texture and kept me continuing to watch the movie.  I believe that had the movie been set up in a more traditional sequence, I would have turned it off because it would have made the movie worse.  I give the movie a C rating.  I was not a fan of the dialogue or the sequence.  Had I not had to watch this movie for an assignment I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing it at all.

Unusual Article-"Scold's Bridle"

Reading the unusual article, “ Scold’s Bridle” on Wikipedia’s page, was quite entertaining.  The article  explained what a scold bridle is.  Also known as a “brank’s bridle”, the contraption was used as an instrument of punishment, usually for women.  It could also be deemed a device for torture or humiliation.  To describe the brank, it was a muzzle made of iron that surrounded the entire head and a bit, about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide, that was forced into the mouth  and pressed down on the tongue.  The bit was likely surrounded by spikes.  This was to ensure that whomever wore the brank, if the attempted to speak, they would cause major pain to their tongue.  Mainly, the types of people to be forced to wear this device, were wives considered to be witches, hags and nags. 

            The origin of the brank, comes from Scotland in 1567.  However, they were also used in England but it wasn’t a legal form of punishment.  The courts in Scotland mostly inflicted this device on offenders who were female.  To be considered for this punishment, all a female would have had to do was be a common nag.  Branks were mostly used to be a major punishment for women of lower classes who would gossip or were bothersome.  They were also used for women or were thought to be involved in witchcraft.  The purpose was to keep them from talking.  The brank was also used for  corporal punishment, usually for female workhouse inmates.  These devices were used in addition to public humiliation  and being beaten.
           After reading this article, I learned something completely new.  This was the first time I was learning about a bridle being used for punishment.  I know what a bridle is, however I was unaware that it was ever used a form of humiliation and torture.  Also, I was surprised to hear it was mostly used on women.  To think that you could be tortured by this contraption just for “nagging” is unthinkable. 
          The information I read is not really useful.  Use of the “brank” in today’s time would be considered cruel and unusual.  Physically and emotionally harming someone in this way isn’t tolerated anymore.  Therefore, it isn’t useful to know because there is no way this will ever happen again. 
          I believe this article earned a page through Wikipedia because it is extremely unusual.  I do however believe that it would be easy to find more research on this topic on other websites.  It is something that happened in history but not something that is so farfetched that it can only be found on this Wikipedia page.