FS2: Active Spectatorship Case Study "Pulp Fiction" (1994): Spectatorship and Character Inside 30 minutes of the film we know Vincent Vegas is: • A ruthl~ss hit man • An ordinary guy • Slightly vulnerable • Someone in whom we can take an interest as an audience • He is under the influence of drugs • He is also John Travolta and all that that means to an audience Before he arrives at Mia's house we have no significant knowledge of her, but genre expectations may lead us to expect "moll" or "femme fatale". A t least 3 aspects at work here:
•
•
•
We must recognise the character, translate a fictional "construct" into a credible person - an ability which is dependent on many things We become aligned with a particular character, seeing, feeling parts of the story through this fictional character - doesn't mean we identify with them or endorse their behaviour We show allegiance, we make evaluative judgements about the "appeal" of the character to us - maybe "trying out" different identities and experiences?
"Pulp Fiction" is surprising in its playing with character alignment and allegiance. Most shocking is the death of Vincent in Butch's episode; in narrative terms it's casual and unannounced, but in character terms it fails to respect the allegiance we've formed with the character previously. Vincent and Mia: 1 Vincent approaches the house of his employer Marsellus Wallace. The spectator follows him from behind, first in long and then in medium shot. As he takes a message from the door, there is a cut to close-up and we hear what we assume (from our familiarity with film conventions) is the voice of the person who has written the note, Mia. The voice invites Vincent to enter. There is a cut to the interior as Vincent feels his way gingerly he is on unknown territory; he is high on heroin. The spectator is then presented with a shot of Mia from behind as she sits in front of four televisions relaying close-circuit surveillance pictures of Vincent. During the rest of the two-minute sequence, until Mia's fingers pick up the stylus, Dusty Springfield's version of 'Preacher Man' provides an accompaniment to what we see. There is next a big close-up of Mia's lips at a microphone. Her call 'Vincent' startl~s him. All 'his movements seem to require additional thought. The spectator processes a range of information contained in the mise en scene, soundtrack, dialogue and performances. The information is controlled by the film's maker. To this extent the spectator is in a dependent situation. However, it is precisely because of this limited access to information that the spectator becomes active
In terms of recognition, alignment and allegiance the sequence is interesting. In 22 shots before they leave the house we don't see Mia's full
face.. Spectator curiosity is increased and Mia is in control
throughout. She has the power, she's the boss's wife, she controls the technology, Vincent is toxically disadvantaged. Alignment is with Mia, her pov. Allegiance is with Vincent, he's object of camera's and her look. Recognition based on what we've learnt of Vincent's character and Travolta's star persona. Moral evaluations are less "real world" based and more "world of Tarantino's film" based as we are experienced film spectators. We can anticipate the preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings because of our cine-literateness and predict the reading of others based on levels of their cine-literateness.
There is a cut from the Wallace residence to a red Chevrolet. The camera pulls out and pans left to establish that Vincent and Mia have arrived in the diner car park. We see Mia's full face for the first time. One minute seventeen seconds of screen time is used to establish the world of Jack Rabbit Slim's diner and get the two characters to their seats. In looking at the sequense from Mia's 'What do you think?' to when she goes to 'powder' her nose, we are presented with a very familiar shot-reverse-shot dialogue sequence. As is typical of such a sequence, there are a large number of edits - seventy-five in five minutes thirty seconds of screen time, with the average shot length 4.4 seconds. In such a sequence it is appropriate to apply the concepts of interpellation and suture (see p. 137). The spectator is very much drawn into ('stitched' into) the space between the two characters.
No sense though in which the spectator is passive, a huge amount of "active" processing is taking place. Yes it's intended that the spectator be fascinated by the forces coming into play here; • • •
Mia's power over Vincent Vincent's odd mix of coolness and vulnerability Knowledge we have of the mind state of each of them
Requires spectator to be both caught up in exchanges of looks and remain observant and responsive to character information being revealed. We are very often both "privileged" as we know information the screen characters do not and "restricted" in that key information is withheld. We know both are high on drugs and this shifts our expectations to what dramatic results will follow. . Having returned from Jack Rabbit Slim's, Vincent is observed in a bathroom of the Wallace home telling himself not to become sexually involved with Mia, but to go home. This is a darkly comic situation, intensified by the Vincent characterfTravolta performance and made dramatically ironic by the knowledge given to the spectator that Mia is in the sitting room with very different preoccupations.
There is then a sudden shift in tone after Vincent's bathroom monologue: So you're gonna go ou1 there, drink your drink, say 'Goodnight, I've had a lovely evening,' go home and jack off. And that's all you're gonna do ... 3
We do not expect a close-up of Mia's face, suddenly deathl9 white, sick coming from her mouth, blood from her nose.
Vincent and Mia: 2 After Mia has overdosed, there is a two minute ten second sequence involving Vincent driving towards the house of Lance, trying all the while to communicate the desperateness of his situation on his mobile phone (while the Three Stooges play on Lance's TV). There then follows just under two minutes of frantic activity, much of it in a hand-held shot. (Tarantino's script offers the following description: 'everything in this scene is frantic, like a documentary in an emergency ward, with the big difference here being nobody knows what the fuck they're doing'.) There is then a quieter but hardly calmer one minute twenty-five seconds preparing for and giving the adrenaline shot to the heart which causes Mia's instant recovery. The entire six minutes ten seconds before we see Mia, ghostly white, being driven home by Vincent is simultaneously suspenseful, shocking and comic. In the act of spectatorship there are undoubtedly some responses which are involuntary, just as there are in our responses to shocks and surprises outside the cinema. In this sequence, the most obvious illustration of this involuntary response is when Vincent, after a long pause, takes aim and plunges the syringe into Mia's heart. The shock of an entire audience is audible! However, for most of an action sequence, spectator involvement is far from involuntary. We need to care what happens - and this is directly related to the allegiances we have formed with the two central characters, specifically here as a result of our 'participation' in the previous long sequence in the diner. In considering some of the alternative ways of responding to the 'overdose' sequence', it is first necessary to list some of the alternative ways of responding to the episode as a whole:
A B
C
primarily at the level of character and the emotions generated by their circumstances - a very 'affective' response primarily at the level of genre/form in which characters and situations are understood in relation to familiarity with the 'schemas' of different kinds of cinema - a 'cine-literate' if usually quite automatic response primarily at the level of the film as 'construct' in which there is a strong awareness of the film's makers - a very 'cognitive' response
These can be mapped against pleasure (1) and unpleasure (2). In the abstract the alternatives can be presented in diagrammatic form (see over). One way of interpreting these divergent responses is by reference to 'preferred', 'OPpositional' and 'negotiated' readings. (1) pleasure
(A1)
affective (A) (emotional)
<l( -
-
-
-
-
(A2)
(B 1)
-
-
-
-
-
-
(C1)
(6)
(B) - - - - - - - - - - - . cognitive / (intellectual)
(B2)
(C2)
(2) unpleasure
In relation to the particular sequence, different responses may include the following: A1 Intense concern for Mia (that she recovers) and for Vincent (that he does not suffer the consequences of Mia's death) B1 Amusement at the mix of black comedy and farce C1 Delight in the way Tarantino mixes melodramatic intensity (1) with the comedy and farce (2) A2 Distaste for Mia and Vincent, their behaviour and the values they represent B2 Disorientation at the mix of black comedy and farce in a situation involving a drug overdose and possibly outrage as a consequence C2 Irritation at the 'smart' way Tarantino mixes melodramatic intensity (1) with the comedy and farce (2) Of course, these can be mixed: A1 could operate alongside B2 and C2, for example. And. of course, these are not the only responses.
â&#x20AC;˘
We could try to explain the different responses in relation to spectator "competence". The film invites us to take pleasure in all of AI, BI and CI, but this is ,only possible if we are "inside" and "outside" of the fiction. This episode also contains points where attention is drawn to the film as a textual construct rather than something trying to disguise its construction, ego The drawing of the square on the screen and Travolta and Mia's twist, where we are confronted with John Travolta as the character Vincent Vegas and John Travolta the star, the dancing star of "Saturday Night Fever". Textual and extra textual information are being exploited here to acknowledge the star "myth".