As movies are about the closes thing I have to a religion, "Pulp Fiction," which I saw for the second time (along with a great many other people) at Spaulding Auditorium last weekend, was a huge restoration of my faith; a tireless, exhilarating jaunt through Quentin Tarantino's sublimely strange and funny Los Angeles underworld, punctuated by some of the most entertaining performances I've seen in a long time. I say without hesitation that it was the best film I saw last year.
It occurred to me last weekend that a lot of people seem to agree. Not that I was surprised to discover this. Granted, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that someone (whoever it was that was whooping and moaning during the 6:30 p.m. showing) seemed to agree that the best scene in the film is the one in which Uma Thurman dances solo to "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon," but the seemingly universal adoration of the movie didn't strike me as all that odd -- not at first, anyway. As the evening progressed, I began to realize "Pulp Fiction" had become something of a phenomenon at Dartmouth.
It first occurred to me that things might be awry when I realized I was not the only person who could quote verbatim John Travolta's speech about the virtues of pork.
Next, I discovered that others had run out to buy the soundtrack as well, as I heard "Son Of A Preacher Man" emanating quite loudly from my neighbor's room later that night. The final straw came when I entered a frat basement and heard the opening mantra of Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth being pumped through the room. Experience generally tells me that frat basement music is either unintelligible noise or something by Pearl Jam, (which are probably the same thing anyway,) so to hear the soundtrack of "Pulp Fiction" playing, well, let's just say I knew I was in the presence of something special.
My first reaction to all of this was self doubt. Had my tastes gone horribly mainstream? Was I really the cultured movie lover that I claimed to be? Last year, my favorite movie was "Naked," something I don't think more than 200 people on campus saw -- a figure which probably overestimates the number of people who haven't seen "Pulp Fiction."
After deciding that "Pulp Fiction" was indeed full of genuine merit though, I began to wonder if perhaps Dartmouth students had managed to find some culture and taste during the fall term. However, when one undergraduate society plastered its "PULP" party posters all over campus, I knew that wasn't much the case either.
The conclusion a friend helped me to reach, however, was pretty simple -- that "Pulp Fiction" is just a movie that people really like. In the very literal sense, there is something in it for everyone to enjoy.
Though I hate to use the Joel Siegel-esque cliche, the movie really is like riding a roller coaster. For one, you are gripped all the way through, and secondly, the twists and turns and ups and downs that the story takes prove thrilling (and occasionally stomach churning). And just like a roller coaster, it works even better as a communal experience when you realize that hundreds of people around you are reacting just as you are.
All of this finally led me to wonder if we could possibly make use of "Pulp Fiction" in our day-to-day Dartmouth existences. For instance, as this movie seems to be about the only thing most Dartmouth students have truly cared about over the past year and a half years perhaps the Student Assembly should dispense with their high profile posters and blitzes and simply announce they are showing "Pulp Fiction" in Webster Hall -- that would really bring out the masses in violent support of saving the place from demolition.
Moreover, as "Pulp Fiction" seems to be about the only thing people at Dartmouth agree about these days, why not have every arguing faction on campus sit down and watch the movie together. Heck, why not dump the entire Freshman Week Social Issues Program and show "Pulp Fiction" instead.
When people sit in the dark -- people of a million different political ideologies, world views, racial and ethnic backgrounds -- and find that they are all laughing at the same supposedly taboo jokes, that they are responding in the same horrified-thrilled manner to the scene in which Travolta resurrects Thurman and that they are all walking out of the theater saying things like, "They look like dorks," they might realize that sometimes we take life a little too seriously and that there's really no reason we all just can't be one big happy family.
Okay, maybe "Pulp Fiction" doesn't have the panache as a unifying coda that, say, "We Are The World" has, but listen closely and I'll bet you'll hear a universal roar over the campus when John Travolta wins an Oscar this spring.
