Episode 167: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 1)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing

[00:00:14] my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Ha ha ha!

[00:00:18] Perfect.

[00:00:19] Perfect.

[00:00:20] We couldn't have planned this better.

[00:00:24] You guys look like...

[00:00:25] What do they look like, Jimmy?

[00:00:28] Dorks.

[00:00:29] They look like a couple of dorks.

[00:00:32] Ha ha ha!

[00:00:34] Your clothes, motherfucker.

[00:00:39] The Queen in class has spoken!

[00:00:43] Maynard!

[00:00:44] I'm a very good man.

[00:00:59] Good brains than you have.

[00:01:13] Anybody can have a brain.

[00:01:16] Very bad men.

[00:01:19] I'm a very good man.

[00:01:21] Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:24] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:29] Dave, what does Marcellus Wallace look like?

[00:01:35] Definitely not a bitch.

[00:01:38] He's black, he's bald.

[00:01:42] And why'd you try to fuck him like a bitch?

[00:01:49] I love that question, and when I was rewatching Pulp Fiction just today, I thought to myself,

[00:01:56] you think he was nervous when he gave the first descriptor as he's black?

[00:02:00] Do you think he would just try to work around that?

[00:02:03] He's kind of bald and big.

[00:02:08] As I was rewatching it, one of the...

[00:02:10] So today we're going to do our long-promised Pulp Fiction versus the Big Lebowski analysis.

[00:02:18] But when I was watching that scene, I noticed that Pulp Fiction just leaves a lot of open-ended

[00:02:24] questions.

[00:02:25] And I want to know how did those guys who look kind of like my Jewish friends from college,

[00:02:32] how did those guys get in a position where they would have Marcellus Wallace's briefcase?

[00:02:40] What's the backstory there?

[00:02:42] We have no idea.

[00:02:45] Right.

[00:02:46] Yeah.

[00:02:48] When we talk about the substance, I do love that aspect of it because it does this thing

[00:02:54] like it creates an entire world, leaving those questions open.

[00:02:58] It makes you fill in an entire world.

[00:03:01] The only analogy that I can think of is when you were a kid and video games sucked, they

[00:03:06] were only side-scrolling and the world was very constrained.

[00:03:09] And then these video games came out where you could go wherever you want.

[00:03:12] And in my mind Pulp Fiction is this world that I could explore.

[00:03:16] You could just go talk to those guys so you can figure out what, you know.

[00:03:20] Yeah, like the party that the wolf is at at 8 in the morning.

[00:03:24] Yeah, I'm like, in the morning.

[00:03:25] It's like, what the fuck is that?

[00:03:27] What's going on there?

[00:03:28] It's in some house or hotel room or something?

[00:03:31] I've thought about that so often.

[00:03:33] I'm like, were they partying all night?

[00:03:34] Like they're in tuxedos, you know?

[00:03:37] Or is this some weird kind of early morning party?

[00:03:41] Yeah.

[00:03:43] Yeah, so today we're going to talk about these two movies, line them up against each other.

[00:03:49] Anyway, you had a question like that you wanted to introduce.

[00:03:53] So this there is a deleted scene in Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace, Marcellus Wallace's wife

[00:04:01] played by Uma Thurman comes down from her little control room to meet with Vincent

[00:04:06] Vega, John Travolta's character.

[00:04:09] I'm reading for the first time and she comes down holding a camcorder and asks him a bunch

[00:04:14] of questions.

[00:04:15] The movie that that scene never made it into the final movie, but it's alluded to when

[00:04:19] she refers to him as an Elvis man.

[00:04:21] And so she basically proposes a little theory.

[00:04:24] She says, the way I see it is the world can be divided by what your answer is to

[00:04:31] it.

[00:04:32] I think she says these important questions.

[00:04:34] Yeah.

[00:04:35] And the primary question that she has in mind is, are you a Beatles man or an Elvis

[00:04:43] man?

[00:04:44] Yeah.

[00:04:45] And she doesn't even ask him that because she gives him a once over and says, like,

[00:04:48] I want to ask you that one because obviously you're an Elvis man.

[00:04:50] Yeah.

[00:04:51] That's true.

[00:04:52] There's no way he's a Beatles man.

[00:04:54] There's no way.

[00:04:56] And she asks if you have, she asks, are you a Brady Bunch or a Parkour family?

[00:05:03] I thought this is actually a nice way to frame this because one of the things

[00:05:07] that we wanted to make clear at the beginning is that we both love both

[00:05:10] movies.

[00:05:11] Right.

[00:05:12] And in fact, Mia Wallace says this.

[00:05:14] She says, you know, Beatles fan, a Beatles person can love Elvis and an

[00:05:17] Elvis person can love the Beatles, but you got to pick which one.

[00:05:21] And that's how I kind of feel that way about Pulp Fiction and the Big

[00:05:25] Lebowski.

[00:05:26] We both love both of them and we're probably going to talk as if, you

[00:05:29] know, like these will be loving things we say about both movies.

[00:05:33] But at the end of the day, are you a Pulp Fiction man or a big Lebowski

[00:05:38] man? I'm definitely a big Lebowski man.

[00:05:40] I mean, this rewatch has solidified that in my mind.

[00:05:45] I knew it already, but I am definitely a big Lebowski man.

[00:05:50] Again, not saying I don't love Pulp Fiction.

[00:05:52] Yeah.

[00:05:54] But it's but I'm a big Lebowski man.

[00:05:56] Yes.

[00:05:57] And I am definitely a Pulp Fiction man.

[00:05:59] Like if I'm a man at all, it is what makes

[00:06:03] a man. What is it?

[00:06:07] Sometimes there's a man.

[00:06:11] If you haven't like for some odd reason, if you haven't seen these

[00:06:15] movies, maybe you should watch them before you listen.

[00:06:17] Yeah, we're not going to go into the plot.

[00:06:19] We're just going to assume that you've seen both of these movies.

[00:06:23] I'd say that the plot is somewhat secondary.

[00:06:26] The kind of narrative plot of them is secondary to appreciating

[00:06:30] them anyway, but we'll assume that if you listen to this podcast,

[00:06:35] you've seen both movies.

[00:06:37] Okay, let before we go into what makes one of them better or different

[00:06:42] than the other, I noticed in this rewatch, I don't remember

[00:06:47] ever watching them this close together before some commonalities

[00:06:52] and things that tie the movies together.

[00:06:55] Yeah, so tell me what you notice.

[00:06:57] Obviously, both movies take place in the 90s and take place in the

[00:07:01] present in the 90s.

[00:07:03] Actually, probably around the same time, the Lebowski takes

[00:07:08] place around 1992.

[00:07:10] We're not given any reason to think that Pulp Fiction doesn't

[00:07:13] take place in the present as far as I can tell.

[00:07:18] So if the movie came out in 1994, also probably early 90s,

[00:07:23] but they're both completely obsessed with bygone eras, with the past

[00:07:29] and the sort of archetypes of the past, the genres of the past

[00:07:35] and the movies of those eras.

[00:07:38] Right.

[00:07:39] By the way, they're both in Los Angeles for what it's worth.

[00:07:42] Right.

[00:07:42] And they're both really good.

[00:07:44] They're great.

[00:07:44] Like LA movies.

[00:07:45] Yeah.

[00:07:47] Yeah, I'd say that the dude is kind of living in the past.

[00:07:53] But he's referred to as a man of his time.

[00:07:55] Yeah.

[00:07:56] I mean, I think you could argue that he is a man of his time,

[00:08:00] that kind of aimless early 90s, kind of grungy.

[00:08:04] You don't like Ethan Hawke in reality bites, but obviously he's

[00:08:09] not like that insufferable character.

[00:08:11] Generation slackers.

[00:08:13] Yeah.

[00:08:14] I mean, yeah, exactly.

[00:08:16] He has a kind of a hippie past, but he doesn't, he's not

[00:08:20] obsessed with it and it doesn't make him unable to live in the

[00:08:27] current moment like it does Walter or like it does even Maude.

[00:08:33] Right?

[00:08:33] She is, even though she's the contemporary artist, feminist,

[00:08:39] she talks like, and I guess this was on purpose.

[00:08:42] I read something where she talks like Catherine Hepper in

[00:08:47] like movies in the 30s and 40s.

[00:08:48] That's how she...

[00:08:49] So it's kind of an affectation and again, an affectation going

[00:08:54] back to an earlier era.

[00:08:56] Right.

[00:08:57] You know, both of them, as you say that I thought, both of

[00:09:00] them also have a location in the movie that is pretty much,

[00:09:06] you know, un-oad to the past and in Lebowski, that bowling

[00:09:09] alley that is part of that sort of what people in the 50s

[00:09:13] about the future would look like, that aesthetic, that

[00:09:16] architecture, that actually was a place in LA it got taken down,

[00:09:20] but it's very much, you know, that Tomorrowland, you know,

[00:09:25] Starburst kind of that mid-century that I love.

[00:09:28] That aesthetic, yeah.

[00:09:30] Yeah, I love that.

[00:09:32] Style of architecture called Googie architecture, that there

[00:09:35] are various examples around Los Angeles of that style.

[00:09:39] And then in Pulp Fiction, you know, the Jackrabbit

[00:09:42] Slims, which is, you know, very, very different 50s aesthetic.

[00:09:48] But it is, he describes it as a wax museum with a pulse.

[00:09:52] Yeah, it is.

[00:09:53] And it was, it doesn't exist.

[00:09:55] It was built for the movie.

[00:09:56] That's right.

[00:09:57] I also found that both of these movies, and I think

[00:10:00] the Coen brothers are brilliant at this usually.

[00:10:05] Tarantino, I don't know if he does it that often, but

[00:10:09] but they take things that are

[00:10:13] normally banal features of everyday life and they center

[00:10:19] plots around it.

[00:10:20] So I think this is consistent with what you said, that the

[00:10:22] narrative plot is not as important.

[00:10:26] Right?

[00:10:26] They both center around things that don't really matter that much.

[00:10:31] I mean, yeah, in some sense, their life and death matters.

[00:10:34] But but another sense that there are people who are, who are,

[00:10:38] you know, making a big deal out of something like the gold watch,

[00:10:41] you know, right?

[00:10:41] Or the rug, which is a rug, which really ties the room together.

[00:10:46] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:48] And, and, you know, the main characters and the central driving

[00:10:52] the central driving purpose of the of the Butch narrative is all

[00:10:57] about the watch.

[00:10:58] That's why he goes back to the house, shoots John Travolta,

[00:11:02] has the whole thing with Marcellus Wallace and Zed.

[00:11:08] And then, yeah, the rug is what gets him involved in this whole convoluted plot.

[00:11:14] And he keeps chasing the rug.

[00:11:16] It's all he really wants is his rug.

[00:11:19] That's right.

[00:11:20] Yeah.

[00:11:22] Yeah.

[00:11:24] Both of them, I think are living it.

[00:11:26] They're both living in a time where there is a war going on,

[00:11:30] although it's not reference to it all.

[00:11:32] It's referenced to in the in Lebowski, the first Iraq war.

[00:11:37] But it's like definitely disconnected entirely from like ordinary people

[00:11:42] and what they're doing, what they're thinking about.

[00:11:44] There's no sense of national purpose.

[00:11:47] And really what they are, and this is true of both movies,

[00:11:51] is kind of living in the shadow of the Vietnam War.

[00:11:53] But it's, you know, it's like 20 years later, 20 more than 20 years

[00:11:57] later, and it's but a constant reference.

[00:12:01] I mean, obviously with Walter and Lebowski, but also with Butch

[00:12:05] and his watch with the whole Christopher Walken scene.

[00:12:09] And they both kind of use similar kinds of jokes about it.

[00:12:12] You know, the ways it's described, the Hanoi pit of hell, you know,

[00:12:18] and all the things that Walter says.

[00:12:20] Yeah.

[00:12:21] And and it just seems kind of melodramatic and out of place.

[00:12:25] So, you know, so it's not like those 70s movies

[00:12:29] that that really tried to wrestle seriously with what Vietnam meant.

[00:12:35] It's almost at this point like a joke in both movies.

[00:12:39] Right. And Walter is a man out of his time.

[00:12:43] And and Butch is a throwback, too.

[00:12:46] Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

[00:12:49] So I don't know.

[00:12:49] I feel the need to say that like we can't possibly do justice to both of these movies.

[00:12:54] You know, we've both watched these movies many times.

[00:12:56] I've I think in a sort of mirror image, I've seen.

[00:13:01] I can't even estimate how many times I've seen Pulp Fiction.

[00:13:04] It's in the high 20s or low 30s, probably.

[00:13:07] And I've probably seen Lebowski somewhere between five and ten times.

[00:13:12] I'm not quite sure.

[00:13:14] And you are the reverse, right?

[00:13:17] Yeah. I mean, I've probably seen Pulp Fiction more times than you've seen Lebowski.

[00:13:22] And which is, I think one of the reasons maybe I don't appreciate it as much as I could.

[00:13:29] Like, I feel like I've seen it more times than yeah, it is.

[00:13:34] Whereas Lebowski, I can keep watching compulsively.

[00:13:36] And I do. Right.

[00:13:38] Right. Yeah.

[00:13:40] Just a couple more quick little commonalities, two of just iconic credit scenes

[00:13:46] from the 90s, like just amazing credits sequences involving music

[00:13:52] and especially in Pulp Fiction and also in Lebowski.

[00:13:58] But just that bowling alley and what you said.

[00:14:02] Oh, yeah, it's gorgeous.

[00:14:04] The I was reading the Tarantino.

[00:14:08] In using that opening song, that iconic Pulp Fiction now associated

[00:14:13] so much with Pulp Fiction, Dale and something.

[00:14:17] He knew that he was just setting a bar.

[00:14:19] He's like, you know, the movie had to live up to the the awesomeness of that song.

[00:14:24] It was like a commitment device.

[00:14:26] Exactly. Yeah.

[00:14:29] But both of them have this this.

[00:14:32] Oh, you know, part of the reason maybe these movies are so enjoyable

[00:14:38] to me is both directors or all three directors, I should say,

[00:14:43] have clearly a love of cinema and they they're just clearly giving

[00:14:50] homage to to just movies.

[00:14:52] But one of them is the use of this the MacGuffin, the meaningless

[00:14:55] the meaningless object that directs the plot around.

[00:14:58] And in this case, both of them are brief cases, well, at least in the Lebowski.

[00:15:02] It's I don't know if it's the central MacGuffin, but certainly feels like a central one.

[00:15:07] You could argue it's the rug also.

[00:15:09] But you could. Yeah.

[00:15:10] But yeah, although the rug has meaning in a way of MacGuffin.

[00:15:13] So MacGuffin, I'll put a link to the description, but it's just essentially

[00:15:17] like, you know, like the Maltese Falcon, it's just an object that everybody wants.

[00:15:21] It doesn't really matter why they want it.

[00:15:23] Right. And in Pulp Fiction, it's very salient that does we never even find out

[00:15:27] what it is that it doesn't really matter.

[00:15:29] What matters is that people want it or it's driving some plot.

[00:15:32] And it's also an allusion to a MacGuffin in

[00:15:36] what Kiss Me Deadly, the Robert Aldrich movie where there it's like

[00:15:43] the briefcase is a bomb that can destroy the world.

[00:15:48] But in this case, you just never know. Yeah.

[00:15:50] That's right. That's right.

[00:15:52] That's right. And it is funny to see how even I watching

[00:15:56] Pulp Fiction as whatever I was in college, all I wanted to know

[00:16:00] was what was in that fucking briefcase.

[00:16:02] It was very a very concrete time in my life.

[00:16:05] I didn't quite appreciate that it didn't matter.

[00:16:08] That's never been something that I've wanted to think too much about,

[00:16:12] like what's in the briefcase.

[00:16:14] I know that some people have all sorts of theories and arguments,

[00:16:18] and that just doesn't seem like interesting to me or the point

[00:16:23] of the briefcase as much.

[00:16:24] But I don't know. Yeah.

[00:16:27] Yeah. My favorite of the theories was that it was Marcelos Wallace's soul.

[00:16:32] Yeah, which I don't get.

[00:16:33] It's just dumb. It doesn't matter.

[00:16:36] It really doesn't matter.

[00:16:38] I mean, you know, make it what you want.

[00:16:40] That's that's great.

[00:16:42] All that said, I think there are deep differences between these two movies.

[00:16:46] And I think that the themes, at least I will try to make a case for why

[00:16:52] the themes are almost opposite in this podcast.

[00:16:56] I will argue that.

[00:16:57] Yeah. In the following.

[00:16:59] In what follows?

[00:17:02] You want to talk about that now or?

[00:17:06] You know, there was one thing that I

[00:17:09] was going to mention, which is that these movies had a really different impact.

[00:17:15] Lebowski was a slow, a slow grow.

[00:17:19] Yeah, slow grower and it became a chief cult status

[00:17:23] from people being obsessively rewatching it because

[00:17:26] for whatever reason, it becomes such a fun movie to rewatch.

[00:17:30] Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, was just like everybody watched it.

[00:17:33] Right? Yeah.

[00:17:34] And and you could it's palpable,

[00:17:37] the influence that it had just as a piece of art on almost annoyingly on movies

[00:17:43] in the 90s. I mean, definitely almost really annoyingly.

[00:17:45] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:47] So, you know, the conceit of splitting up the time

[00:17:51] into different vignettes and putting them out of order, like a puzzle,

[00:17:54] the just the style of dialogue, the everyday mobsters.

[00:18:00] It's suffered.

[00:18:01] Yeah, mobster is talking about trivial shit.

[00:18:03] Like it has suffered from bad imitations.

[00:18:08] But yeah, no, it was a huge event to go see that movie.

[00:18:12] I think if you knew anything about films,

[00:18:15] you were pretty excited for it because Reservoir Dogs was was awesome.

[00:18:20] And here was now it's Travolta who hasn't been in it.

[00:18:23] Like Travolta is coming back and Uma Thurman.

[00:18:27] But then even Bruce Willis's career was kind of dead.

[00:18:29] Yeah, he's really good in it.

[00:18:32] I don't love his narrative as we can talk about as much, but I really like him.

[00:18:38] That was one of the things I appreciated is his performance in this

[00:18:43] rewatch. You know, I should say I didn't know anything about I was certainly

[00:18:47] not around people who appreciated nobody I knew called movies film.

[00:18:52] Well, I felt bad about that even just saying.

[00:18:54] No, no, no, no.

[00:18:55] You saw a reservoir now.

[00:18:56] We're I know I had never seen Reservoir Dogs.

[00:18:59] Like I just didn't know that's not that's not knocking you for knowing.

[00:19:02] I wish I had had people who taught me what movies were like.

[00:19:06] I just didn't in part because of the weird religion that was raised.

[00:19:09] But but this may be because of Pulp Fiction.

[00:19:15] I started paying attention to movies.

[00:19:17] Yeah, you know, I think it really gave me a love for I was just I've

[00:19:21] been obsessed with this movie for a long, long time.

[00:19:23] There was a ton of hype and then you go into the movie and it's packed.

[00:19:27] This is a good time for movies.

[00:19:29] It's there 90s.

[00:19:30] There's a lot of interesting stuff and it lives up to the hype.

[00:19:35] It maybe exceeds the hype like everybody is so into it like the whole

[00:19:40] theater is just laughing and shocked and all the things like it is a good movie

[00:19:47] to see for the first time.

[00:19:48] It just takes all these twists and turns that when you've seen it,

[00:19:51] especially a number of times, like they don't surprise you at all anymore.

[00:19:55] But, you know, just the fact that Butch comes and sees Marcellus and then all

[00:20:00] of a sudden they're fighting and then all of a sudden they're in this

[00:20:03] like deliverance weapons shop and in a basement and there's a gimp.

[00:20:10] And like it's like all this stuff just comes out of fucking nowhere.

[00:20:14] And it's not a kind of experience that you had in a movie and certainly

[00:20:19] it's not done well.

[00:20:21] Right. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:23] It was like it was splashing cold water on your face like, you know,

[00:20:28] whatever the right metaphor is, like you're just wait, what?

[00:20:33] There's a little bit of that in Lebowski where all of a sudden they're

[00:20:36] into the most absurd situation, right?

[00:20:39] Like, wait, there's underwear in the briefcase or like you're going to

[00:20:42] visit some kid with dad is in the iron lung.

[00:20:45] Like this is just like an embracing of absurdity.

[00:20:47] Right. But there's something about it where the flow of it is you just don't

[00:20:53] you don't even raise an eyebrow like you're really right about how

[00:20:58] the absurdity flows in the big Lebowski in a way that it doesn't flow in

[00:21:02] Pulp Fiction. Yeah.

[00:21:03] Pulp Fiction is all about jarring you like to the extent that they have to

[00:21:06] like even Tarantino has to divide the movie explicitly and say,

[00:21:10] here is part two of this movie.

[00:21:12] Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:13] But you know, and Lebowski in sort of consistent with the central character.

[00:21:20] Yeah, everything just flows.

[00:21:21] Everything just flows one into any other.

[00:21:23] Like the modern dance, the quintet, the modern dance quintet.

[00:21:29] Oh, his landlord doing that.

[00:21:30] Yeah. It's just like all of a sudden they're there and then there

[00:21:35] and all and everything is kind of an echo of an earlier scene.

[00:21:40] You know, there's no narrative timing shifts like there are in Pulp Fiction.

[00:21:44] But there's almost no scenes in the big Lebowski that don't

[00:21:48] they almost explicitly recall earlier scenes like snippets of dialogue and stuff

[00:21:54] like that. It's just I know that it's like almost a religion, this

[00:21:58] Judaism or whatever and set that aside.

[00:22:02] There is a kind of Taoist

[00:22:06] for sure. Then even Zen, yeah, like just Lebowski just kind of goes with

[00:22:12] is that that he doesn't ever whine about it or protest a little bit?

[00:22:16] But he's very good about just going with what what life brings him in sharp

[00:22:23] contrast to Walter, who's always fighting against it and trying to shape the

[00:22:28] narrative himself.

[00:22:29] Right. And absolutely.

[00:22:32] Oh, yeah.

[00:22:33] We'll put a pin in that because that is the theme that I really want to get

[00:22:36] to.

[00:22:37] One of the big similarities for me is that both of these screenwriters,

[00:22:41] who are the directors, have a love of dialogue.

[00:22:44] I think that one of the things that makes these movies so easily rewatchable is

[00:22:49] that you enjoy the words.

[00:22:52] Just the words are so good.

[00:22:54] And in the words,

[00:22:56] the Tarantino is there's nothing but but

[00:23:00] explicit effort in crafting the words, whereas

[00:23:04] the Coen brothers, I think they are as obsessive with language, if I recall.

[00:23:08] If not more, but they do not, if not more like,

[00:23:11] but they do not come across like they were writing something to be quoted.

[00:23:17] And you know, and I wonder so yeah,

[00:23:20] and I take this to be actually a strength of Lebowski in contrast to

[00:23:25] Pulp Fiction, like some of the Tarantino stuff dialogue can seem annoying.

[00:23:31] So like or that it doesn't age well.

[00:23:33] Like the Royale with cheese.

[00:23:36] Well, it's just so it's so it's hard for me to tease apart whether it is a feature

[00:23:43] of his dialogue that doesn't age well or was just been imitated so often or quoted.

[00:23:48] You know, yeah, exactly.

[00:23:49] And whereas Lebowski, I think there's just so many funny,

[00:23:56] unbelievably funny exchanges, but they're not as you know, there's certain

[00:24:00] lines that people say that's just like your opinion, man.

[00:24:05] But it's it's not the same.

[00:24:08] You know, like there's just all these little things,

[00:24:11] just Lebowski trying to explain to other people what he doesn't know.

[00:24:15] A lot of inns, a lot of outs.

[00:24:17] Yeah, like this I'm genuinely excited to talk in detail about both of these movies.

[00:24:22] Yeah. So we're going to pick some scenes that for us sort of capture.

[00:24:27] Yeah, I think that it's we decided that that as a way of discussing the themes,

[00:24:33] we might pick three scenes each and use that as a structure.

[00:24:37] Because I think that is a nice way of communicating the real themes and the

[00:24:41] differences in some areas.

[00:24:43] Yeah, I mean, so for me, this was easier to do for pulp fiction.

[00:24:47] I think that is more about scenes than the big Lebowski, not that they're not.

[00:24:51] I mean, some of my favorite scenes of all time, but they're not that

[00:24:56] different in terms of, well, we'll just get to some point and met a discussion about.

[00:25:03] Do you want to take a break?

[00:25:04] Yeah, let's take a break and we'll be right back to talk scenes from pulp fiction.

[00:25:11] Today's episode of Very Bad Wizards is brought to you by Blinkist.

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[00:27:30] Hey rap told me where she get kicked at.

[00:27:33] She's a part time dancer, part time

[00:27:35] man, tries to be a mother when she gets a chance to let her husband alone to raise

[00:27:40] their son. He's a Pampers model four year got a bachelor's degree.

[00:27:43] Thirty three recovering from plastic surgery went from 34 B to 36 double D.

[00:27:48] Metta and San Diego at the Super Bowl party at the Henny shifted up with

[00:27:52] Terrell Davis MVP.

[00:27:54] We flipped it up for sports illustrated.

[00:27:56] I was silked out.

[00:27:57] Bustle was out.

[00:27:58] The educators when she walked in, she lit up the room like Las Vegas.

[00:28:01] Terrell said, I'm hands a full back for the rain.

[00:28:03] It's a drunk and fuck jelly.

[00:28:05] There's a line up in the papers.

[00:28:06] It's easy to get the pussy.

[00:28:07] Just don't fall in love next thing you know, I'm pumped up with this bitch

[00:28:11] in the top Palm Springs, Al Capone, sweet washing up feet.

[00:28:14] If this love somebody's wife.

[00:28:16] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards.

[00:28:18] This is the time in the program where we like to take a moment to thank

[00:28:22] all of our listeners for all your support.

[00:28:25] We really, really appreciate it.

[00:28:28] All the all the wonderful messages.

[00:28:31] We can't get to all of them.

[00:28:32] I feel increasingly guilty about not getting to all of them.

[00:28:35] But you know, the volume is a little high.

[00:28:37] Hardly.

[00:28:38] But hardly any of them.

[00:28:40] But but we really do read them all.

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[00:30:04] You can go directly to our Patreon page.

[00:30:08] And I should say now we are working on a couple of rewards.

[00:30:12] I am about to release the fourth volume of my collection of beats.

[00:30:18] This one took me a while, but it's going to be longer than most others.

[00:30:22] I have secured the services of my nephew,

[00:30:28] Manny Beatz, who is a wonderful mixer, wonderful mastering engineer

[00:30:34] and some really, really cool artwork by an artist named Gabriel Vines.

[00:30:40] I'll put a link to his to his work.

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[00:30:45] So hopefully that and then we're planning on recording something soon, right?

[00:30:49] Yeah, our patrons.

[00:30:51] What were we going to do it on?

[00:30:53] Oh, Deadwood, right?

[00:30:55] Yeah, I think we're going to do the Deadwood movie.

[00:30:58] Yeah, the Deadwood movie.

[00:30:59] We haven't seen that yet, right?

[00:31:00] No, I'm still rewatching with.

[00:31:02] It's so frigging.

[00:31:04] It's just my favorite.

[00:31:06] Like I feel like now it's not even that close.

[00:31:08] It's just I love it.

[00:31:10] I love I love every second of it.

[00:31:12] I love every character of it.

[00:31:14] But to me, the Big Lebowski is the best comedy and Deadwood is the best TV show

[00:31:18] or at least my favorite.

[00:31:19] And I'm not sure I would say it's the best either in either case,

[00:31:23] but it is my clear favorite.

[00:31:26] It's amazing.

[00:31:27] I mean, there's something about the short, you know, the three season run

[00:31:30] also that just allows me to rewatch it every few years.

[00:31:33] And it's so rewarding.

[00:31:36] Talk about a love of language.

[00:31:39] Yeah, which both these movies have, as you said, and Deadwood certainly has.

[00:31:46] So you can tell we have a love for this and we'll probably record something soon.

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[00:32:03] We really appreciate both those things.

[00:32:05] Oh, and one last thing to add a little shout out.

[00:32:10] I was recently in Bulgaria to do an event on meditation, psychedelics

[00:32:18] and the self with my colleague, Josh Weisberg, former friend of the show.

[00:32:25] My replacement.

[00:32:28] Yeah, he was your replacement.

[00:32:29] Actually, you were his replacement as co-host of this show.

[00:32:33] His revenge.

[00:32:35] Yeah.

[00:32:35] And then a neuroscientist who's out of Philadelphia and now does kind of

[00:32:42] neuroscience and art, Greg Dunn.

[00:32:45] But anyway, my brother flew out and we traveled for a bit in Bulgaria.

[00:32:49] And I went to a little mountain town called Veliko Tarnovo.

[00:32:55] And we ran into this couple, Michael Powers and Nelly Arobova.

[00:33:03] Nelly Arobova is originally Bulgarian.

[00:33:05] Michael Powers is American and as we were talking, we said our names and he

[00:33:11] just recognized my name and it turns out he's a big fan of the podcast.

[00:33:15] Look at that.

[00:33:16] Look at that international reach.

[00:33:18] Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.

[00:33:20] They live in the States to be fair, but that was pretty cool.

[00:33:24] But the reason I want to give them a shout out is that the night before I

[00:33:28] met them, they got engaged.

[00:33:32] He proposed to her.

[00:33:33] It was totally took her by surprise and they seemed very happy and they were

[00:33:37] headed to celebrate on the coast in the Black Sea.

[00:33:41] So Michael Powers, Nelly Arobova.

[00:33:44] Congratulations.

[00:33:45] Congratulations.

[00:33:46] I was also like I hadn't had coffee yet and we were looking for breakfast and

[00:33:51] you can't find breakfast in this town for some reason.

[00:33:54] And so I don't think I was at my best.

[00:33:56] They took a picture.

[00:33:58] I was just not, I was barely awake.

[00:34:02] So I apologize if it was a little dazed and out of it.

[00:34:05] And if the picture they took was not good.

[00:34:08] Anyway, thanks.

[00:34:09] Yeah. Thank you all.

[00:34:10] OK, so you want to go first with Pulp Fiction?

[00:34:13] Sure.

[00:34:15] So I'll say what I think Pulp Fiction is really about, especially in contrast

[00:34:20] to Big Lebowski, both of them are championing the absurd in some way.

[00:34:26] But I think that the characters in Pulp Fiction are

[00:34:31] infusing everything with deep meaning.

[00:34:33] They really, really care about things.

[00:34:36] And so we alluded to this already.

[00:34:38] But the Gold Watch scene to me is

[00:34:40] prime example of something that is trivial, but you end up really caring

[00:34:47] in the way that Bruce Willis cares.

[00:34:49] So the Gold Watch that was his father's and his grandfather's.

[00:34:53] So the wonderful story about being hidden up his father's ass.

[00:34:59] Christopher Walken's beautiful monologue that was also I remember when I saw it

[00:35:04] was jarring just when he says there is a history to that artifact.

[00:35:08] There is a reason that the character thinks that it's so important.

[00:35:12] He in fact risks his life for it.

[00:35:16] It's just a Gold Watch, but it matters so much to him.

[00:35:21] Another wise neutral object that you might say, well, it's just a watch.

[00:35:24] Right? This is dripping with meaning and we get it.

[00:35:28] We understand it based on we understand why he's going back and risking his life.

[00:35:33] Yeah.

[00:35:34] And one of the scenes I really liked,

[00:35:36] even though I found his girlfriend or wife insufferable for the most part.

[00:35:42] But just the worst, the worst part of Pulp Fiction.

[00:35:44] It really is.

[00:35:45] I would say a lot of the women are not.

[00:35:49] It's not the best.

[00:35:50] The one with all the shit in her face.

[00:35:52] What?

[00:35:53] The one with all the shit in her face.

[00:35:55] I actually like Rosanna Arquette's OK.

[00:35:58] She's great.

[00:36:00] But anyway, that scene where he realizes that he forgot that she forgot the watch

[00:36:06] and he gets so violent about it and he starts throwing the TV.

[00:36:09] And then he's like he has like a moment of mindfulness almost like he

[00:36:13] just stops and he says, I didn't convey.

[00:36:16] I reminded you, but I didn't convey the meaning of that watch to you.

[00:36:22] And I should have and that's my fault.

[00:36:24] You're not a mind reader like not only do you have to are these things

[00:36:28] invested in meaning, but they're they need to be expressed the meaning.

[00:36:32] Right. And yeah.

[00:36:34] I would say that that one of the one of the themes in Pulp Fiction is that

[00:36:40] the person's perspective means a lot.

[00:36:42] So the fact that he's going berserk over the watch,

[00:36:46] even as he's describing it, he says, you know, it's on the kangaroo by the bedstand.

[00:36:50] You're like, well, that's absurd.

[00:36:52] It's just stupid.

[00:36:53] But we've already seen that gold wash scene.

[00:36:55] We know what it means to him, but she has no idea why it would mean that much

[00:36:58] to him. And and so this the same object in some cases,

[00:37:03] like another scene, the same situations mean very, very different things to

[00:37:07] the different characters.

[00:37:08] Yeah. And and the whole thing,

[00:37:11] the whole reason he had to go back and risk his life and almost get raped by those

[00:37:15] rednecks was that he didn't convey enough sufficiently.

[00:37:21] The meaning of that watch to his annoying girlfriend.

[00:37:26] Right.

[00:37:28] OK, so that was your your scene.

[00:37:30] I actually this wasn't a scene, but I don't know.

[00:37:34] Is the foot massage debate one of your scenes?

[00:37:37] It is, but not for the reason that we always talk about.

[00:37:41] You know, we've talked at least I have mentioned it

[00:37:44] countless times as a great example of the pre the sort of pre commitment

[00:37:48] function of emotions and that like you don't do even the smallest slight to

[00:37:53] somebody who's who's willing to like throw you three stories down.

[00:37:56] No, but in this case, I was thinking it is more connected to what you just said

[00:38:01] about the meaning like they are debating the meaning of a foot massage.

[00:38:06] And then exactly.

[00:38:07] And it's actually a great case where they kind of come to

[00:38:11] something that they clarify their terms and they come to kind of an agreement about it.

[00:38:16] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:17] But absolutely, the fact that a foot massage

[00:38:21] Travolta is trying to convince him that a foot massage is is full of meaning.

[00:38:25] Yeah. And Samuel Jackson is not buying it.

[00:38:27] He's like, I give a million people a million foot massages.

[00:38:29] Doesn't matter the way he convinces them is would you give a guy a foot massage?

[00:38:33] Yeah. And that effectively ends the debate.

[00:38:35] Well, no, because it doesn't actually.

[00:38:38] Right? Like that's an earlier scene where they're walking through the hallway

[00:38:41] where he says, would you give a guy a foot massage?

[00:38:43] He says, fuck you.

[00:38:44] But then they continue it and he's like, just because I wouldn't give no foot

[00:38:47] massage doesn't make it right.

[00:38:49] So then it sort of transitions into a moral debate about

[00:38:54] whether that was an OK thing to do.

[00:38:57] And that's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

[00:38:59] That's right.

[00:39:00] You know, I love that scene too when they're in the hallway because

[00:39:03] they approach the door.

[00:39:04] Now, we know that it's early in the morning and and we, you know,

[00:39:08] we've already mentioned that there is a party when you string together the events.

[00:39:12] So this is early in the morning.

[00:39:13] They get there and they're talking.

[00:39:15] And before they knock on the door, he says, oh, no,

[00:39:17] we're still a couple minutes early.

[00:39:19] And I'm like, what does it matter if you're there at seven fifty eight?

[00:39:23] You know, like it matters.

[00:39:25] It really matters.

[00:39:26] There is some code to what they're doing.

[00:39:28] And yeah. No, that's.

[00:39:30] And plus you get the sense that they need to like they didn't leave it resolved.

[00:39:35] They're debating about the meaning of a foot massage, the morality of what he did

[00:39:40] to Tony Rocky Horror.

[00:39:42] Well, actually, that leads into my first scene for the whole

[00:39:45] Uma Thurman scene is my favorite, probably at least this time in the movie.

[00:39:51] You mean the whole segment?

[00:39:53] Yeah, like Jackrabbit Slim's into her apartment.

[00:39:57] So I won't just the first Jackrabbit Slim's scene.

[00:40:03] I'll do as my first one and then the second one will be in the apartment.

[00:40:07] But it captures perfectly like this just kind of awesome date

[00:40:17] where it's sexually charged, but also forbidden.

[00:40:21] There's drugs involved and the drugs are are playing in like actually

[00:40:25] heightening all of that and making everything even cooler than it

[00:40:29] otherwise would seem if you if you weren't on drugs.

[00:40:33] Like there's this really cool moment, I thought, where it's so glamorous, right?

[00:40:38] Uma Thurman is shot most of the time as this kind of almost dream

[00:40:44] woman like just exciting, sexy.

[00:40:48] You can't get any sexier than that.

[00:40:49] And I'm not even like a huge Uma Thurman fan, but just the way she is,

[00:40:53] the way she walks to the bathroom to go do her lines of code and their

[00:40:57] conversations and all that.

[00:40:59] But there's one shot when they're going to they're going up to get their table.

[00:41:04] And she says she says like we have a

[00:41:08] table for two under Wallace.

[00:41:11] It's a car, we have a car.

[00:41:13] And just the way it's shot, you get a glimpse of the reality.

[00:41:17] Like all of a sudden she just looks like some pale, sickly, drugged out

[00:41:23] girl, he just looks like what the fuck is going on?

[00:41:26] You know, like the glamour is he's getting lost.

[00:41:29] He's like, yeah, that actually is also like that just captures the sort of drugged

[00:41:34] out feeling of you don't know where you are exactly.

[00:41:36] This is this seems crazy.

[00:41:38] Like this can't be real almost.

[00:41:39] But just her kind of leaning forward, it gives a glimpse of this isn't all

[00:41:45] as cool as it otherwise will seem.

[00:41:49] And that whole sequence with with Mrs.

[00:41:52] Wallace just alternates between the glamour and the excitement and the sexiness

[00:41:59] of all of it and a more sorted reality that you also get in kind of shocking ways.

[00:42:06] But I just love that whole scene.

[00:42:08] And I love also that in that scene, they totally undercut the whole Tony Rocky

[00:42:13] horror thing like it was this big debate over like the morality of it.

[00:42:18] And it turns out like it almost certainly didn't happen.

[00:42:21] Right. And that is a position I was like, I'm on John Travolta side here.

[00:42:26] You know, it's like, yeah, you know what you said?

[00:42:29] I actually never thought of that, I think because

[00:42:33] seeing the movie from day one, I was sort of had a crush on Uma Thurman,

[00:42:37] who by the way, her father is a Buddhist scholar

[00:42:40] at Columbia.

[00:42:42] I was I once gave a talk at a Buddhist conference there

[00:42:46] with Walter Sinner Armstrong and I was like, oh, shit.

[00:42:49] This is the pops.

[00:42:52] What you said exactly what you said is evident.

[00:42:56] When she comes downstairs from in the house.

[00:43:01] Yeah.

[00:43:02] She's been talking to him through the intercom.

[00:43:05] And she said, you know, she's already looking at this point.

[00:43:09] Super, I think attractive for me.

[00:43:12] You know, she's cool.

[00:43:14] The house is cool.

[00:43:15] She has this fucking cool real to real tape player.

[00:43:18] You know, she has this cool control center.

[00:43:21] She's doing drugs.

[00:43:23] She comes down and she says she's ready.

[00:43:25] And when she says that there's just a shot of her feet.

[00:43:28] Yeah. And the feet are just dirty as fuck.

[00:43:31] Yes, exactly.

[00:43:32] They are just soiled like gross, like gross.

[00:43:35] And that is very consistent with what you said.

[00:43:38] Like, hey, the underbelly of this is.

[00:43:40] Yeah. And also like the reality of this, you know, like,

[00:43:43] I think a lot of time you're looking, we're looking at her through his eyes

[00:43:47] and we're looking at him through her eyes, which are very drug and

[00:43:52] sexually charged influenced.

[00:43:54] And then but every once in a while, we just get a little sense of like how this

[00:43:59] actually looks if you're not there.

[00:44:02] Right.

[00:44:02] Tantin did a great job of making you feel, you know, they're both on drugs,

[00:44:08] but they're on opposite drugs.

[00:44:10] Yeah. He's on heroin.

[00:44:11] She's on cocaine.

[00:44:11] So he's just slowed down.

[00:44:13] That scene when he's driving after he just shot up and he's driving to the restaurant,

[00:44:18] it just makes you want to try.

[00:44:19] I totally hope it is. Yeah.

[00:44:21] I want to do heroin like I don't want to like do it by myself.

[00:44:25] I would definitely kill myself if I tried to figure it out.

[00:44:28] But like if there was someone I totally trusted, I would.

[00:44:33] If a doctor would shoot me up.

[00:44:36] And yeah.

[00:44:37] And then she's just doing blow in the bathroom and in her house.

[00:44:41] And so she's all hyper.

[00:44:42] She's yeah.

[00:44:43] And so their conversation is kind of funny because of that.

[00:44:47] It's right.

[00:44:47] When he's walking around the jackrabbit slims trying to place the actors like

[00:44:54] the lookalikes and it's just so it reminded me a little bit of

[00:45:01] walking into the Chinese, you know, that place where we had the meet up in

[00:45:05] Vancouver and when we first walked up those stairs and I was like, what the

[00:45:09] fuck?

[00:45:10] Those are kicking in.

[00:45:13] For you.

[00:45:14] But I was just as confused.

[00:45:17] Yeah, no, no, totally.

[00:45:18] So that's my first scene.

[00:45:19] I just love that.

[00:45:20] I love the way it captures the magic of that of that kind of date or just

[00:45:25] meeting a person and you're not supposed to be together and that makes it hotter.

[00:45:31] And a lot of it is just awesome.

[00:45:34] Like it's just, you know, it's like an amazing.

[00:45:36] You can't have better, more exciting nights than that.

[00:45:40] I mean, we and we didn't even talk really about the dialogue, but it's really

[00:45:43] interesting dialogue like it's, you know, they're talking about about these social

[00:45:48] dynamics. So the foot massage discussion would have been my second one.

[00:45:53] So the Gold Watch one foot massage.

[00:45:55] So I'll just go to my number three, which I think is it's sort of obvious,

[00:46:00] but it's the the central resolution of the theme, which is the discussion that

[00:46:07] they, Marcells, I'm sorry, Vincent Vega and Jules Winfield have in the cafe at

[00:46:14] the end of the movie. Yeah, that's my scene too.

[00:46:16] Oh yeah.

[00:46:16] So critically of importance is that when they went for the hit, as everybody

[00:46:22] knows who's listening to this, the guy Jerry Seinfeld looking motherfucker

[00:46:27] pops out of the bathroom with like a three fifty seven hand cannon and just shoots,

[00:46:34] I think, unloads like six shots into the wall trying to shoot them.

[00:46:40] This this is an event that that ends up being interpreted very,

[00:46:46] very differently by Travolta versus versus Sam Jackson.

[00:46:51] And that event for Jules Winfield, Sam Jackson is is

[00:46:57] you can't ignore the meaning behind what happened.

[00:47:00] Yeah.

[00:47:00] And this leads to a sort of redemption arc.

[00:47:03] You know, a lot of people think that Pulp Fiction is a movie about redemption,

[00:47:06] which I think kind of is.

[00:47:08] But that is what motivates Jules Winfield.

[00:47:11] He saw a different thing than Travolta saw.

[00:47:14] Travolta saw coincidence.

[00:47:16] He saw Winfield saw an act of God.

[00:47:19] Yeah.

[00:47:20] And so the same event is infused with a very in one case, it's infused

[00:47:24] with meaning in another case, it's just ignored as just part of life.

[00:47:27] God did not come down to stop the bullets for for Vincent Vega,

[00:47:31] but he did for Jules Winfield.

[00:47:33] So he then says that he's going to

[00:47:36] just walk the earth like cane.

[00:47:37] He's giving up his life of crime.

[00:47:40] Have adventures.

[00:47:41] He's having adventures.

[00:47:43] Just the way he's eating a muffin and having that discussion.

[00:47:46] And this should be obvious, but this is also like a reflection of their

[00:47:49] earlier disagreement about whether a foot massage meant anything.

[00:47:53] In that case, Vega thought it did and he thought it didn't.

[00:47:58] Although he came around and in this case,

[00:48:00] it's the opposite where no, this is this is a really meaningful thing that there

[00:48:05] sounds like don't blow this shit off.

[00:48:08] And because it had meaning for Jules

[00:48:11] Winfield and not for Travolta for Vincent Vega,

[00:48:15] Vincent Vega dies.

[00:48:17] Right.

[00:48:18] Presumably, Jules Winfield does not.

[00:48:20] Right. Even though it was before in the movie that's seen as earlier in the movie,

[00:48:24] it is chronologically later.

[00:48:26] Yeah, that's right.

[00:48:27] He dies as he lived reading Madame Bovary on the pot.

[00:48:32] Is that what he was eating?

[00:48:33] Yes.

[00:48:34] I'm always wondering which, by the way, like it just occurred to me this time

[00:48:39] that Flo Baer was famous, you know, the most used, like always searching for

[00:48:43] the perfect word, like he was obsessed with every word had to be perfect.

[00:48:48] And you got to think that's Tarantino thinking I'm like that, too.

[00:48:51] With screenplays like the I have poured over these screen these screenplays and they

[00:48:57] have to be like this is the best.

[00:49:00] This is the perfect way of conveying what I want to convey in this scene.

[00:49:04] Right.

[00:49:06] Right. So also one of my favorite

[00:49:08] conversations in all the movie again is a bit of analytic philosophy about

[00:49:14] the consumption of swine and it's just one of my favorite arguments where

[00:49:20] Troubult essentially I think wins the argument.

[00:49:24] No, man, I don't eat pork.

[00:49:26] Are you Jewish?

[00:49:28] I'm Jewish. I just don't dig on swine.

[00:49:30] That's all. Why not?

[00:49:32] Pig to filthy animals.

[00:49:33] I don't eat filthy animals.

[00:49:35] Yeah, but bacon tastes good.

[00:49:37] Paw chops taste good.

[00:49:38] Hey, sewer ratmen taste like pumpkin pie, but I never know because I wouldn't

[00:49:42] eat the filthy motherfuckers.

[00:49:44] Pig's sleep and root in shit.

[00:49:46] That's a filthy animal.

[00:49:48] I ain't even nothing ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces.

[00:49:51] How about a dog?

[00:49:52] Dog eats his own feces.

[00:49:54] I don't eat dog either.

[00:49:56] Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?

[00:49:59] I wouldn't go so far as to call it dog filthy, but they're definitely dirty.

[00:50:03] But the dog's got personality.

[00:50:05] Personality goes the wrong way.

[00:50:07] So by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality,

[00:50:10] he'd cease to be filthy animal.

[00:50:12] Is that true?

[00:50:13] Well, we have to be talking about one charming motherfucking pig.

[00:50:16] I mean, he had to be 10 times more charming than that

[00:50:18] arna on green ankles. You know what I'm saying?

[00:50:24] Yeah, no, that's a great little.

[00:50:26] That's something that's aged well, even though it was very famous,

[00:50:29] like more than the Royale with cheese stuff.

[00:50:31] Like, yeah, I love that scene.

[00:50:33] I will always love that scene.

[00:50:34] It's hilarious.

[00:50:36] But again, there's a lot of conceptual analysis.

[00:50:39] You know, like what makes what are the necessary

[00:50:41] conditions for a filthy animal and then the counter examples.

[00:50:46] And I mean, it is very funny that is very much a part of their dynamic together.

[00:50:51] And I think part of the theme of the movie is that meaning really matters here.

[00:50:56] It really matters to the all these discussions are almost given cosmic

[00:51:01] importance, even though they're trivial and and getting it right is important

[00:51:06] to these characters.

[00:51:07] The Royale with cheese discussion is like, well, no, they don't call it that

[00:51:11] because they couldn't because they don't have that frame of reference.

[00:51:13] So

[00:51:14] there's also this insistent by Bruce Willis's character to call it a chopper,

[00:51:18] not a motorcycle. Yeah, that's right.

[00:51:19] You know, there's and I think that's part of just the theme.

[00:51:22] Like these things matter.

[00:51:24] They might be trivial in the abstract or with distance, but not to these characters.

[00:51:29] In the diner scene.

[00:51:30] So one of the things I noted in light of our unsatisfying William James

[00:51:34] discussion is so they're debating the now the meaning of what happened.

[00:51:40] The guy missing them with the right to three fifty seven.

[00:51:44] And he says, look, like we didn't see the same thing.

[00:51:49] You saw an act of God.

[00:51:50] I saw like a freak accident.

[00:51:52] And then Jules says you're looking at this the wrong way, whether or not it's

[00:51:57] a true like according to Hoyle miracle doesn't matter.

[00:52:02] What matters is I felt the touch of God.

[00:52:05] And so he's saying actually like the right way to look at it isn't in this kind

[00:52:10] of, I don't know, Bayesian way where you evaluate your priors and figure out

[00:52:16] what's the most likely reason why the guy missed me.

[00:52:20] It's that there was something that I felt lived experience.

[00:52:25] Lived experience exactly.

[00:52:27] It was a precursor to Dan point of epistemology.

[00:52:31] I guess standpoint of this launch.

[00:52:32] Right. Right. No.

[00:52:33] And and this is starting to divide

[00:52:36] Trevolta from from Jackson where

[00:52:42] he's even saying whether or not it's an according to Hoyle miracle where,

[00:52:47] you know, according to Hoyle being about,

[00:52:50] I guess, a rule book for how to play cards.

[00:52:53] People would appeal to the strict rules to see whether or not he made a right move.

[00:52:59] He's saying, no, I'm letting go of that concrete, that that interpretation.

[00:53:04] You you can have your debates about about these things.

[00:53:07] But but I know what's true.

[00:53:09] Yeah, for sure.

[00:53:10] And then the whole stuff with Honey Bunny and who's also fucking annoying Amanda

[00:53:15] Plum. Oh, she's terrible.

[00:53:16] Yeah, she's she's really bad.

[00:53:18] I feel bad for the women aside from Uma Thurman.

[00:53:21] Like I feel bad for the women in this movie.

[00:53:25] They are not given.

[00:53:26] And you know, Tarantino I think learned

[00:53:29] Jackie Browns's next movie and that's a great female character and

[00:53:35] and a great movie.

[00:53:36] But you don't like as Braille de Villalobos, I guess.

[00:53:40] I didn't.

[00:53:41] And you know me with like with Latinas, I'm a fan for the most part.

[00:53:47] Her accent is so fake, by the way.

[00:53:50] Her Spanish accent.

[00:53:51] It's like killing him.

[00:53:53] You know, it's just stupid.

[00:53:55] Yeah, I mean, this is anyway.

[00:53:57] So yeah, all right, so I'll do my last scene then.

[00:53:59] So it's when they come back to Uma Thurman's house and Uma Thurman

[00:54:04] right now is clearly so fucked up and so just high and happy from winning the

[00:54:09] dance contest. We didn't even talk about the dance dancing.

[00:54:12] But that was pretty great.

[00:54:13] And so she's just in this mode where we're going to party like, you know,

[00:54:18] and I think Travolta realizes and probably rightly like if I want to have

[00:54:22] sex with her right now, I can.

[00:54:24] And he goes to the bathroom and he has this great scene in the mirror where he's

[00:54:28] talking to himself and trying to convince himself not to do that.

[00:54:32] So like at first he's just like, you know, this is, you know, this is you can't do

[00:54:36] this. You have to have one drink, one drink, go home and then you see Uma

[00:54:40] Thurman again and then it goes back to him.

[00:54:42] Now he's looking in another different mirror.

[00:54:44] He turns to the other mirror.

[00:54:46] This is a moral test of oneself, whether or not you can maintain loyalty

[00:54:51] because being loyal is very important.

[00:54:54] It's a great like trying to convince himself.

[00:54:57] And it is like all of these characters have a code that they try to live by.

[00:55:02] And you know, honor is definitely runs through all the different narratives

[00:55:08] of this movie and sticking to.

[00:55:10] I mean, talk about like the the the keying of the car.

[00:55:14] Yeah, exactly.

[00:55:15] That is just the ultimate fucked up bitch move like to disrespect some.

[00:55:19] That's that kind of disrespect.

[00:55:20] It will almost be worth it that he did it for me to have caught him.

[00:55:23] It's like stealing a horse, you know, in Westerns.

[00:55:27] Like it's just the worst possible thing you can do.

[00:55:29] It's obviously you just get executed right away like you hung or whatever is shot.

[00:55:33] And of course, like even Jules having quit his life of crime,

[00:55:41] it still has to give the briefcase to Marcel because it's his briefcase.

[00:55:45] That's right. Right.

[00:55:46] So that's why he gets involved in that showdown, even though he doesn't want his money.

[00:55:51] And that's why he gets involved in the showdown with Tim Roth.

[00:55:55] But yeah, I love that mirror scene.

[00:55:57] I love that it you know, this is a moral dilemma for him and he's had this.

[00:56:01] Yeah, awesome time.

[00:56:02] And one of the things that can happen at the end of these nights is like great.

[00:56:08] Just awesome sex, just exciting, new, forbidden sex.

[00:56:12] And then like he chooses not to do it.

[00:56:15] It turns out he couldn't have anyway, but yeah,

[00:56:18] but he's resolved by the end.

[00:56:20] You know, he comes out, he's saying, I'm going to go home now.

[00:56:22] He's not even having the drink because he knows he's read John Doris.

[00:56:28] You know, if he has one more drink, you never know.

[00:56:32] Yeah, no, no, that's great.

[00:56:33] No, I mean, it's interesting.

[00:56:35] Both of these movies are have this

[00:56:38] virtue, ethics versus like deontological

[00:56:42] principle thing running through it.

[00:56:44] And, you know, Walter is the ultimate deontologist.

[00:56:48] He's all about rules and I don't think so.

[00:56:52] I don't think so.

[00:56:52] But but we can talk about that.

[00:56:54] Yeah, I'd be interested to see he definitely has rules.

[00:56:59] And he's very obsessed with rules and following rules and the principles.

[00:57:03] And yeah, I mean, he bends the rules to conform to.

[00:57:07] But yeah, and for this movie, it is sometimes about deontological or act based

[00:57:13] kinds of dilemmas like, do you throw Tony Rocky Horror off the roof after he gave

[00:57:18] a foot massage is that a proportionate response?

[00:57:21] Right.

[00:57:22] And then sometimes it's about character like loyalty.

[00:57:25] Right.

[00:57:25] Right.

[00:57:26] Right.

[00:57:26] Right.

[00:57:27] And and Marcel Small said if he did throw

[00:57:30] rock Tony Rocky Horror, it was in service of his reputation and his character as somebody

[00:57:36] who follows through.

[00:57:40] Well, I mean, I think the debate though was over like you don't fuck with a man's

[00:57:43] wife, like you just don't no matter who it is, you don't like you don't.

[00:57:48] That's right.

[00:57:49] That's why I'm saying the proportionality isn't wouldn't be important to Marcel

[00:57:53] as Wallace, it would be communicating that this is yeah.

[00:57:58] This I mean, you could call that I guess a rule, but it seems more like a character

[00:58:03] like a I didn't see it that way, that he would have done it for his reputation to

[00:58:07] jack up his reputation.

[00:58:09] I saw it more as that was either proportional or not.

[00:58:15] Oh yeah.

[00:58:16] Well, I don't think I don't think that he did it

[00:58:19] purposefully as a way to to

[00:58:23] save his reputation.

[00:58:24] I think this is the character of Marcel's walls, which is exactly what's

[00:58:29] communicated with that sort of thing.

[00:58:30] That is that is who he is.

[00:58:32] You don't fuck with him or anything that he does because you never know.

[00:58:35] And yet you don't get the sense that he threw off the roof because of the foot.

[00:58:40] No, that's right.

[00:58:40] Me is pretty clear on that, that that's not something he would do.

[00:58:46] I love when he hands down the decision at the end to Bruce Willis.

[00:58:48] He's like, what about what now?

[00:58:50] And this is what now goes through the whole thing.

[00:58:52] But he says no, no, I meant about you and me.

[00:58:54] What now?

[00:58:54] He's like, oh, what that what now you have all your LA proof.

[00:58:58] Just a revoked.

[00:58:59] There is no you and me.

[00:59:00] There is no you and me.

[00:59:02] I'd be great to just be able to revoke someone's whole city wide.

[00:59:06] There was so much betrayal there.

[00:59:09] Yeah, but he did come like it was a redemption.

[00:59:12] Again, if this is about redemption, he redeemed himself to Marcel's satisfaction.

[00:59:20] That's right.

[00:59:21] That decision was the true, the true character of Bruce Willis.

[00:59:26] So one of the so it's interesting that neither of us talked about the Winston

[00:59:29] Wolf scene almost at all.

[00:59:33] And I think it is one of the scenes that I might have enjoyed the most when I first

[00:59:39] saw it and have subsequently enjoyed it less.

[00:59:42] Not I still it's still fun, you know, it's a fun scene, but it's

[00:59:46] it loses a little bit on the rewatch.

[00:59:50] Whereas it was just so fun to see Harvey Keitel do that.

[00:59:54] It was just so funny.

[00:59:55] The idea of it, the placement of it in the movie is is perfect.

[00:59:59] Right.

[01:00:00] The character, you know, you almost want to see a day in the life of the wolf.

[01:00:05] Like what does this guy do?

[01:00:07] He gets paid a lot of money to like tell these guys to like clean up their car.

[01:00:11] But he's he's he's a fascinating character.

[01:00:14] And yeah, I think it's an enter.

[01:00:15] I'm entertained by the scene, although I'm you know,

[01:00:19] Quentin Tarantino is annoying.

[01:00:21] He's I don't know why he insists on putting himself in his own movies.

[01:00:27] And like pissing off Spike Lee.

[01:00:29] Yeah, using that word.

[01:00:32] It's interesting.

[01:00:33] I don't like what Travolta's character becomes in that he's kind of little

[01:00:38] whiny bitch, you know, and so it doesn't seem to me like, you know,

[01:00:44] but he's but but he feels disrespected by the wolf and the wolf

[01:00:48] in order to get it done, he's like, fine, pretty cool.

[01:00:50] The chair on top. I'll respect you.

[01:00:51] Go fucking finish your job.

[01:00:53] Right. Yeah.

[01:00:53] No, I mean, that's another way that honor is such a theme in this is

[01:00:57] everybody is trying to demonstrate respect when it's appropriate.

[01:01:02] And even Vincent, who you're right,

[01:01:05] is being kind of a brat in those scenes because he feels disrespected

[01:01:10] because he doesn't like people barking orders at him.

[01:01:12] He still like prefaces his complaint with I respect you like I don't mean

[01:01:18] any disrespect right every and and and when Jules is pissed off at him.

[01:01:23] He's like, look, I respect you.

[01:01:25] I'm not saying you can't do it.

[01:01:26] That's right.

[01:01:27] Don't put me in this situation.

[01:01:28] So it's like everybody has to like demonstrate that this isn't a sign of disrespect

[01:01:34] because if you don't, then the whole thing explodes.

[01:01:37] You know, that's right. Yeah.

[01:01:40] Well, good. We managed to fit that conversation in.

[01:01:45] You know, poor what's his face who gets shot?

[01:01:47] Marvin gets shot in the car and and it's unexpected.

[01:01:51] You know, it's it's demarcated by this very unexpected

[01:01:55] shooting, accidental shooting.

[01:01:57] And there's a problem that it is close to a real plot.

[01:02:00] Like, I mean,

[01:02:03] the go watch as a plot to but this

[01:02:06] this is a story that you're wrapped up in.

[01:02:08] No, and it's funny because it interrupts that whole scene, interrupts the theological debate.

[01:02:15] Right. You know, even as he's shooting him by accident,

[01:02:20] he's saying like, I mean, you really think this was divine intervention?

[01:02:25] Marvin's like, I don't even have an opinion.

[01:02:27] Right. The juxtaposition.

[01:02:29] I don't know if I've thought of it that way, but the juxtaposition of,

[01:02:32] hey, God is involved in our lives.

[01:02:35] He stopped the bullet and then you have a senseless accidental killing.

[01:02:38] To me, that's just, you know, point scored on Vincent, Vincent Vega's argument

[01:02:44] where it's like, no, man, this shit just happens.

[01:02:46] It's just random.

[01:02:47] It was an accident that you didn't get hit.

[01:02:49] It was an accident that poor Marvin got hit.

[01:02:53] And then as soon as that situation has resolved, they go back to the theological

[01:02:57] like in the 90s.

[01:02:59] It's just killed a motherfucker randomly.

[01:03:02] The one thing that Tarantino using the N word in that way,

[01:03:06] we've talked about this before, so we don't have to dwell on it.

[01:03:09] But him them showing that little clip of the wife coming home

[01:03:13] and she's black is kind of a it's kind of a cop out because it's just not

[01:03:18] in the style of the rest of the movie.

[01:03:19] There's no other part of the movie that just has this quick, like hypothetical

[01:03:23] counterfactual like flashback, you know, like it's like, well, I really want to say

[01:03:29] the n word, so what can I do in the world of Pulp Fiction?

[01:03:33] Just I'd love to know if that was in the original script or if like he was

[01:03:38] convinced to do that.

[01:03:40] Yeah, I don't know.

[01:03:42] This whole movie is very in your face and it's Quentin Tarantino yelling at

[01:03:46] you, look at my good movie.

[01:03:48] Yeah, which I don't mind, but he's very super different stylistically in that sense

[01:03:53] from from, you know, I would not have known that The Big Lebowski was a good

[01:03:57] movie the first time I watched it.

[01:03:58] In fact, that prevented me from watching it repeatedly because I was like, yeah,

[01:04:02] it was OK, like nothing happened, but it was OK.

[01:04:05] Yeah, no, you have to get kind of I as the same way.

[01:04:08] I think

[01:04:10] like the majority of people who've seen The Big Lebowski and who love it have

[01:04:13] that experience with it.

[01:04:15] And nobody has that experience with Pulp Fiction.

[01:04:18] My guess is if you didn't like Pulp Fiction the first time, you probably didn't

[01:04:22] like it in subsequent times.

[01:04:25] Yeah, I mean, this is definitely one of the things that separates it.

[01:04:30] You want to just talk more generally.

[01:04:33] I mean, I don't have any big things.

[01:04:35] I've said what I think the weaknesses are.

[01:04:38] I think yeah, I think this movie has some bad scenes.

[01:04:41] The scene where Maria Bruce Willis's wife, girlfriend is

[01:04:46] is and she's talking about her pot.

[01:04:49] And no, it's just her.

[01:04:51] It's really, really bad.

[01:04:53] Yeah.

[01:04:54] And I don't like the cab driver scene, although I probably was fine with it.

[01:04:59] Yeah, the first time the cab driver scene felt to me a little bit like

[01:05:03] homage to some of these earlier noir's because, you know, he's in the car

[01:05:06] and he has like the the projection screen in the back.

[01:05:10] And it feels like he's trying to do like, you know, again,

[01:05:15] you wonder, well, what's Esmeralda de Villalobos's character all about?

[01:05:19] Like who is this woman driving a cab?

[01:05:23] And she doesn't annoy me nearly as much as the French the French woman.

[01:05:27] And also, honey, Amanda Plummer.

[01:05:30] Oh, poor. Yeah.

[01:05:32] Aside from Uma Thurman, this is all about the man and even in the movie

[01:05:37] Uma Thurman segment, it's also the narrative, the big moral decision,

[01:05:43] the character building moment is Travolta's.

[01:05:47] Yeah, like the next stretch of movies for Tarantino all have strong central

[01:05:54] central characters as women, right?

[01:05:57] The kill bills and and in Glorious Basterds, right?

[01:06:03] And then even the the one that he did with Robert Rodriguez,

[01:06:08] you know, the central characters in both of those segments were all women.

[01:06:12] Right.

[01:06:13] And it's like he's like redemption for his first two movies,

[01:06:16] which didn't have women.

[01:06:18] Yeah.

[01:06:19] Essentially.

[01:06:19] And I mean, in the context of his work, all of his works,

[01:06:22] I tend to forgive him for that.

[01:06:25] Like, you know, there are movies that are going to have male leads.

[01:06:27] And sometimes it's about that given what you say about all the other

[01:06:31] things that he's done with the women characters in his other movies.

[01:06:35] I'm like, this is just a mob, you know, some sort of mobster template movie

[01:06:39] where women just weren't characters.

[01:06:41] Yeah, totally.

[01:06:42] No, and I actually think Tarantino,

[01:06:45] given how how male directors tend not to feature strong women at the very

[01:06:51] center of their stories like Tarantino has done it more than almost anybody.

[01:06:57] Wow. OK.

[01:06:58] Look, we're well over an hour here and we haven't talked about

[01:07:01] the big Lebowski at all.

[01:07:03] You want to make this a two parter?

[01:07:05] I think that's what we need to do.

[01:07:07] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:07:08] No, I think I think that's a good idea.

[01:07:09] And then we can

[01:07:12] talk about Big Lebowski in the next episode and settle which of these two

[01:07:17] definitively is the better movie.

[01:07:21] Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure we'll come to an agreement there.

[01:07:24] All right.

[01:07:25] See you next time on Bear Back with Bear Back.

[01:07:46] And with no more brains than you have.

[01:07:54] Hey, anybody can have a brain.

[01:08:03] Very bad man.

[01:08:07] I'm a very good man.

[01:08:09] Just a very bad wizard.