Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Intertextuality in the Cinematic Production of Quenti
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Erik Tóth Intertextuality in the Cinematic Production of Quentin Tarantino Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. 2011 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………… 2 Acknowledgements In the first place, I would like to express my gratitude and respect to my supervisor, doc. Tomáš Pospíšil, for his initial inspiration, patient guidance and kind help which he has provided during the writing of the thesis. I would also like to thank my parents for their love and heartful support during the whole course of my studies. A special thanx belongs to Lucie Hofmannová without whose belief, motivation and encouragement this work could have never been finished. 3 Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1: Intertextuality .................................................................................................. 7 Chapter II: Quentin Tarantino – The Uncrowned King of Intertextuality ...................... 13 Chapter III: Pulp Fiction – An Intertextual Feast ........................................................... 17 3.1 Synopsis ................................................................................................................ 18 3.2 Intertextuality in Pulp Fiction ............................................................................... 21 3.2.1 Pulp fiction ..................................................................................................... 22 3.2.2 Jack Rabbit Slim‟s ......................................................................................... 23 3.2.3 Direct Referencing ......................................................................................... 28 3.2.4 Recycling Famous Lines ................................................................................ 32 3.2.5 Scenes and Shots ............................................................................................ 34 3.2.6 Holland ........................................................................................................... 37 3.2.7 Other .............................................................................................................. 37 3.2.8 Connections to Other Tarantino‟s Movies ..................................................... 41 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 44 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 47 Résumés .......................................................................................................................... 51 4 Introduction When doing a research on intertextuality in the movies of Quentin Tarantino I discovered a great lack of plausible work on this point of issue. I found this rather intriguing as intertextuality has become a crucial term in cultural studies of the 2nd half of the 20th century and Tarantino – one of the most influential figures of contemporary Hollywood – fills his movies up with intertextual references. I would go as far as to call it a Tarantinoesque1 trademark of the 1990s. There is no other screenwriter or director who would wittingly accumulate so much allusion2 in his work. With this thesis I am going to attempt closing this unjustifiable gap in cultural studies and give an overview on the use and importance of intertextuality in the cinematic production of Quentin Tarantino. The first chapter deals with the theoretical perception of intertextuality. I will look on the brief history of this term, overview several theoretical approaches and various meanings by different scholars and finally choose the most fitting theory for analyzing a Tarantinoesque motion picture. The life of Quentin Tarantino is on the scope in chapter 2. I will try to find and highlight any possible influences that might have been important in forming his cinematographic style. Based on numerous interviews, essays, reviews, bibliographies or actor statements on his behalf, I will show how Tarantino‟s life is truly interwoven with intertextuality. The last chapter will concentrate solely on the peak of Tarantino‟s carrier – Pulp Fiction. The purpose of this chapter is to find and analyze any trace of intertextuality Tarantino might have placed or hidden in this film. I am going to discuss what function 1 A widespread term in cinematography; an adjective used to describe anything (movie/a dialogue/a scene) which is reminiscent of the works of Quentin Tarantino 2 Allusion, reference and many other similar terms all come under a more general term, which, by some critics (whose theories will be presented further) may be referred to as intertextuality 5 intertextuality possesses in Pulp Fiction becoming the ultimate cult movie. Finally I will summarize the most important points of the thesis answering the question what role intertextuality plays in the popularity of Quentin Tarantino. The purpose of this thesis is neither a theoretical analysis of the concept of intertextuality, nor writing a bibliography on the life of Quentin Tarantino, but simply to give a thorough analysis of Pulp Fiction as an intertextual masterpiece inside an intertextual frame on Tarantinoesque background. 6 Chapter I Intertextuality “We create our texts out of the sea of former texts that surround us, the sea of language we live in.” (Charles Bazerman) Before being able to start any analysis of the importance and use of intertextuality for Quentin Tarantino or the role its specific instances play in Pulp Fiction, there is an inevitable need to define this widespread term and find the most suitable place it stands in the world of art, especially cinematography. This need emerges as there is no clear and unified definition of intertextuality, as the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users.” (Irwin, 228) Thus this chapter is going to outline the various theoretical approaches linguists and critics have taken in the definition of this term. Ultimately this should lead to the most applicable definition of Tarantinoesque intertextuality and help the reader get a better understanding of the meaning of this term in cultural, namely cinematic studies. A possible starting point would be to look at the most common and accessible sources of word definition for the common people – dictionaries. Surprisingly, the only prominent dictionary that has an entry for the searched word „intertextuality‟ is Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. The definition goes as follows: “the complex interrelationship between a text and other texts taken as basic to the creation or interpretation of the text” – which might be referential, but by no means sufficient. The phrase „complex relationship‟ is vague to say the least. To get a greater understanding of the term, we must trace its theoretical origins. I put a strong emphasis on the world theoretical, because practically, as we will see further in this chapter, 7 intertextuality is as old as art itself. To find the origins of the concept of intertextuality one must trace back so far as the beginning of the 20th century to the structuralist linguistic movement. The renowned Saussurean semiotics3 stressed the importance of the relationship of signs to each other (a sign as a whole of two components – the signifier and the signified) within the structure of a text. These concepts where extended by the poststructuralist theorists, represented by a Bulgarian-French literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist and philosopher Julia Kristeva4. She claimed that “every text is from the outset under the jurisdiction of other discourses which impose a universe on it” (qtd. in Culler, 105), meaning that every text5 is a collection of references to other texts without which this text could not exist. She referred to texts in terms of 2 axis: a horizontal axis – connecting the author and reader of a text, and a vertical axis, which connects the text to other texts6. Kristeva was greatly influenced by a Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin and his theory of dialogism - “examination of the multiple meanings, or „heteroglossia‟, in each text and word (Irwin, 228).” According to him every text is in a kind of constant dialogue with other texts. As dialogue is never single-line, but it is based on interaction and response, the previous text is just as influenced by the new one as it applies the other way around. To add to this, Kristeva points out that meaning is never transposed straightly from the author to the reader of a text, but „filtered through codes adopted and modified both by the author and the reader‟ (Holý, 20) as the result of any experience 3 The Saussurean semiotics are the fundamental semiotic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) 4 Kristeva is now a professor at University Paris Diderot and became internationally recognized as an influential critic after publishing her first book Semiotiké published in 1969. And that is the book, where she coined the term intertextuality. [wiki] 5 We must consider a wider meaning of the general term „text‟, which refers to not only literature but any kind of art – music, painting, drama, and thus film as well. 6 John Fiske, a Danish film theoretician, extended