Pulp Fiction: Stop at 3 minutes and 45 seconds and take a good look at this detail that proves Tarantino had it all figured out!

Released in theaters 30 years ago, Pulp Fiction can still amaze us because it’s full of details! Quentin Tarantino’s Palme d’Or-winning masterpiece remains a gold mine for movie lovers and a great classic for the general public.

If you are familiar with the film, you already know that the narrative is not linear. The director took the liberty of dividing Pulp Fiction into several chapters, playing with temporality as a novelist might. Thus, the first scene of the feature film takes us straight to the end before the flashback takes place.

This scene is a coffee shop discussion between Pumpkin, played by Tim Roth, and Honey Bunny, played by Amanda Plummer. A couple sits at a table and devises a plan to rob an establishment. As is Tarantino’s custom, the dialogue is elaborate and the actors inhabit their roles.

Open your eyes!

The audience therefore allows these lyrical flights to focus on the faces of the protagonists, shot in reverse. Now that the context is set, pause the shot at 3 minutes and 45 seconds and look closely at the left of the screen, just above Honey Bunny’s shoulder.

We see a man with shoulder length hair wearing a white shirt walking in the background. Doesn’t this remind you of anything? Obviously, if we are watching the film for the first time, we will not know who this person is. At best, we just think of an average extra player playing a bar customer, at worst, we don’t notice anything at all.

But if we’ve already seen the movie and have a non-linear narrative in mind, we’ll realize that the person walking through the frame is none other than Vincent Vega, aka John Travolta! Tarantino has thought of everything!

Indeed, with the opening and closing of the film in this order, it makes sense to see the character here (his death in the middle of the story occurs after this scene, requiring non-linear temporality). He goes to the bathroom, as he tells Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in the final scene.

A remarkable result

Afterward, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny get their guns and rob the coffee shop’s customers, especially Jules and Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase. Jules manages to get hold of the pumpkin’s gun and is then robbed by his excited accomplice.

Vincent then comes out of the bathroom and suddenly grabs Honey Bunny, hands him a gun, creating a situation that Tarantino is very fond of, a Mexican standoff or a Mexican standoff (that is, a situation in which at least three people or groups of individuals are threatening each other).

“Jules, if you give this madman your money, I’ll shoot him, it’s a matter of principle!”He will say to the one next to him, who will finally decide to take the life of the robbers. Pulp Fiction then ends with Jules and Vincent leaving.

We understand that after a discussion between the two and considering the non-linear nature of the story, Jules will retire from the business and Vincent will continue to work at Marcellus. His mission: to track down Butch, a boxer played by Bruce Willis (who kills him while he’s on the toilet).