Now one way in which Tarantino managed this successfully was to use storylines that everyone was familiar but to add a twist to them.
He used the 'date' with Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega, the boxer who is supposed to throw the fight and doesn't and the two gangsters on their way to the job.
Each of these stories takes an unexpected turn and this is where Tarantino manages to add his humour. In the beginning of these narratives we catch a small glimpse of the unexpected - the humour that is to come, but not until the story has unfolded are we able to appreciate his humour in all its glory.
In the beginning of the film we see Vincent and Jules on their way to a job, and although wearing the expected dark suits they are talking about hamburgers. Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction' very much focuses on the dialogue, and it’s the central area of the film, the dialogue moves the film along, rather than what we actually see. The contrast of stereotypical gangsters and mundane conversation brings together juxtaposition, shouldn't they be planning their escape or how they are going to kill them? Instead the topic of what a hamburger is called in Paris comes up and we find ourselves smiling at the utmost sincerity in the way they are talking about it, but the strange feeling that its not right, it doesn't fit. Tarantino manages to give the stereotypical gangster an atypical line, which results in a humourous conversation. He also uses intertextuality throughout the film, this hamburger conversation is reminiscent of Jim and Huckleberry Finn’s conversation about why the French don’t speak English.
The topic of foot massages comes up and it appears that Marsellus threw a guy out of the window for massaging his wife’s feet. Vincent readily admits this is an acceptable way of dealing with the situation, while Jules finds it slightly extreme. The sheer thought of being thrown out of a window for massaging someone’s feet is unthinkable to us, and the shock we experience turns into humour.
The juxtaposition of the normal and the stereotypical create a humourous product; Tarantino puts stereotypical genre characters into real-life situations and makes them play by the rules. This is totally untypical and subverts the genre of gangster films because gangsters are known for doing what they want, when they want and getting away with it. This subversion allows Tarantino to add humour in the contrast of the expected gangster and the one we are seeing on screen in his films.
While they are having this conversation Jules and Vincent are walking down a long corridor towards the apartment, the camera follows them and the scene is done in one long take. Once they reach the apartment they decide it not yet time and walk past continuing their discussion. Interestingly the camera stays with the apartment and pans to see them walking away from it. This builds tension as the camera is acknowledging that the apartment is the number one priority, it is impatient to get inside but Jules and Vincent are still talking further down the hall. Although this builds tension, I also think it builds humour, the way in which they check their watches we assume it is to synchronise their time but it is actually to allow the people inside a little more time, as if it is indecent to go in before seven thirty. The casual way in which they saunter past the door and carry on their conversation starts the stirrings of amusement; they are being represented as decent and polite. They knock on the door, give them a little extra time this all contradicts what we have previously encountered with gangster’s, Tarantino plays with the unexpected.
We then come to the ‘Bonnie Situation’; this is probably one of the most famous humourous scenes in the film. After the job Jules and Vincent have picked up Marvin, from the previous job, and are driving to see Marsellus at his bar. In the previous scene Jules and Vincent are shot at repeatedly and theoretically they should be dead. Vincent is convinced it is pure good luck but Jules seems to think that ‘divine intervention’ had something to do with it. This has changed his perceptive of his job and is convinced that that was his second chance. Vincent thinks this is totally unbelievable and says so to Jules. The continuous banter between them makes for entertaining viewing, what they are talking about seems ridiculous, God gave a ‘gangster’, who has probably killed his fair share of people, a second chance, does this not seem wrong?
Vincent turns to Marvin in the back seat and enquires to whether he has a view on what Jules is saying, but before he has a chance to answer his head is blown of buy Vincent’s gun. We see blood and brain matter explode all over Vincent’s face, the rear and front windows and Jules. The unbelievable violence portrayed shocks the audience, but before they have a chance to react Jules goes mad at Vincent but Vincent just says it was an accident and they must have gone over a bump or something. The juxtaposition of talking about God and ‘Divine Intervention’ contrasted with the extreme violence of having your head blown apart begins to appear funny.
The way Vincent has been reduced to a naughty boy and Jules is the enraged parent creates a scene completely unexpected but uproariously hilarious. The pure look of shock on Vincent’s face after it happened and the incomprehension on Jules makes the audience laugh even more and as Jules begins to take charge, realising they can’t drive along a main road with blood all over the windows, Vincent is rendered a sulking teenager. The audience’s ability to read the scene allows the humour to be as funny as it is. This is due to how the genre has evolved, audiences are now able to read messages that the media sends out to them, they can appreciate NVC (non-verbal communication), the looks between characters. Because of stereotypes and codes and conventions the audience understands what a dark alley signifies, or what a man in a dark suit and hat implies. The encoding and decoding theory supports this. Previously, in the time of ‘The Godfather’ the hypodermic syringe theory was more popular, the audience would all react the same way, things had to be more obvious as stereotypes were not well established. The audience then was unable to read the media as we are able to now in the present day.
The conclusion to this scene involves Tarantino himself, Jules and Vincent drive to Jimmy’s house (Jules’ partner – Tarantino) to clean up the car and get rid of the body. Vincent and Jules are reduced to incompetent little boys who don’t know what to do. They have to enlist help from ‘The Wolf’ to help them clean up.
Jimmy begins to get irate because his wife will be home soon and as he rightly said it does not say “dead nigger storage” on his garage door, so what are they doing here? Jules and Vincent begin to argue because as Jules remembers it, wasn’t Vincent the one who shot Marvin and so why was he cleaning up the brain matter from the seats, Jules suggests a change of roles. This whole conversation again shows the incompetence of them and how similar they are to teenagers who fight about who should be doing which chore.
We then come to the ‘date’ between Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega; Vincent has to make Mia happy but must be extremely careful not to be attracted because she is his boss’ wife. They go to an American diner and get up on stage to dance. This complete subversion of the stereotypical gangster is hilarious, we have a mean, killing gangster who is doing the twist in his socks in a diner. The unexpectedness of this leads to amusement as we watch him twist and do some moves from the Charleston. The evening ends as they return to Mia’s house, she finds what she thinks is cocaine in Vincent’s, but in reality it is a mix of cocaine and heroin. When Vincent returns he finds Mia comatose on the chair, she has OD’d.
They rush to the dealers house and on arriving Mia is unceremoniously dumped on the floor. The dealer’s girlfriend swans around yelling at her boyfriend about the time, etc, even though she has a dying girl lying on her carpet. The dealer’s tries to find his first aid kid in a room filled with rubbish and when he finally finds it rushes to Mia. They both sit there staring at the enormous hypodermic needle they are supposed to stick in her heart, debating whether to actually do it or not. After arguing who gets the pleasure, it is decided that perhaps Vincent should do it. As he plunges the needle into her Mia bolts upright and skids across the floor, only to look down and say “Why have I got a needle in my chest?” The sigh of relief is almost audible and although this should seem a horrific scene the way the characters casually converse changes the whole perspective. The mad girlfriend apparently not having a care in the world that there could be a dead body on her carpet at any minute, the fact no one has a clue how to solve the problem and the casual way in which the problem is resolved lead to an amusing scene.
Guy Ritchie also uses humour in his films and although continually compared to Tarantino he can never quite achieve the masterpieces that Tarantino did. ‘Snatch’ is along the same lines as ‘Lock, Stock…’ it is a humourous gangster film depicting a gangster’s life. This is typical of the gangster genre and Tarantino also did this by looking into ‘a day in the gangster’s life’.
‘Snatch’ focuses on Turkish and his shenanigans, it doesn’t really have a protagonist but a diversity of stock characters instead, and they make up the main cast, recognizable actors playing dodgy characters.
Many people liken Ritchie to Tarantino, I do not feel that there is much resemblance between the two of them, apart from the fact that they use humour. Ritchie may be accused of using Tarantino’s ideas and narrative structure but that is what genre is about: taking the most successful aspects and evolving it into your own piece of work. However, if Ritchie did use Tarantino as a base for his product he did not do him justice, ‘Pulp Fiction’ is much more in depth, it has many hidden meanings that you discover each time you watch it, ‘Snatch’ however is superficial, there is nothing beneath the surface. To be fair this is a film that was written to be amusing and not necessarily to be thought provoking. It is a release, you are able to understand it and appreciate the humour without having to understand on all its (few) levels, it is a piece of entertainment.
There are similarities in the dialogue and screenplay between Pulp Fiction and Snatch, for instance the boxer who doesn’t throw the fight. The conversation between Turkish and Tommy about milk, similar to that of the conversation about hamburgers.
One way in which ‘Snatch’ becomes funny, is the speed in which everything happens. Ritchie is known for his freeze framing, zooming in and out from his previous music videos. He employs these techniques here and the result is a scene, which moves so fast that lines have to be funny on the surface or the audience wouldn’t catch them.
Along with this increase in style came a decrease in substance. Flip to MTV nowadays and see images that have nothing to do with each other flash across the screen in rapid succession. A mood is created, nothing more. That's why it's refreshing to see Guy Ritchie take these "MTV-style" techniques and actually try to tell a story with them. It's not the Godfather, but it's a step in the right direction with the final destination being a work of art.
Snatch is a 2 hour music video. Sequences set to music make up a large part of the film. Some are inane, some are adrenaline-pumping. You can't help but get caught up in the spirit of some of these moments. For example, the title sequence. We are quickly introduced to all the characters in a spasm of visual exuberance which includes whip-pans, slow motion, freeze frames, strobe effects...if you've seen in it a music video, Ritchie does it in the first 5 minutes of Snatch. The introduction of the characters goes by much too fast for us to glean any meaningful information about them; all we are offered is their names and even those we forget by the time the sequence is over. But the mood is set and we know we are in for a romp. Hell, if you wanted to give Ritchie some credit, you could say that he was trying to plant little tidbits in our subconscious that would come to fruition later in the movie...but I'm not sure if I'm willing to give him that credit just yet.
I just want to talk a bit about the concept of an unintelligible Brad Pitt in a movie. The idea of putting a $20 million-a-flick guy in a movie and not only have every other word he says be indecipherable but also have him dirtied up and his face pounded to a pulp multiple times...the idea just appeals to me. A somewhat bold choice for Pitt (especially considering that the last movie he did as a shirtless bareknuckle fighter flopped) and a big F-you to the general audience. How many people were tricked into seeing Snatch thinking it was a Brad Pitt vehicle? I guess we'll know after seeing the opening weekend numbers.
The story builds on a series of coincidences and happenings until all the characters' lives intersect in wild and crazy ways. I know "these strange things happen all the time," but by the end it stretches one's credulity to the very limit. But that isn't really the point. We're supposed to bask in the cleverness of the direction and the cleverness of the scr1pt...the cleverness of the whole darn thing. The movie is an orgiastic display of flashy cinematic devices meant to excite us; 3 second flashes of Benicio Del Toro's character's obsession with gambling and the quick zoom into a close-up of a gun reading "Desert Eagle .50" elicited squeals of delight and applause from a section of the audience I was in. We also revel in the oh-so-witty characters who spout off Seinfeld-like (see? Not Pulp Fictionesque) diatribes about things like how milk goes against the evolutionary process of humans.
It seems as if the story was created with Ritchie and a bunch of his buddies sitting around, each one elaborating on the story while being fairly inebriated. It just builds and builds and builds until it hits the 1 hour 30 minute mark and some punch-lines need to be supplied. What we are left with is a mishmash film in which substance takes a backseat to style. All we take with us from the movie is memories of cool split-screen shots and beautiful freeze frames but we can't outline the story if our lives depended on it. And hell if we're not fine with that. I mean "Here is Snatch...and Why Not?" Coming out of Snatch, we are jazzed and ready to get into some bareknuckled fights. It has provided a not wholly unpleasant 2 hours of enjoyment. Make no mistake, Snatch is an empty experience. But, to quote the Wood-man, as far as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.
