Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction
Moving Image for Digital Media
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and the Use of Popular Music in Film
Introduction
While the use of popular music has been a mainstay of film throughout its history, its contemporary use has often been to “play the hits”, i.e. mainstream chart-topping songs with great commercial appeal; obvious and overdone crowd-pleasers. Rather than creating or adding to the film score, the choice of these popular songs has been to “create a false sense of energy…or to create a sense of period that they’re investing in the picture.” (Bailey, 2013, p.114) Avoiding this “cheap and annoying” (Ibid) technique, director and writer Quentin Tarantino has been an innovator of popular music as a substitute for score. A pioneering example …show more content…
In the early days of film, popular music was widely used as accompaniment. Books containing collections of excerpts from classical music were available, listing compositions by effects – an emotional or narrative state – rather than in categories of composer or genre. (Rodman, 2005, p.121) However, as the industry and technology grew, as well as budgets, the “compilation score came to be considered inferior to the originally-composed score.” (Ibid) Popular songs continued to be used in the ‘sound era’ of film, but more in the form of film musical, from The Jazz Singer (1927) through numerous Elvis and Beatles films in the 1950s and 1960s. Films often relied on popular song as a signifier – for example, using “a pastiche of popular songs to portray youth culture” (Ibid. p.123) in films such as The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969). It was only by the late 1980s and 1990s that directors saw the potential in “linking popular tunes to the narrative meaning of films”, allowing the popular compilation score to “replicate many of the functions of the composed ‘classic’ film score.” (Rodman, 2005, p.121) Such soundtracks offers audiences music that is immediately familiar, and yet its use can transcend that familiarity. “[B]eing valued for it's ability to redefine and recycle itself”, the found score establishes styles, moods or meanings that “transcend it's original form, and find new merit within the context of the image.” (Ibid,
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and the Use of Popular Music in Film
Introduction
While the use of popular music has been a mainstay of film throughout its history, its contemporary use has often been to “play the hits”, i.e. mainstream chart-topping songs with great commercial appeal; obvious and overdone crowd-pleasers. Rather than creating or adding to the film score, the choice of these popular songs has been to “create a false sense of energy…or to create a sense of period that they’re investing in the picture.” (Bailey, 2013, p.114) Avoiding this “cheap and annoying” (Ibid) technique, director and writer Quentin Tarantino has been an innovator of popular music as a substitute for score. A pioneering example …show more content…
In the early days of film, popular music was widely used as accompaniment. Books containing collections of excerpts from classical music were available, listing compositions by effects – an emotional or narrative state – rather than in categories of composer or genre. (Rodman, 2005, p.121) However, as the industry and technology grew, as well as budgets, the “compilation score came to be considered inferior to the originally-composed score.” (Ibid) Popular songs continued to be used in the ‘sound era’ of film, but more in the form of film musical, from The Jazz Singer (1927) through numerous Elvis and Beatles films in the 1950s and 1960s. Films often relied on popular song as a signifier – for example, using “a pastiche of popular songs to portray youth culture” (Ibid. p.123) in films such as The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969). It was only by the late 1980s and 1990s that directors saw the potential in “linking popular tunes to the narrative meaning of films”, allowing the popular compilation score to “replicate many of the functions of the composed ‘classic’ film score.” (Rodman, 2005, p.121) Such soundtracks offers audiences music that is immediately familiar, and yet its use can transcend that familiarity. “[B]eing valued for it's ability to redefine and recycle itself”, the found score establishes styles, moods or meanings that “transcend it's original form, and find new merit within the context of the image.” (Ibid,