They officially made BUYING marihuana illegal for the coffeshops. They did not make SELLING illegal... There you are with wonderful Dutch legislation... A bit like taking away knighthood from a corrupt banker.
Vincent: Breaks down like this, okay: it's legal to buy it
IT IS, YOU CAN STILL BUY IT.
It's legal to own it, and if you're the proprietor of a hash bar, it's legal to sell it.
CORRECT. BUT... it's illegal for a proprietor to buy it himself in order to sell it. See the interesting political twist?
It's illegal to carry it, but that doesn't really matter 'cause, get a load of this, all right; if you get stopped by the cops in Amsterdam, it's illegal for them to search you. I mean, that's a right the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
NOW THIS MAY HAVE CHANGED SINCE 911... COPS DON'T REALLY NEED A REASON TO SEARCH YOU.
So you can still enjoy Pulp Fiction. It's just a political thing, buying using and possession up to a certain amount is still allowed... maybe not entirely legal, but allowed.
Okay, I would like to explore this for a moment: why is it one of the greatest movies ever made? I agree, but I'd just like to pinpoint just what it is about it that makes it so great. I think I have an idea, so bear with me: To me, even though the whole movie is treated quite seriously, as a serious drama, I don't think it's to be taken seriously at all. The dialogue is so playful that it's meant to be amusing. This is dark humor, ladies and gentlemen. Not only that, but I think it's real life (so to speak), albeit, over-the-top (but that's what makes it interesting). It's the playful approach and lack of seriousness amongst the serious real-life tone that gives it its charm. I think. At least that is my take on it.
That's part of it. It's not really real life, hypereality is more like it, with a lot of tongue in cheek combined with major grit.
But I think the things that make it stand out is the non-lineair storyline, the way the various stories are intercut, the excellent dialogue, great performances by all involved and of course its enormous intensity.
IT's hard to pin down what makes it great. One thing is for sure though: it's not a great movie for a romantic date.
Yeah, the non-linear aspect and the way the stories are split up would probably come across as clunky from anyone besides Tarantino. I doubt it was the first movie to use non-linear storytelling, though..
And you're right, there's no ONE single thing that makes it so great... there are lots of elements, but my main point is that I think the UNIVERSE is simply play. Play is happening all around and that is really the only "purpose" to life. Even amongst terrible trauma, that is the play of life. And to me Pulp Fiction embodies that idea. It sees the humor in tragedy, so that even when people are getting raped, and ODing on blow, you still... laugh. lol. It's like the scene in Evil Dead 2 that my avatar is from. The maniacal laughing scene... haha.. I love it...
"I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us."
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Feb 3rd, 2012 01:59 PM
