Courtly Love in Pulp Fiction
I had this thought a long, long time ago, back when I was taking George Brown's Middle English lit class, that the Mia Wallace/Vincent Vega segment of Pulp Fiction follows the courtly love paradigm. A vassal in love with his lord's lady. More universally, an ordinary dude longing for an unattainable love. Anyways, it occurred to me a while back to look up if anyone else - ie someone with more authority than me - had the same idea. It turns out that there is. Google search Pulp Fiction and courtly love, and I think the first hit you'll get is this essay by two professors, one from Wesleyan and the other from Dickinson, about how medieval this movie is. More medieval than the ass of the soon-to-be-dead hillbilly rapist.
It's a pretty interesting essay, one that makes a lot of points I hadn't even thought of: like how all of Marcellus' relationships with his thugs are knightly, and how homosocial bonds are usually stronger ties of loyalty between a lord and a vassal than, say, the courtly love bond exemplified by the Marcellus-Mia-Vincent triangle. The one point I thought was too narrowly construed was when they said that Vincent and Mia have metaphorical sex, when Vincent plunges the adrenaline shot - "dripping suggestively" - into Mia's heart - marked with a big fat red magic marker. True, but I don't think this is all. Rather, I believe this scene is a reworking of the Renaissance motif that sex and death are somehow equivalent. There's a lot that can be said about the psychological connection between sex and death, and probably said already by some Renaissance scholar; but I think this is the point that must be examined here. At the basic level, it's clear the connection is working, because the moment of intimacy and guilt for Mia and Vincent is when Mia almost dies. But why should death substitute sex? That's the really provocative question, the one that both drives me nuts and and tugs my heartstrings.
It's such a touching scene when Vincent and Mia say goodnight, and as she is walking away from him, Vincent blows her a kiss. We understand immediately that Vincent loves her more now than ever. But why? What did they just experience, and why was it so powerful? The impotent ache.
The medieval solution to the courtly love paradox, chastity and denial, never was very convincing to me. The Renaissance ending seems more fitting.
It's a pretty interesting essay, one that makes a lot of points I hadn't even thought of: like how all of Marcellus' relationships with his thugs are knightly, and how homosocial bonds are usually stronger ties of loyalty between a lord and a vassal than, say, the courtly love bond exemplified by the Marcellus-Mia-Vincent triangle. The one point I thought was too narrowly construed was when they said that Vincent and Mia have metaphorical sex, when Vincent plunges the adrenaline shot - "dripping suggestively" - into Mia's heart - marked with a big fat red magic marker. True, but I don't think this is all. Rather, I believe this scene is a reworking of the Renaissance motif that sex and death are somehow equivalent. There's a lot that can be said about the psychological connection between sex and death, and probably said already by some Renaissance scholar; but I think this is the point that must be examined here. At the basic level, it's clear the connection is working, because the moment of intimacy and guilt for Mia and Vincent is when Mia almost dies. But why should death substitute sex? That's the really provocative question, the one that both drives me nuts and and tugs my heartstrings.
It's such a touching scene when Vincent and Mia say goodnight, and as she is walking away from him, Vincent blows her a kiss. We understand immediately that Vincent loves her more now than ever. But why? What did they just experience, and why was it so powerful? The impotent ache.
The medieval solution to the courtly love paradox, chastity and denial, never was very convincing to me. The Renaissance ending seems more fitting.
posted by Rex at 4:57 AM
1 Comments:
Pulp Fiction - it just gets better every time you watch it. Every time you watch it you get a deeper insight into what its true purpose and meaning is.
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