BBC2 is showing Pulp Fiction tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to watch the whole thing, but having watched the introduction, and the beautifully scripted and played conversation between Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer, I had a hankering to watch ‘The Bonny Situation’, which, for those who don’t remember, is the latter section of the film after the main story arch has played out.

During the two-way between Vincent and Jules as they’re cleaning the car, I realised that Quentin Tarantino possesses a talent few writers do: That is the ability to shape his dialogue to specifically fit a certain character.

It’s something every writer strives for, but it’s a very difficult thing to do. When reading a script or a novel, it’s easy to distinguish who’s saying what as a reader because we’re told, but if all you have is the dialogue, it takes a very talented writer to allow you to make that distinction. None of the dialogue in Pulp Fiction could be transposed from one character to another because every line is sculpted to that specific character.

And that is why I hate Quentin Tarantino; the smug, overly talented, genius-like git…

*ahem*

(bitter? me? pfft)

Oh, and possibly my favourite line in a film, ever (albeit better in context): Vincent – “Jules, you give that fucking nimrod fifteen-hundred dollars and I’ll shoot him on general principle.”