My Top 5 Quentin Tarantino Characters

So I'm having my first intermission between finals, which might as well be a one-way trip to the Caribbean, if for no other reason than the fact I was actually able to fit in a nap today.  Behold the magic of slumber.  I actually feel like I can make it through the hour without a cup of caffeine to nurse for the first time this week.  Between finals, work, maintenance issues, et shitera, et shitera, December has been overkill.  (For future and completely unrelated reference, aspirin blocks the synthesis of prostoglandins, and not the release.  I studied this hard and fudged it like Betty Crocker on the final.  As I said on Facebook, I will be kissing the stars for a curve the size of an orca this quarter).

I've been thinking of things I'd like to do over break, and of course making a road trip, getting my short story written and dispatched, enjoying the company of too-seldom-seen friends and indulging in the usual fattening pastimes are all vying for precedence.  Then my attention drifted over to a stack of movies I had been wanting to watch and re-watch for months.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge - as in the loserly sense - fan of Tarantino, with Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and others being some of my most endearing films of the last millennia.  They're simply untouchable, rife with elephantine personalities, soundtracks that stick like molasses, humor that strays between the darkly comedic and the comically black, and interwoven plot threads more fun than those cradles of string I never learned how to make in the third grade.  They are movies that know they are movies.  Too often I walk out of a movie theater with a sour taste in my mouth because of some ham-handed social commentary or underlying agenda as subtle as a brick through a window.  These often range from the corny, to the maudlin, to the grotesque.  In Kill Bill, you don't have to worry about these issues.  Tarantino doesn't give a fuck.  His films are self-contained monoliths of pop culture, and since I have nothing better else to do, I thought I'd give a try at pinning down a few of my favorite personalities.


5.  Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent, Inglorious Basterds)
"You either do what the fuck we tell you, or I'll bury this axe in your collaborating skull."

One of the more prominent plot arcs from Basterds is simply a well-paced revenge drama.  Dreyfus's family is killed in a dairy farm raid in France conducted by Christoph Waltz's frighteningly awesome Jew-Hunter in the film's opening scene.  Shoshanna is the sole survivor of the raid, and years later, upon fleeing to Paris, assumes the identity of Emmanuelle Mimieux, the operator of a cinema that by some stroke of serendipity is scheduled to host the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film honoring the German sniper Fredrick Zoller (played by Daniel Brühl, who starred
in the excellent German film Goodbye Lenin!). Zoller, funnily enough, fails to recognize Dreyfus as a Jew, and to her annoyance, romantically pursues her for most of the film. Dreyfus, however, has a diabolical agenda of her own, and I won't give it away to those who haven't yet seen Basterds, but here's a hint:  it involves an exceptionally large amount of flammable nitrate film.

4.  Vincent Vega (John Travolta, Pulp Fiction)
"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it.  It'd
been worth him doing it just so I could've caught him doing it."

I can't get over how gross John Travolta looks in this film.  Which means he's perfect as Vincent Vega, an abrasive, sardonic thug-in-a-suit and one of the most trusted henchmen of LA crime boss Marcellus Wallace.  Whether it's the molasses-gelled hair or the fact that he spends virtually every pivotal scene of the movie in the bathroom, I've just always found him unsettling.  Alongside Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winnfield, Vincent is one of the most memorable characters of Pulp, but unlike Jules he does not undergo any notable character transformations, proving himself a conceited asshole until the very (anti-climactic) end.  For his stagnancy I can't rank him number one, but because he's such an awesome character he still hits the top five.

3.  The Bride a.k.a. Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman, Kill Bill)
"When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other, that not only does God exists, but that you're doing His will."

If Inglorious Basterds was only part-revenge drama, Kill Bill is revenge that doesn't stop to tango with drama, but rather slices it with a Hattori Hanzo sword.  Kiddo, whose name is curiously bleeped out of the film's audio for the first two thirds or so, is the sole survivor of a violent massacre conducted by none other than her former mentor and leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the titular Bill (played by the late David Carradine).  Well it turns out she was also pregnant with Bill's child upon her attempted murder (which just happened to coincide with her wedding day), so naturally after waking up from a four-year coma, she sets out to dispense five nice, bloody punishments to the dickheads responsible, in only the most fitting of methods: bloodshed, bloodshed and more bloodshed.  The only thing sharper than the end of a Hanzo sword is the piercing look Thurman maintains throughout both installments, with a third slated to be released within the decade.

2.  Jackie Brown (Pam Grier, Jackie Brown)
"If I lose my job I gotta start all over again, but I got nothing to start over with. I'll be stuck with whatever I can get. And that shit is scarier than Ordell."

Like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs before it, Jackie Brown is a web of crime, intrigue, deception and allure, but unlike those films, Jackie is less concerned with plot than it is with texture.  Which is totally fine given the context:  Brown, portrayed impeccably by 1970s Blaxploitation film star Grier, is a struggling airline stewardess who makes ends meet by smuggling cocaine into the country for gun runner Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson).  When Brown is intercepted and sent to jail, Ordell arranges her bail with the intent of murdering her before she can rat him out to the police.  The bulk of the film finds Jackie playing both Ordell and the cops; she knows she will have to pull off a flawless scam or she will end up dead.  I find that I like this film more with each successive viewing:  Jackie is tired and desperate; not only is the deck stacked against her in terms of racial politics, but it is the fear of growing old, of having to start over, that gives her the desperation to continue.  The film in its entirety is a rich character study, with each figure playing a significant role in Jackie's game, but none of them can keep up with Jackie herself.  She is intelligent, but practical; forcible, but unspoken, and easily makes this oft-overlooked film a contender for Tarantino's best.

1.  Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction)
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers!  And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
Well, why tell when I can just show?

Jules is the epitome of debonair.  Every line that rolls out of his mouth can be found on any list of greatest Pulp quotes in existence.  This is still my favorite role of Jackson's.  He's pietistic, thunderous, the quintessential hatchet-man and a sharp dresser; the ultimate badass and easily the most memorable character from the film.  If in doubt, look no further than his wallet - inscribed on the front is "Bad Mother Fucker" in bold black lettering.  Suddenly watching someone eat a cheeseburger and quote the Bible before pumping a round of lead into your face has never seemed more intimidating.  Just one look at this man and you'd know he wouldn't hesitate for two seconds before turning your ass into "fried chicken."  Piss him off in his "transitional period" and the results may be a little more interesting.  At the film's end he decides to give up his life of asskickery to roam the Earth in pursuit of adventure.  Suddenly vagabondage has never seemed more cool.