PULP FICTION - Dancing at Jack Rabbit Slim's

BEST DANCING SCENE EVER 

Pulp Fiction (1994) is one of the most influential films of the ’90s. 1994 was a big year for the movie industry. This was the year when big hits like Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption, True Lies, Ed Wood, Speed, Natural Born Killers, and Leon the Professional was released.

Pulp Fiction is Quentin Tarantino’s homage to the B-film’s he grew up watching – as are many of his films. The dialog in the movie is excellent, as is typical for Tarantino’s scripts. The film is bright, vulgar, and funny. Borrowing themes and archetypes from noir films, gangster, and crime novels like the urban setting (L.A.), the flawed hero and aging boxer Butch (played by Bruce Willis), and scenes that take place in dives, bars, and diners, Quentin plays around with conventions of the noir and B-film genres.

It is still one of the greatest dance sequences in the history of cinema. With Uma Thurman as Mrs. Mia Wallace – the wife of Marsellus Wallace – and John Travolta as Vincent Vega, dancing in a 50s themed restaurant. Showing off their dancing skills to You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry – this is just one of the great songs that are on the terrific soundtrack for the film.

How does a director create a memorable scene? The Pulp Fiction scene dance made a lasting impact in pop culture consciousness, still inspiring Halloween costumes, hairstyles, and dance moves nearly two decades later. But what techniques did Quentin Tarantino use to make the Pulp Fictiondance scene so indelible? Using StudioBinder’s pre-production software, we break down the methods that any filmmaker can use to craft memorable scenes: from the script, to the breakdown, to the shot list. 

The Pulp Fiction dance scene script 

In this memorable scene, Tarantino tied dynamic visuals to key story beats, all of it brought to life with quintessentially Tarantino dialogue. Pulp Fiction is a neo-noir crime drama set in 1990s Los Angeles and consists of 3 intertwining gangster narratives. In one story, mob boss Marcellus Wallace asks one of his "employees" named Vincent to take his wife Mia out while he is away. We know that Marcellus’ jealousy of another man might have led to a murderous outcome, so the request provokes a question: 

Will Vincent slip up and meet a similar fate?  

In the Pulp Fiction dance scene, Vincent and Mia go out for a bite to eat, have a flirtatious conversation, and dance “The Twist” for an impromptu dance competition. This scene is comparatively uneventful compared to the violence and gore of the rest of the film. But it is nonetheless filled with tension and drives the story forward in unexpected ways. 

With the script in StudioBinder’s screenwriting software, we can get a glimpse of how the Pulp Fiction dance scene script uses dialogue to make a comparatively long scene engaging. The minutiae of the characters’ interaction also subtly builds emotional tension. Click below to read the entire sequence as originally written. In another post, you can download the complete Pulp Fiction screenplay.