| The apparent knowledge of one film to others beyond it, termed meta-film, is an extension of the post-modern theme of multiple narration and is employed liberally throughout Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a post-modern text that is especially, even blissfully, cognizant of its historical moment, actively alluding, referencing, and appropriating past works to construct a unique narrative. This thesis seeks to examine meta-film as a post-modern device generally, to identify examples of its use within Pulp Fiction specifically, and to analyze the intended effect of its use on the audience. The exploration of this neglected theoretical concept is posited within a broader argument suggesting that the neo-noir genre that Pulp Fiction belongs to is itself a manifestation in film of the post-modern literary movement. In that the employment of meta-film is a necessarily jarring experience for the viewer, one that removes the audience from the film's narrative and places them in an interstitial space between two texts, I propose to answer why the auteur would seemingly corrupt their own narrative, and what the role of the audience becomes once that occurs. |
