Pulp Fiction is more than just a red flag for any college student walking into a dorm room. It is arguably Quentin Tarantino’s most iconic film, spawned a legion of imitators in the ’90s, and took its rightful place on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. But of course, beyond all those accolades and signs of cultural influence, it’s a hotbed of swearing. Tarantino’s dialogue flows so smoothly, you don’t always notice it, but there’s an expletive in seemingly every other line in the film.
StorySaysCreations has taken on the task of providing an edit of the film that is nothing but the swears, all 258 of them, in under two minutes. (Really, almost 90 seconds, but in the interest of accuracy, we’ll keep the time limit allotted in the video.) What it reveals is that the film is a nigh-continuous delivery system of the word “fuck.” Sure, “shit” comes in a close second, and “fuckin’ shit” pops up semi-regularly, but overall, it’s clear Tarantino has one swear he values above all others. The above edit turns it into an almost meditative montage, the swears following one after the other so smoothly, you begin to develop an ear for the variety of inflections and tones attached to each “fuck.” It actually calls attention to the way the writer-director uses his profanities more like jazzy interjections meant to add pacing and feel to the script, rather than the normal “tough guys swear” application of expletives to film.