If someone picks the book in a bookstore and they've already seen the film, I would want them to start thinking about this other way of interpreting the film as being transitional. I would want them to learn some new things about the production history. But I don't see it as taking the place of the film. I don't see it as substituting for the experience of it. One thing that was very nice was that the BFI allowed me 60 pictures in color. A graduate of our Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program (MIAP), Genevieve Havemeyer-King, helped me with some of the pictures. She takes the actual file of the film and extracts the data from the original file, which gives it more bytes. So if you look at the pictures, I think they came out really great. But they are not at all a substitute for the film. Sometimes, you can see things in the pictures that you can't see, or you miss in the film.

In the first edition of Pulp Fiction, we had an arrow added to the photo where Vince goes to the bathroom in the background of the diner. In the opening scene we see Honey Bunny and Pumpkin, and Vince and Jules are in the same diner. But there's one shot where you see Vince going off to the bathroom. And if you freeze the frame and put an arrow, you really notice it. So that's maybe something where a still photo gives you knowledge that maybe a moving image doesn't.

I would like for the readers to maybe go and see some other films from the period and see some of the trends. So I would want to encourage people to know that there's other cinema at the same time. When I have students who say, “how can I develop as a film student?” I say to them, “the first thing you could do is take 10 films that have BFI books about them, see the film, form your own opinion, spend a couple days with your own opinion, and then read the book. Knowing that you have the right to disagree, and say, no, that's not the way I saw it. And maybe you learn how to disagree.”

About the BFI Series

This book is for the British Film Institute series, Film Classics. Early on for these series, I wrote a book on the film noir In a Lonely Place, and then I wrote Pulp Fiction from the 90s. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is the third one. I've just finished Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. And I am hoping to write a fifth one, on Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon.

The BFI series started in the 80s. The idea was that arts councils, which are sort of local cultural centers, might show a film in a particular town, like Sheffield, or Middlesbrough, or any other. They would show the film and it would be accompanied by a print from the BFI. If the author was around, they could come to the screening, talk about the film and sign copies. Originally it was a very specific set list. It has expanded over the years in titles and directors, but it is still a set list.

I love writing these BFI books because they are short and unique and I like writing fast and tight, so it's almost like I lock myself in a room and just write, write, write. The research is still as comprehensive as for a full-length book. I like to be what some people call a completist, so I want to read and watch whatever is available on the film and the era.