The Cold Open
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction has one of the most thrilling pre-credit sequences in cinematic history. The film opens with a couple, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, having breakfast in a diner and discussing armed robbery. What’s the best place to stickup – a bank, a liquor store, a gas station? ‘This place’, Pumpkin decides. It’s perfect. ‘They’re not expecting to get robbed’. Honey Bunny agrees. They kiss. They grab their guns. Honey Bunny, sweet little Honey Bunny, who only moments ago was making cute quacking noises, swings around and screams at the other patrons: ‘Any of you fucking pricks move and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of you’. Freeze-frame. The music kicks in. The opening credits roll. Wow. In cinematic terms, this technique is called a ‘cold open’. It’s a powerful way to start a film because it throws the audience straight into the action. The cold open is a way of telling the viewer: ‘You like that? Well, there’s plenty more where that came from’. Sometimes a