What was in the Briefcase?

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Can anyone tell me what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? And what is the Band-Aid on the back of Marsellus's neck about? Is there a connection? You never see or hear anyone say what's in the case. Thanks!

- Hedy

This is a very commonly asked question. Who in the community can give the best answer?

If you don't remember the briefcase, check out the Hamburger scene video.

Posted by: Pulp Sloth Date:

COMMENTS

Jenneo4

I heard that it was his soul and the band aid was to cover up the hole that was left when it was removed. I guess thats why it glowed.

ronny

So those of you who explained that the briefcase has a soul in it are correct. But noone is explaining the plot of the story.

Marcellus Wallace is a Soul dealer/Gangster.
Jackson & Travolta are his henchmen. Marcellus had sold his soul to the devil. Urab myth The soul is removed from your spine. (hence the term, a spineless soul or soulless person)
The bandaid covered up that cut.
What was in the briefcase was Marcellus Wallace's soul. If you notice everytime Jackson kills someone he repeats a passage from the bible, getting ready for the murder he is about to commit.

any comments?

Shredderboi

Sometimes you can catch a glimps of the back of Ving's neck in other movies he has done, and he has a gnarly scar right where the band-aid was in pulp fiction. When u shave your head the new hair can become ingrown and become infected. I was a barber and saw this often. Yuck.

DaveXXX

Anyone notice in hamburger scene that there are bullet holes in wall b4 guy comes out of room and shoots with his hand canon?

TheCowboySurfer

I really have no problem with the soul theory other than the arrogance of those who support it. First of all, you act as though it is the only logical content of the briefcase. If this were true then QT would not be the thought provoking writer/director that he is. Dont sell him short guys, this is one of the reasons you love him in the first place. Second, if its so obviously a soul, and only a soul, then why does ringo ask the question, "is that what I think it is?" Ringo is obviously of an average, if not less than, intelligence and his life experience seems average as well. He is no philosopher, academian or adventurer... That said, the question, "is that what I think it is?" Leads the viewer to believe it is neither a soul, which would be completely unrecognizable to an average person and would instead beg the question, "WHAT is that?" Nor couldit be diamonds or gold or anything else so common as to beg a question of clarification such as that.
So... Could it be a soul? Certainly, after all, Ringo could be more experienced in soul recognition than you or I, but I do not think its as absolute as you all claim. In fact, its a slight reach because of the suggestion made be ringos reaction. Mcguffins exist to provoke thought, or for an easy way out, or simply.... To fuck with you. If your certain its the soul, good for you, but dont be so quick to scream at those who disagree when its you who have failed to notice the subtle implications behind a single line of dialogue. QT is heralded as being a genius with dialogie so I assure you, that ringos question limits the contents to something rarer than gold yet more recognizable than a soul.

If im wrong, just tell me what a soul looks like and ill concede my case.

zeman

So I've been a fan of Pulp Fiction since I was in High School. I watched the movie last night for the first time in awhile and was struck by never really knowing what was in the brief case, so I watched the scene in great detail. I noticed the apartment number was #416. So thinking this is probable related to a bible verse I looked up one starting with Matthew 4:16. I don't read the bible often if ever but since the Movie has the lighting up brief case locked at 666, and Jules set for a path of salvation on seriously changing his ways from a gangster to walking the earth in the path of the Shepard I thought to look it up. So Matthew 4:16 reads "the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." I think this relates to the brief case, the people who had it, to Vincent which stayed in the land of the dark and ended up dead, and to Jules which turned to "the path of the Shepard" as he says. A great light was shone to Jules (which was currently living in the land of the dark) after the bullets whizzed by him and a light dawned as it did for all the others in the room which where also all living in the land of the shadow of death right before they died. Just a theory but better than anything else I've looked through yet.

TheBriefcase

I was never going to reveal this online but after a buddy of mine sent me this link to read what you guys have been saying back in forth for years! And because the contents of the case made the news recently I decided to register...I'm going to burst your bubbles with all your creative and imaginative theories about the contents of the briefcase. It's a yellow diamond. Not just any yellow diamond but the largest in the world. It actually just sold. And it's 110 carats.

http://www.inquisitr.com/159976/worlds-biggest-yellow-diamond-sells-for-10-9-million/

I live and work in the film biz. I worked on the set of Hulk with Tim Roth. We discussed this over a night of boozing and playing Texas hold em. He said that Quentin spoke of this diamond on a few occasions during the filming of Pulp. There you go. No lie.

willablargens

I'm sure this thread has been running for awhile so I doubt this will help or spark any conflicts, but I have to add a few facts to clear up one of the supposed theories posted here even if it is probably not considered as the answer by most people. Gold bars, as proposed earlier, wouldn't glow so radiantly, as seen in the movie, without a direct light. What's more, a stereotypical gold bar as seen in popular films weighs 400oz which is around 27lb. According to the World Gold Council, the price of gold per ounce in 1994 was 384USD, which calculates to 153,600USD every 400oz. That's a lot of money, but really a suitcase with even one gold bar would be too cumbersome to plausibly be used as a container for high risk transport, plus the reality of wealth for a man in Marsellus Wallace's position would draw in far more than that for much less trouble. By the way, as said before, the actor playing Marsellus, Ving Rhames, does have a scar on his neck, and for any curious cats it can be seen clearly in the movie King of the Avenue.

willablargens

By the way, my bad about my previous comment if it repeats facts provided earlier along the thread. For some stupid reason I believed the most recent threads were at the top of the page.

zeman

Well it could not have been a diamond that had not yet been discovered (sun-drop diamond discovered in south africa in 2010). Looks like your night out with Tim Roth was probable as much bullshit as your made up theory.

"The jewel is being sold by Cora International, which discovered it in South Africa last year (2010), meaning it has no history of previous wearers. "Some find it very attractive to own a stone that's been lying untouched in the earth for millions of years," Bennett added."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/09/sun-drop-diamond-swiss-auction

But thanks for wasting everyone's time your totally made up story with no basis whatsoever. Good luck with made up job of working in the film industry too.

TheBriefcase

My mistake on googling the wrong yellow diamond. It was the tiffany yellow diamond.

http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/tiffanyyellowdiamond.html

This was the diamond.

The_Mothman

highly refined nuclear material, likely weapons grade, the kind of thing that DARPA might be playing around with; also the kind of thing that's worth BIG money simply as a refined product(refined isotopes of rare earth elements are ridiculously expensive)let alone its value to any nation or armed force in the world as a weapon or simply as an eye into what ones enemies are capable of.
Although it could anything that's worth a lot of dough in there.
But with the kiss me deadly links i think this is most likely. Or it could just be a suitcase nuke. But the above argument for the Holy Lance seems pretty solid to.
One thing that it most definitely is NOT is a soul.

Scraps

The band aid is covering up acne keloidalis, a skin acne common in African Americans at the neck and hairline due to close haircuts with unsanitized or contaminated equipment. You can see the acne bumps around and under the band aid....likely that Mr Wallace was a little self conscious.

Jimmythewrench

The Holy Grail. Not a soul. Soul doesn't make sense. Two main reasons.

Tim Roth:"is that what I think it is? It's beautiful." He's obviously looking at something that everyone knows, but noone ever expected to see.

The "kids" in the apartment: Obviously students. Maybe bible, maybe archaeology. This would explain why "good" kids would get tangled up with a gangster.

Zordax

Doesn't everyone realize that Quentin has no idea himself what was in the briefcase? Yellow diamond, RD diamonds, Nukes, or the Holy Grail? Thats what he wanted! The movie was made a few years before the chat fourm but this is the debate that he wanted. It dosen' matter what was in the case! Btw he needs an new continuity person; holes in the wall then no holes in the wall the holes in then wall. Same thing at the end of Ingolious Bastards; tie out then tie under coat then tie out. I had to crash that Honda.

yodawg

It is important to make inferences about the film by using the title. Pulp Fiction. Either the movie itself is "Pulp Fiction", or the contents of the suitcase are "Pulp Fiction" and everyone's lives are altered by it even though it has no meaning or a meaning different than what anybody knows.

TyrannyOfEvilMen

I don't think Quentin Tarantino ever had a real explanation for the contents of the suitcase.
Honestly, what starts the questioning is not just the secrecy of the material inside the suitcase. It's when ringo says "is that what I think it is?"
I always imagined it being diamonds, and found it interesting when I heard the reservoir dogs theory. Ringo may have asked "is that what I think it is?" to confirm that the diamonds were real, not plastic.
An even more fascinating theory was the one about marsellus wallace's soul removed. There's no proof of this theory in the movie, direct or indirect, but the overall attitude of the hit men and marsellus gives you clues that the theory is possible.
-1 Jules says, "I can't give you this cause it don't belong to me." sure, it doesn't, but something about how he said it made it sound suspicious, like he couldn't have it even if he tried to.
-2 Jules claims Brett and Ringo interfered with "the path of the righteous man." what about his path was so righteous in the first place?
-3 butch asks marsellus 'are you okay?' and misunderstanding, he replies, "I'm pretty f----- far from okay." "I NEVER TOOK MUCH THOUGHT TO WHAT IT MEANT... I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS SOME COLD BLOODED s---," but now I'm starting to wonder what about him wasn't okay. I mean, he was a millionaire who had uma thurman as his wife. He wasnt referring to the zed case or butch either when he said that.
-4 of course, how far can the word "soul" take you. It's not as if marsellus was dead or unconscious. However, marsellus always seemed so programmed, like a gangster roboT. He never seemed happy or positive, and so unique, as if he was missing something from him, though.
-5 the bandaid on the back of his neck is always sensitive to the audience, but why show it as if we should suspect something from it?
- 6 Mia says "no one knows why marsellus threw Tony off the balcony except marsellus and Tony." why? You never can tell... (haha, coincidence)
-7 Jules asks "what did marsellus Wallace look like?" this might have been a lure for Brett to say "he's black... He's bald," but why ask as if he's changed since then?
-8 Jules always talks about how he's gonna "walk the earth." sounds a little suspicious.
-9 after Jules asks "we happy?" vincent says, "yeah, we happy." couldnt WE mean all 3 of them, vincent, Jules and marsellus? Couldnt HAPPY be literal?
-10 notice marsellus and Mia never interact with each other in any way in the entire movie (except for that one clip with Mia, vincent and marsellus.) also seems suspicious.
-11 when Jules says that the suitcase is "my bosses dirty laundry?" is that figurative? Then, ringo says "sounds like a sht job," Jules says, "funny I was just thinking the same thing," so naturally.

Stack301

After seeing the different theories, I am led to believe that what is in the case was meant to be whatever you want it to be. I have seen the scar on Ving Rhames neck in other films he has been in. With that being said, I see no real significance in regards to the bandaid. However, with the reference made to China when Marsellus says, "I'm ready to scour the earth for that mothaf****! If Butch goes to Indo-China, I want a n**** hiding in a bowl of rice ready to pop a cap in his ass," could support the soul in the briefcase / bandaid theory. My thoughts were more along the lines of the Holy Grail being in the briefcase which could be supported by the various references to God, divine intervention / miracle and Jules' verse from the Bible. Either way both could be acceptable. The theories I've personally dismissed are regarding the gold bricks, diamonds, etc. However you look at it, it was written into the script and left open ended for a reason....... What we are left with is an amazing movie from start to finish with a plot, storyline and cast that made a lasting impression on the industry and it's fans, and should go down as one of the greats. Nonetheless, It is what it is.

dave.champness

Lets set the record straight on the Band-Aid and whats in the briefcase. 1st things 1st, the Band-Aid. Its a a Band-Aid and nothing more. Now on the whats in the briefcase. Its an Academy award, an Oscar a self indulgent nod towards Tarantino. He was so sure (rightfully so) this film would win an Academy Award that he uses this a part of the premise of the film.

I hope this clears up all the questions you may have.

sterl22

my thought on the brief case is that its religious salvation from evil (666 on the case)locked away from sight. cause everyone that crosses hands with it is given a second chance and all the peeps except their intervention with god. except for vincent. buch was given his in the back room from killing vincent after not excepting the salvation of god when he didn't walk away after he saved the gurl. and when wallace stands with zed hes striking down the teriny of pure evil until it dies in pain. (good over evil, god)
 

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