In RAGING Bull, my three scenes of interest are: 1) Jake tries to help the other fighter up when he is on the take, 2)  Jake attacks Joey when Vicky tells Jake that she slept with Joey, 3) Jake cries when he is thrown in jail. 

Jake wants to be the champ, but he wants to do it on his own without the dirty annals of the real world where fights are fixed.  When Jake breaks down and transgresses against his sincerest beliefs, his actions are sheer buffoonish once he has abandoned his plane of logic.  In his first fight that he tries to throw, the other fighter is such a bum, that he collapses after the first punch.  Jake so disgusted with the whole arrangement, stops hitting him and helps back up on his feet.  The good news is that Jake will win a championship belt.  The bad news is that he must first lose to a bum.

Jake becomes paranoid with the world around him.  He himself who acquired his young wife Vicky through adultery and statutory rape, allows himself to be destroyed mentally and emotionally with her behavior and infidelity.  Jake himself, who will not sleep with her when he is in training, is cursed with the fact that she is sleeping with everybody else.  Jake beats his own brother within an inch of his life for partaking of Pandora’s box.  The good news is that Jake takes revenge on an adulterer.  The bad news is that it is his own brother.

When Jake is thrown in jail, he fights the deputies all the way to the hole.  Once in the hole be bangs his head and hands on the wall crying “why.”  This is the most emotional point in the entire film.  It’s not just why is he in jail, but why did he sleep with the young girls, why did he try to sell his championship belt, why did his wife leave him, why did he go on the take, why is he a bum, etc.  Although Jake's makes a speech in the end of the film, it is actually at this point in the film where he is as his greatest moment of self-realization.  The good news is that Jake is finally aware of what he has become.  The bad news is that he has become a bum.

The scenes in RAGING BULL are memorable because of the change in Jake’s character arc.  As Jake continues to change, he continues to change for the worse burying himself in an infinite pit of misery and sorrow.  

In Pulp Fiction, my three scenes of interest are: 1) Marsalis makes Bruce Willis take a bribe, 2) Bruce Willis tries to run over Marsalis, and 3) Bruce Willis goes back to save Marsalis. 

When Marsalis makes Bruce Willis take a bride, the scene is memorable for several reasons and on several levels.  Visually and aurally, we never actually see Marsalis.  We have yet to actually see Marsalis’ face in the film.  We are left with an extreme close-up of Bruce Willis’ face while we listen to Marsalis’ speech.  The speech itself is compelling whereas he talks about the bribe, which Bruce must take or probably be killed.  The good news is I’m giving you a bride.  The bad news is you have to accept or die in addition to losing the fight.  When Bruce Willis attempts to knock the money out of Marsalis hand, we learn Bruce Willis contempt for Marsalis.  However, we are aware of Marsalis power when Bruce Willis ultimately accepts the bribe he does not want.

Later in the story, when we realize that Bruce Willis had no intention of accepting the bribe, Bruce and Marsalis are no longer business constituents but the hunter and the hunted.  The good news is Bruce didn’t throw the fight.  The bad news is that Marsalis is going to kill him.  Bruce has already killed twice — the other fighter and Vincent — and by a stroke of luck, Marsalis happens to be the crossing the street in front of Bruce’s car – “mother fucker” (in Marsalis own words).  This coincidence as well as Bruce’s attempt to run him over in broad daylight is hysterical in its chilling horror.  For an instance Bruce and Marsalis have exchanged roles of the hunter and hunted.

When Bruce escapes from Zed, there is an interesting moment when Bruce decides if he’ll flee or go back.  The fact that Bruce returns to save the man whom he almost killed, that same man being the man trying to kill him, propels Bruce Willis character to an almost divine set of ethics.  In spite of their past, rape by the same sex was a horror worse than death upon his worst enemy.  Bruce and Marsalis make an ultimate transition were they are now both allies and all debts have been paid.  When Marsalis decides not to pursue Bruce any longer as Bruce saves him, his moral character is also taken to a divine level whereby he is able to forgive Bruce for what he has done and call it even.  However, rape by both Bruce and Marsalis is rendered unforgivable.

In all three of these scenes in PULP FICTION they are memorable because of the violence, or the intent to do violence, but more importantly, because each character undergoes a shift in his character arc.

— Christopher C. Odom