Does anyone know what was supposedly in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction?

Question

There are a couple scenes in the movie that the brief case gets opened and there is a bright light eminating but they never show what it is. Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

The mysterious briefcase

The only indisputable observations about the stolen attaché case recovered by Jules and Vincent are that its latch lock combination is "666", the "Number of the Beast", and that the contents of the case either glow orange or are highly reflective. ("Fox Force Five" may also be a play on the 666 phenomenon as "F" is the 6th letter of the English alphabet.) The only acknowledgments of its contents are the captivated stares of Vincent and Pumpkin and their exclamations "Is that what I think it is?" and "It's beautiful."

Whenever asked, director Tarantino has replied that there is no explanation for the case's contents: it is simply a MacGuffin. Originally, the case was to contain the diamonds stolen in Reservoir Dogs, but this was seen as too mundane. For filming purposes, the briefcase contained an orange light bulb, silver foil, and a battery. Despite Tarantino's explanation, many theories have been proposed for the contents of the briefcase, for instance that it contains Marsellus' soul.[8]

The glowing briefcase is an unintentional echo of the 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly, in which a briefcase glows from its nuclear contents. When Tarantino learned of the similarity, he said it was purely accidental but that he liked the idea. The 1984 film Repo Man also contains an item held in a car trunk (a neutron bomb) that glows with radioactivity (and kills people whenever the trunk is opened). [8]

Answer 2

Speculation abounds as to the nature of the mysterious glowing contents of the case:
Could it be Elvis's gold suit, seen worn by Val Kilmer (as Elvis) in True Romance (1993)?
The most persistent theory (most usually attributed to a friend of a friend who saw it posted on a message board by someone whose brother had read a report of a radio interview with Tarantino himself) is that it is Marcellus Wallace's soul. The story goes that when the Devil takes a person's soul, it is removed through the back of the head (this isn't part of any known religion, but this is what the message board posters say). When we see the back of Marcellus's head he has a Band-Aid covering the precise spot indicated by tradition for soul removal. Perhaps Marcellus sold his soul to the devil which would also explain why the combination to open the briefcase is 666.
Quentin Tarantino has said that the band-aid on the back of Marsellus Wallace's neck had nothing to do with an allusion to the Devil stealing Marsellus's soul... but that the actor Ving Rhames had a scar on the back of his neck he wanted to cover up.
Or could it be simply a 20-watt light bulb?
According to Roger Avary, who co-wrote the script with Quentin Tarantino, the original plan was to have the briefcase contain diamonds. This seemed neither exciting nor original, so Avary and Tarantino decided to have the briefcase's contents never appear on screen; this way each filmgoer could mentally "fill in the blank" with whatever struck his or her imagination as best fitting the description "so beautiful". The orange light bulb (projecting shimmering light onto the actors' faces) was a last-minute decision and added a completely unintended fantastic element.


In a radio interview with Howard Stern in late 2003, Quentin Tarantino was asked by a caller the contents of the briefcase, and he answered, "It's whatever the viewer wants it to be."

Answer 3

We are never really told or shown what it is. All we know is that it's very shiny and amazing to anyone who sees it.

Answer 4

They never say...but thats whats brilliant about Tarintino....It can be whatever you want it to be!