What is it that we love about the movies? Is it the glitz and glamour; the actors, both present and long since past; or is it the fantasy of it all? We know instinctually when we sit down to a movie that what we are seeing isn’t real, yet we watch it because for a time it takes us away from the realities of our everyday lives and allows us to live in a world where superheroes exist, spaceships whisk us into the far reaches of space, or gunslingers bring their own kind of law to the lawless Wild West. We want to see Captain Kirk or The Lone Ranger and, to a degree, we don’t care if we are seeing the same basic plots over and over again because it is entertaining and it presents to us an ideal world where eventually the bad people get their comeuppance in the end. We want to forget for a while that things like the murder of innocence happen all the time in the real world.
I grew up knowing about Sharon Tate and the Manson family murders, knowing little of the details other than a group of young people, acting under the orders of Charles Manson, entered a house in the Hollywood Hills and brutally murdered Tate and a handful of others who were staying with her at the time. Tate was in the late stages of her pregnancy and her husband, director Roman Polanski, avoided being murdered along side her because he was out of the country working on his latest film. Manson, alongside several others, were tried and convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and, as of this writing, most are either still there or have died in incarceration. Knowing this dark chapter in Hollywood history, I was concerned when I heard the reports that Quentin Tarantino was making his next film about Hollywood in the 60s with the Manson Family and Sharon Tate playing a key part in the plot.
Advertisements for the film didn’t dismiss my concerns, nor did the news that Quentin met with Sharon Tate’s surviving family and obtained their permission to make his movie. Sometimes money supersedes personal feelings, as cynical as that sounds. Still, in the summer of 2019, I was there to see it and, quite honestly, I felt a great deal of trepidation about how the Manson plot line was going to be depicted all the way up until the end of the film when all heck breaks loose. There were a few subtle hints earlier on that this would be revisionist history, but until it all starts to unfold in the end, it never fully gives that twist away.
This is Quentin Tarantino’s most nostalgic movie to date. You can tell that he has a real reverence for Hollywood in this era. Every little detail is practically perfect, and those who lived in the area during this era will find themselves mesmerized by it as the film pulls you in and envelops you not only in the landmarks but also in the culture and celebrity of a bygone time. Few directors have the clout to alter modern Hollywood to this degree, but Quentin Tarantino isn’t just any director. He has made nine films in the course of his career, and every one of them is a masterpiece to some degree. Even his lesser efforts like Death Proof have been brilliant bits of cinema on some level, and Hollywood adores him. He’s often crass and vulgar— just take a look at his footprints in front of the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard— but he is also insanely well-versed in Hollywood history and the films of our past.
But this film is not simply a nostalgia trip. It does have a plot and a message to convey. The film follows three people specifically. The first is Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a star of the small screen who left a popular television western, Bounty Law, to star in movies, only to find out he doesn’t quite have what it takes to make a solid go out of it. Now, nine years later, he is relegated to villainous guest roles on television, being bested by the up-and-coming new generation of stars. Rick gets a wake-up call from talent agent Martin Schwarz (Al Pacino) that with each of these guest spots the public perception of him is that the new talent is always besting him in a fight. Martin wants Rick to take roles in Italian “Spaghetti” westerns where he can knock out a half-dozen pictures in a matter of a few months and make bank, but this suggestion only further cracks Rick’s fragile ego.
Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is Rick’s long-term stunt double who is finding himself being hired less and less often thanks to a combination of Rick’s star sinking and suspicions that he may have murdered his wife. There is no proof of this, but it has made him unpopular amongst the movie people, all except for Rick Dalton who keeps him on as a gofer, a driver (since Rick lost his license for too many DUIs), and a house-sitter. The two have been good friends going back to Rick’s television western days when Cliff was initially hired to double Rick. Since then, while Rick still enjoys a house in the Hollywood hills, Cliff lives with his dog in a modest trailer.
The third person the film follows is Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), an up-and-coming actress who is married to director Roman Polanski and lives next door to Rick. Sharon is portrayed as a little free-spirited, unsure of herself, but loves seeing people enjoy her performances. Her scenes are limited, and she gets very little dialogue, but what she does get tells us a lot about who she is as a character. Her most memorable scene is when she sees a theater showing her latest film and goes up to the counter to tell the teller she is in the film. No one there recognizes her, even though she is in the advertisements on display right there in front of them. They are delighted to let her in to see her own movie, though, and she sits in the dark theater eagerly awaiting whether the audience will laugh at the antics on screen. The theater wants to take her picture, ostensibly to prove she was really there, but has her stand next to the film’s poster so people will know who she is. We also see her in such settings as a party at the Playboy Mansion, where she is more free, dancing uninhibitedly, seemingly without a care in the world. We know from history that she is destined for a tragic ending so seeing her in these early scenes, so full of life, is all the more powerful.
Rick Dalton represents a very real factor in Hollywood, the falling star. So few performers reach the movie star level of popularity, and even fewer maintain that popularity over the course of their lives. There is a bit of James Arness and Clayton Moore in Rick Dalton, specifically Arness from Gunsmoke, one of the inspirations for Bounty Law. Aside from Martin Schwarz, most people who recognize him know him for his character on Bounty Law. Such was the fate of Clayton Moore, who was so identified as The Lone Ranger that even his Hollywood star includes the character name alongside his own name, as if clarification over who he was is needed. Now, whenever Rick is cast in something, there is talk of hiding his face behind makeup and prosthetics to avoid audiences seeing Rick Dalton. Hollywood has gotten a bit better about this, but typecasting is still very much a thing, and even fairly recently, there was news that Patrick Stewart, an amazing actor, was turned down for a role because the director did not want Jean-Luc Picard in his film.
The relationship between Rick and Cliff is a bit puzzling. We know they have been friends since the Bounty Law days, but we never get a real sense of how that friendship happened nor why it has been so enduring. Rick is not the best of friends to Cliff, but Cliff is so loyal to Rick that he has put his entire life and career on hold for him. Part of that last bit is tied into the murder accusations, but performers have overcome worse than this, think Robert Wagner. And, to be fair, Rick does make attempts to get Cliff some work, but it doesn’t really add up to much. Later in the film, Rick admits to Cliff that he will no longer be able to afford to keep him on salary, citing this as the end of the road. This is a cold ending to their nearly decade-long relationship. Cliff takes this news in stride and is still willing to risk his life for Rick. Such loyalty goes mostly unexplored and presented as just a matter of fact.
In the background of all of this is the impending sense of dread Tarantino masterfully interweaves throughout the narrative. I don’t know how well this would play to an audience that knows nothing about the history or the Manson clan, but for those of us who do, seeing Charles Manson show up at the Polanski home early on in the film is chilling. Later, we will see glimpses of several of the women in his “family” scrounging dumpsters for food and hitchhiking all over the city. Cliff himself will give one of the girls, known only as Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), a ride back to their headquarters at Spawn Ranch, an old western backlot where Bounty Law was filmed. It is one of the most intense scenes in recent memory. This scene oozes danger, and for a while, we fear for Cliff’s well-being. This scene seems to hint that Cliff may not make it out of this film alive.
If this film has any faults, it is that it can be seen as overindulgent at times. This is especially true in the scenes where we see Rick Dalton acting on the television show Lancer. These moments add a good twenty minutes to an already long film, but they serve a purpose, too. They show us the struggle Rick is going through dealing with the realities of being a has-been and past his prime. It also shows that he can pull himself together and deliver an amazing performance, even if he has to make a few attempts to get there first.
This is a love letter to Hollywood pure and simple. It’s also a fairy tale, hence the title. Quentin Tarantino is looking at not only the realities of this period of time for performers in Hollywood but also what he wishes he could make happen in regard to Sharon Tate and the tragedy therein. In typical Tarantino fashion, he doesn’t shy away from the violence, but it is more muted here, relegated primarily to the final moments of the picture. This is how Tarantino would have liked things to go down that fateful night, and when it plays out, it is brutal, hilarious, and quite a bit cathartic. Tarantino has made a movie that just hits the right notes and plays the right chords. It is my favorite film of 2019, and, watching it again this morning, it still holds that spot. It may have lost out to the Korean social commentary Parasite, a great film in its own right, but, for me anyway, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is the superior film.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, and Quentin Tarantino
Best Director: Quentin Tarantino
Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt (won)
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino
Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson
Best Costume Design: Arianne Phillips
Best Production Design: Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh (won)
Best Sound Editing: Wylie Stateman
Best Sound Mixing: Christina P. Minkler, Michael Minkler, and Mark Ulano
____________________________________________________
Release Date: July 26, 2019
Running Time: 161 minutes
Rated R
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, and Al Pacino
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Comments
Post a Comment