The Fever Film Club #6
Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood (2019)
100 Movies You Should See Before We All Die
Everybody’s safe this time.
This club convenes remotely as a public service while social distancing.
Serious Spoilers appear in this article, but if you’re like me, you already knew what they were before you watched the movie.
I never thought of Sergio Leone’s masterpiece Once Upon A Time In The West as a fairy tale, even though the title is a giveaway. Many of the classic elements are there: a struggle between good and evil; a monster; a hero; a quest. To me it was always a Western, and it was of only peripheral importance that its form and content were meant to be derivative of some other genre. Leone’s superb artistry kept me busy enough.
Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood uses a fairy tale’s opening words in its title, and Quentin Tarantino’s well-known adoration and imitation of Leone links it specifically to Leone’s two “Once Upon A Time” films (the other one is, of course, Once Upon A Time In America). But there is something in Tarantino’s film — specifically the ending — that transforms what would otherwise be his most naturalistic, most grounded film into a special kind of fairy tale, and a deeply moving and satisfying one at that.
I started out not liking Quentin Tarantino, or Reservoir Dogs, much. I thought the director was a show-off, and although there was plenty of cinematic originality mixed in with its deliberately derivative aspects, my snobbish evaluation (based on tons of bad press) was that it was exactly what some people said it was: the creation of an obnoxious former video store clerk with an encyclopedic knowledge of movies and a flair for the obvious.
Then I liked Pulp Fiction.
I didn’t want to let go of my personal dislike of Tarantino; he was an easy target of unfair prejudice. But Pulp Fiction was just too ingeniously structured, too well-written, well-cast, well-acted, well-paced, well-shot, and well…fun to watch. And so I got on board for the long haul, half-on and half-off the bandwagon, and I enjoyed myself through a whole bunch of showy, imitative, misogynistic, weird movies with weird, artificial plots studded with homages and tributes and occasionally successful technical attempts to out-master the masters Quentin idolized and mimicked. He knew how to frame shots, move the camera, direct frantic action, stun and surprise us, focus our attention and entertain us, even as he revived the careers of fading Hollywood actors and created outrageous tableaux that made it impossible to take his films seriously. Do I regret not seeing the 70mm, 187 minute “roadshow” version of The Hateful Eight, just so I could say I’d seen it? Sort of.
But the prospect of watching the lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh get punched hard in the face over and over in 70mm can make one avoid even the rarest technical exhibition. Her bruises are realistic enough, and her repeated beatings perverse enough on DVD.
The point is, Tarantino’s films, as entertaining and ingenious as some of them are, aren’t serious stories with significant themes and an ability to move one’s genuine emotions. We get fantasy fulfillment in spades, including misogynist fantasy. Thrills: sure. Laughs: yes. Tears: never. For all his talent and skill, Tarantino could not make us care for a character, suffer with a character, grieve with a character, fear a character, mourn a character the way Sergio Leone did consistently in Once Upon A Time In The West and Once Upon A Time In America.
That is, until Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood. I didn’t see it coming. A story set during a tumultuous period in which the music, the set and costume design brought me right back to 1969 with a combination of fully developed, empathetic characters, incorporating one of the great public traumas of the 1960s: the Manson Family murders. And what Tarantino does with those murders — that is, he prevents them from happening — is, in my opinion, a great dramatic success.
He’s played with alternative history before: it was fun to see Adolf Hitler’s head get blown apart by machinegun fire at the end of Inglourious Basterds, but that was nothing more than a gimmick to remind us that we were watching something completely fake.
In Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood, Tarantino gives us, for the first time in his career as a director, characters we can accept as real human beings whose strengths and flaws match strengths and flaws of our own, and of our friends. Their fears, their weaknesses, their failures have a depth that dramatic characters in a film must have if they are to move us emotionally. Their occupations, their homes, their clothes are designed not to create the cool, edgy worlds of movies like Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction. They serve character development, narrative realism, things one never used to expect from Tarantino. It’s the small details, like Rick Dalton’s (Leonardo DiCaprio’s) slight stutter in normal conversation, that make us feel sympathy, and make us believe these characters exist in a plausible world all of us have seen in one form or another. We recognize 1960s Hollywood.
There are flourishes that serve only realism, like the way Cass Elliot (Rachel Redleaf) skips around the pool at the Playboy Mansion, holding Sharon Tate’s hand: I remember how Cass Elliot moved when I watched The Mamas and The Papas on The Smother’s Brothers Comedy Hour, and Tarantino captures that movement precisely. Those few seconds on screen make the time and the place absolutely real to me.
Hairdressing, backlighting and makeup turn a conversation between Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis) and Connie Stevens (Dreama Walker) into something positively real. For a moment, Damian Lewis is Steve McQueen. And while it’s clear he’s either drunk or stoned (or both), his conversation sounds like typical party talk, even as it clarifies relationships within the narrative.
A pivotal encounter takes place between DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton and the 8-year-old Trudi Fraser (Julia Butters) with whom he’s about to play a scene as a “guest star” in someone else’s TV series. Rick has lost all confidence, while the little girl he’s talking with exudes confidence, poise and a professional’s discipline. He’s in the middle of a long fall from competence and self-respect. She’s like his little Yoda, calmly explaining why he really has nothing to worry about. It’s a scene full of genuine feeling, empathy, subtle characterization; it reveals and clarifies a key to DiCaprio’s character. It’s not at all like Tarantino’s previous work.
Compare this with the scene in Pulp Fiction that supposedly provides a key to Bruce Willis’ character: it’s a flashback where Christopher Walken describes keeping Willis’ late father’s watch in his rectum in order to preserve it and present it to Willis, according to the father’s dying request. It’s nothing more than a piece of humorous stunt casting, a scene that adds to the entertainment value of the movie without actually making Willis’ character any more real or believable.
Even the scene in Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood between Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) and Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), which some people find disturbing because it’s unflattering to Lee, reminds me of situations I’ve witnessed behind the scenes on movie sets (arguments between actors and stunt coordinators are not all that rare). I’ve read accounts of Lee that make him out to be quite overbearing and egotistical. The contrast with Brad Pitt’s laid-back expert martial artist rings true, and provides background for why Pitt’s character is viewed as somewhat of a dangerous loser.
There is realism and danger in the encounter Pitt has with the Manson Family at Spahn’s Movie Ranch. Pitt’s motivation for visiting the ranch is not to score with an underage girl, but rather to see whether George Spahn (Bruce Dern) is being mistreated by the hippies who live there. It’s the perfect way for Tarantino to foreshadow what we expect to be certain horrific events later on in the movie. The portrayals of Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch) perfectly set up our expectation of a horrible, tragic end. And the manner in which Tarantino smashes our expectations could not be further in tone and effect from the way he dispatches Hitler in Basterds.
In fact, the final melee in DiCaprio’s house, involving as it does gunfire, stabbing, intervention of a trained attack dog, the smashing of a glass door, and finally, immolation by flame-thrower, may look on the surface just like other outbursts of uncontrolled violence in a variety of Tarantino’s other films. But think about what that action replaces: the violence in the house next door to Sharon Tate’s is the very thing that makes the depiction of much worse violence — an expected, but undelivered re-enactment of Tate’s actual murder — unnecessary. Tarantino stages what would be, in his other films, just another exercise in over-the-top violence. But here it’s much more than that. It’s the opposite of gratuitous movie violence. It’s the series of events that brings Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood to an actual fairy tale ending.
I was not prepared for my reaction to the movie’s altered history. The anticipation of yet another replay of one of the most horrific crimes ever to take place in Hollywood during my lifetime creates a tension the film releases in a way that is completely unexpected, and that is logically inexplicable. It suddenly transforms the otherwise plausible and realistic action of the film into complete fantasy. Tarantino, by placing DiCaprio and Pitt next door to Polanski’s house, sets up a detour around our collective memory of horror, one that comes as a relief. If you buy into it, as I do, it provides a deep, hopeful satisfaction that acts as a kind of artificial mood elevator.
And the aftermath is staged in the most banal manner imaginable. Here, we’ve just witnessed an expertly choreographed Tarantino bloodbath, with all the violence and gore and confusion and even macabre humor those scenes always provide. But this time we’ve come to think of the central characters as real people, worthy of our affection and concern. It’s like no other aftermath of violence in Tarantino’s previous work. The ambulance carrying Pitt to the hospital has departed; DiCaprio’s wife and Pitt’s dog are safely asleep inside the house. Emile Hirsch’s Jay Sebring comes down to the gate at the end of Sharon Tate’s driveway, and he and DiCaprio have the kind of conversation practically everyone has had at one time or another: the quiet aftermath of an unusual or traumatic event. It’s one neighbor asking “What the hell happened?” and the other neighbor offering a perfunctory description of events.
Nothing could be further from the true events that transpired in Roman Polanski’s house the night of August 9, 1969. No conclusion of a story portending such horror could be more comforting than the fairy tale ending Tarantino invented. Why did he do it? What was he trying to say about the real-life event, about the fictional revision, about the characters, both real and invented, who we’ve watched with increasing apprehension as time drew them nearer to the possibility of unspeakable horror?
Is Tarantino showing us that only movies can provide this special brand of magic? Is he merely demonstrating the power of imagination? Is he redefining the fairy tale?
Is Tarantino saying, “Look what I did; I just saved the lives of Sharon Tate and her baby”? Because if that’s all he’s saying, good for him. The Manson Family won’t get anywhere near Sharon Tate’s unborn baby. Roman Polanski can skip the emergency plane trip home to see the word “PIG” scrawled on the front door in his murdered wife’s and child’s blood. Their blood hasn’t been spilled.
I like the ending of Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood because it makes me feel better, not just better because one historic outrage is magically erased. The murders happened, and nothing can change that. It’s only in this movie that history is altered, and the fantasy is effective because for the first time in his career, Tarantino has created characters so grounded in the credible and the real, he can change the course of history and get us to accept it as a kind of truth.
Watching this movie on a small laptop computer is disrespectful to cinema. Phones are out of the question. Hyperlinks appear below.
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