Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Mike Moh, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Emile Hirsch, Mikey Madison, Bruce Dern, Lena Dunham, Julia Butters, Luke Perry, Rafal Zawierucha, Damian Lewis, Lorenza Izzo, Nicholas Hammond, James Landry Hebert, Damon Herriman, Scoot McNairy, Michael Madsen, Clifton Collins Jr.
Comedy/Drama - 161 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 25 July 2019
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Mike Moh, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Emile Hirsch, Mikey Madison, Bruce Dern, Lena Dunham, Julia Butters, Luke Perry, Rafal Zawierucha, Damian Lewis, Lorenza Izzo, Nicholas Hammond, James Landry Hebert, Damon Herriman, Scoot McNairy, Michael Madsen, Clifton Collins Jr.
Comedy/Drama - 161 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 25 July 2019
Quentin Tarantino resurrects cinema and cinematic history; it’s what he does. He believes certain objects which used to be beloved, but are now obscure, can be glorified in a second life. He rescued John Travolta’s career. He resuscitated moribund genres like the kung-fu epic and Blaxploitation. He cherishes his film forefathers and (most) audiences love him for not only showcasing that respect on screen, but carrying long forgotten means, methods, and movies forward. Shot on 35mm film complete with the indicators to change the reel and what I believe may be deliberate blemishes on particular sections, Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is a love letter to Los Angeles. It’s not an idealized utopia; he does not claim everything was better back then. This unembellished Los Angeles is smog-choked, garishly neon, and socially cleaved between the elite and their private drives and everyone else. In a way, it’s Tarantino’s Roma. 1969 Los Angeles may have been filthy, corrupt, and transitioning from an older age into the next, but it was Tarantino’s filth, corruption, and transition – there is beauty is them there scrap yards and blemished boulevards.
Rick Dalton’s star is fading. He leaped off a successful NBC serial western, “Bounty Law”, to pursue a film career which never took hold. Now, relegated to playing “the heavy” on sporadic episodes of “F.B.I.” and “Mannix”, Rick (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant) tears up when an agent (Al Pacino) truth bombs him with the news that sooner rather than later, he will not even be cast opposite whomever the rising star is in some pilot which will never see the light of day. The agent recommends Italian spaghetti westerns; Rick would be born again! To obscure Rick with sunglasses so nobody sees him crying and assure him he is still the man is Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, Allied). Cliff was Rick’s “Bounty Law” stunt double and now functions as Rick’s chauffeur, handyman, fixer, psychiatrist, and friend. An incident in Cliff’s past blackballed him from Hollywood and any meaningful stunt employment. Grateful to score even the most meager work on a set, Cliff remains too honest to let it slide when Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) boasts he would wipe the floor with Cassius Clay.
Rick Dalton’s star is fading. He leaped off a successful NBC serial western, “Bounty Law”, to pursue a film career which never took hold. Now, relegated to playing “the heavy” on sporadic episodes of “F.B.I.” and “Mannix”, Rick (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant) tears up when an agent (Al Pacino) truth bombs him with the news that sooner rather than later, he will not even be cast opposite whomever the rising star is in some pilot which will never see the light of day. The agent recommends Italian spaghetti westerns; Rick would be born again! To obscure Rick with sunglasses so nobody sees him crying and assure him he is still the man is Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, Allied). Cliff was Rick’s “Bounty Law” stunt double and now functions as Rick’s chauffeur, handyman, fixer, psychiatrist, and friend. An incident in Cliff’s past blackballed him from Hollywood and any meaningful stunt employment. Grateful to score even the most meager work on a set, Cliff remains too honest to let it slide when Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) boasts he would wipe the floor with Cassius Clay.
Where is Tarantino pushing us? The film appears to circle Rick and Cliff in parallel plot lines, like Pulp Fiction, but there is more going on here. Rick lives next door to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie, Peter Rabbit)…in 1969. No need to go into what you probably already know or can easily look up, but yes, Rick and Cliff, both fictional characters, operate in a real timeline next door to an all too real tragedy. Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is not a farce even though there are plenty of laughs. It’s not an homage to innocence lost, it does not mourn a Hollywood golden age, nor is it nostalgia of a time gone by. It’s a history, but more an alternate history. It meanders, more or less, because it can. A woman near me in the theater asked loudly during the credits, “What was the plot? What the hell was the plot?” I believe there is plenty of plot lurking around the film, but there’s more going on than story. There are juicy characters with relatable problems and they operate in a noticeably marked time – the death of free love, the end of the celebrated hippie lifestyle, and in some timelines, the sad end of Sharon Tate.
Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate is a carefree ingénue. She dances with abandon at the Playboy mansion with Michelle Phillips and Mama Cass while Steve McQueen looks on. She sneaks into a screening of a movie she stars in, The Wrecking Crew, laughs along with the crowd and still cannot believe she shared the screen with Dean Martin. Tarantino recommends 10 films he would love audiences to watch before this film and The Wrecking Crew is one of them. I’ve never seen it, but I believe it would strengthen our attachment and enjoyment watching Robbie as Tate giggle at herself on screen. It’s a magical moment. Tarantino edits the moment between Cliff’s abrupt arrival at the Manson Family Ranch and its stark allusions of what may or may not follow.
Tarantino consistently proves he has a specific vision to meet with his films and he always hits it. He directs the two Kill Bills, The Hateful Eight, and Django Unchained, to name drop a few, with purpose and message. If Tarantino wants to linger on DiCaprio’s Rick acting across Timothy Olyphant and Luke Perry in a western and then scream at himself in the mirror, which does not really serve the progress of any discernable plot, then so be it. It’s as riveting as any whodunit. Brad Pitt takes his shirt off on a roof to fix an antenna. There’s no reason at all for it, except it’s Tarantino showing off he can put a still-ripped 55 year-old Pitt on a roof and have him take his shirt off. Cliff is more never was than has been, but he stands ready.
Cinematographer Robert Richardson, a three-time Oscar winner with six other nominations, loiters on shoes and girls’ asses. Cliff sports suede moccasins, Sharon Tate jaunts around in white, leather boots reaching a bit over her ankle, and most of the Manson gang slither around on bare feet. We also get Margot Robbie’s mini-skirted derriere and Margaret Qualley as Pussycat, Cliff’s detour into the Manson gang, stretching over every available surface to display her assets in a pair of jean shorts cut to expose more than conceal. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this fixation on feet and ass, but there are websites devoted to analyzing how Tarantino’s alleged foot fetish pops up in his films.
As for plot, Cliff Booth would tell the lady to, “Pull back darlin’.” There is more than enough story to go around, but that’s not why we’re here. I love that there is now a film with DiCaprio struggling through booze to pull off western outlaw menace and multiple, extended situations between Brad Pitt and a hyper-obedient dog intent on watching Cliff slowly prepare a dinner of rat and raccoon-flavored dog chow. These are Tarantino peccadillos and accessories which acolytes will analyze for the next decade to uncover their provenance and possible double meanings – the same way they dissected Pulp Fiction for every subtle wink and nudge, even the one’s which were not even in there. Aficionados will relish the Red Apple cigarettes, Michael Madsen, and Luke Perry’s final film performance. It’s tough to gauge the film’s future impact on cinematic culture and where it will fall in Tarantino’s filmography, but know it will be significant and toward the top of the list.
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