Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

A brief intro: In Los Angeles, 1969, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an actor who was once the star of a famous TV show but is now struggling to stay relevant and make big in the movies. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is his stunt double turned gopher plus drinking buddy who tags along Rick, trying to score jobs as well. Rick is the next door neighbor to famous director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Each of them go about their lives in Hollywood; Rick struggling with his lines on sets, Cliff running errands and walking into the lion’s den when he meets one of the Manson Family girls, and Sharon driving around town and living it up, until their fates intersect one night.



Every once in awhile a director comes along and creates something of a reflective art piece, a cumulative of their career, whereas it is in fact a culmination of the very expression they intend with the art. While Pulp Fiction brought Quentin Tarantino on the stage of world cinema, and Inglorious Basterds marked a writer/director at his artistic peak, he has successfully divided us with his arguable magnum opus, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. An entire generation of viewers, who are used to the quirky characters, sharp dialogue and bloody encounters, expect nothing less from a director than what they did 20 years ago: a movie with all of his Tarantinoesque traits and more. A movie which they can laud out loud because it has everything they love about the Tarantino they know. He didn’t do that this time, and they didn’t like that. What he did do was use what 25 years of moviemaking and a lifetime in Los Angeles has taught him, and create something so refreshing that it’ll take a while for the mainstream audience to appreciate.



Tarantino has regularly and expertly equipped the “bomb under the table” technique, that Hitchcock once talked about, most famously in the glorious opening sequence of Inglourious Basterds. The scene teases us with elaborate dialogue before revealing the figurative bomb under the table (the family hiding beneath the floorboards) to spike the tension. He applied it differently in Django Unchained and did it again in The Hateful Eight; in all instances it works like a charm and also adds some of that sweet Tarantinoesque build-up before the gratifying hyperviolence that follows. And while many other filmmakers employ it too, what’s different in Once in Hollywood is that it does not give us the “information” that’s supposed to distress us explicitly. For the viewers who know the real story of the fateful night of August 9th, 1969, the only trigger they need is the panning shot to a street sign saying “Cielo Dr.”. The fear, the anticipation, and the distress is pre-programmed in our brains by the knowledge we already have and all it takes is that single shot to snap us out of the influence of groovy tunes and a star-studded cast. It might seem like a lot to ask of the audience (however, it’s just asking them to be aware of one of the most formative events of modern LA before going to watch a movie about LA set in that time period) but even if you don’t know your basic pop culture history, the mere hints laid out in the movie are enough for someone to know before reaching halfway that something’s not right. The film does not have any opening text or any explicit references, but for those who know about the Tate-LaBianca murders know that the clock is ticking. Tarantino, after taking this call, wanes the impending tragedy and chooses to pull us into the “present” of the LA he wants us to experience with him. Regardless, turning the method over its head is what an auteur does and Tarantino doing it effortlessly is one of the many signs of it being a mature yet daring piece of work.



Tarantino has toyed with a non-linear structure of storytelling with great success: in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill where he broke the story into pieces and intricately rearranged their chronological order to reinforce the pace and gravity with which the movie proceeded. While the chronology is largely maintained in Once in Hollywood, most of the times the scenes are slow and each “piece” runs in its entirety, rather than intercutting two or more different parts of the story. This sounds fairly close to neither the traditional and conventional method of dramatic storytelling: events occurring in different places with different people, and eventually having them intersect at the climax, nor an anthology style. However, the overall feel and the content of the scenes is reminiscent of Michel Haneke’s 1994 art film: 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. Employing a similar plotline, 71 Fragments revolves around the daily routines in the unrelated lives of different people who go on to be the victims (and the shooter) in a deadly mass shooting in a local bank. The problem with 71 Fragments was that the viewers did not know about what those loose set (or fragments) of scenes was leading up to. Despite being shown a news clip about the mass shooting in the opening scene, the climax is not reinforced and there is no saying why those fragments are relevant, and it ends up being arduously long wait for a relatively quick climax. Tarantino was quick to solve this by taking a relatively better known event and leaving several trails (and a chilling scene at Spahn Ranch) for the audience to pick up the scent that tends to their anxious anticipation of the tragedy.



Of course, apart from the momentary nail-biting, anxiety, Cliff Booth’s charm and Rick Dalton’s self doubt, there is love spread all over this film. Love for the city, love for its people, love for its cars, but especially love for the movies (and feet). Though Tarantino has never been shy of flaunting film history in his movies with numerous references which are endearing at times, this time it is not much about paying homages but creating his own version of it and simultaneously doing justice to both the movies he loves and the story he’s telling in his movie. However, it is impossible to see such a poignant display of ardour from any other director in general and particularly for this time period in LA which Tarantino perfectly epitomizes with all the landmarks, music, posters (both real and fiction), the driving and the car radio blasting era-appropriate adverts. With that and a load of visual beauty, the scenes are pretty easy-going compared to his previous films but with the added tempo of longer takes and the perpetual and palpable tension brewing underneath. While the story is reminiscent of the old Westerns, where the good guys and bad guys brush past each other before the finale, the movie plays out almost like a buddy-film where both Rick and Cliff (and Sharon!) go on about their own adventures. Somewhat like a-day-in-the-life way. One of the reasons for this is that we actually get to spend time with these characters beyond their eccentric and dramatically active moments which was largely missing in the “Tarantinoesque” genre of movies. Tarantinoesque used to refer to the themes and style of his movies known for its wit, violence and nonlinear plots. But after Once in Hollywood, given the maturity of the underlying themes and a good character development, the time is appropriate to redefine this term. Regardless of whether they add anything, rewatchablity is an unmistakable trait; rewatchablity without worrying about the climatic ending.



Other than the quirky style and dialogue, and the usual tropes of the man, what do we love about his movies? The characters is one answer. But despite them being eccentric and lively in every movie, we’ve never had one where we can randomly relate to one. No matter how mouthful Jules Winfield is we don’t find ourselves thinking “that’s something Jules Winfield would do” or think or say (other than his “Biblical” verse). Regardless of how formidable Hans Landa and his demeanor as a villain is, even he didn’t find his way into the cultural zeitgeist the way, say, The Dude from The Big Lebowski has. Thus, one can safely argue that while Tarantino’s movies are widespread and viral, his characters might not match the level of depth, which is quite strange considering that it is his writing, world building and dialogue for which he and his movies are renowned. The dialogue is better acclaimed than his characters? Maybe. The style of dialogue is more popular than the dialogue? Definitely. With Once in Hollywood, he has managed to flip that on its head and that’s what makes it so stirring and unconventional for his fanbase (it currently holds 7.8/10 on IMDb which ranks it third from the bottom in his filmography). As mentioned before, maybe it will take a while for the “magnum opus”-ness to become apparent for someone, rightfully so, in adoration of the rest of his oeuvre.



Unlike his previous movies, where we often passively observe the endearing and exhilarating acts of the characters onscreen, be it seeking revenge or recovering from a botched heist or figuring out who poisoned the coffee, Once in Hollywood lets us observe as well as let our feelings participate in them. We could be gleefully gazing at Sharon Tate as she spends an afternoon walking around and watching herself on the big screen and be mesmerized at her angel-like depiction on-screen, while other fanboys scratch their heads over finding the “point” of the scene. We participate in absorbing the A-lister charisma of Brad Pitt playing Cliff Booth as he drives around town (and feeds his dog). We take part in Rick Dalton’s acting process and him fighting through his insecurities. There’s a great character arc of Rick Dalton, from fighting hopelessness and his obscurity and image in Hollywood to paving his way to the big screen, but that’s a discussion for another time. (Same can be said for Cliff and Tarantino’s casting choice for the duo.) The world building gives us a lot of material to adore (retro posters of fictional movies, story-lines from Bounty Law, and, of course, the flamethrower) but there’s a tonne of subtext to unpack. And the unpacking could go on beyond this discussion as well. Meanwhile, for the time being, we can find comfort in watching the delightfully flawed characters living their lives in a version of history we wish to be true.



Read about the Tate-LaBianca murders