Arts and Lifestyle Presented by The Exit Room of Lee's Summit"-Another Fine Mess
When a Quentin Tarantino film comes out, I take pause. There are so many things that I like about his work, but I am not necessarily drawn to see it for certain. I know that it will be brilliantly staged and filmed, that set and production design will be brilliant, and that period detail of all kinds will be jaw dropping. I also know that I will find much of the violence, although at times cartoonish, to be gratuitous. And I damn sure know that the film will be long, although that is never a deal breaker on any film with me.
However, I was sure that I wanted to see “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood”. The trailers were great, it has an outstanding cast, and the subject matter of Hollywood itself is a passion that I share with Tarantino, although I have been able to neither make it a career nor an obsession, as he has in what I was surprised to realize is only his ninth feature film.
It is set in 1969, and it opens in a blaze of tracking shots, set pieces, tunes, and sights. An early scene of Brad Pitt driving around in Los Angeles, the camera angle from the passenger seat, is a tour de force. Famous and familiar landmarks, and products on billboards, emerge in the background, and those things just aren’t around anymore! But there they are, and there we are, immersed in it. We also hear brilliantly used commercials of the day on the radio, adding further to the effect. Pitt plays Cliff Booth, the stunt double of fading Hollywood actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Dalton made his greatest fame in a hit television western several years before named “Bounty Law”, and also had some big screen leads in a few lowbrow action films. He now mostly gets his steady work playing heavies in series television guest shots. Among the significant delights of the film are the recreations of the old series and films, which are done to perfection. Some are fictional like “Bounty Law”, and the war film “The 14 Fists of McCluskey”, some are not, like the television series “The FBI” and “Mannix”, and “The Great Escape” , featuring the fictional Dalton screen test for Steve McQueen’s part in the iconic film, in which Dalton’s image is CGI’d into a real scene from the movie. McQueen and other actual people are portrayed in the film, Dalton and Booth are completely fictional.
Dalton drinks and smokes way too much, and his drinking has cost him his driver’s license. That creates one of several jobs besides diminishing stunt work for Cliff which include driver, handyman, drinking buddy, and cheerleader. Booth has a murky past, with a couple of references made to him murdering his wife and getting away with it, and a brief scene of a bit of what might have occurred only adds to the mystery.
Pitt’s tailor-made and brilliant for the laconic character, meandering through life, seemingly quite pleased to be a gopher living in a trailer in a drive-in movie parking lot with his dog. His part is light years more subtle to play than DiCaprio’s, but Leo is equally good as the insecure Dalton. The part has the challenges of him having to be quite mediocre in some of the mocked-up acting parts, then raising his game occasionally when challenged. The off-screen Dalton is awash with emotional meltdowns and temper tantrums, with Cliff there to walk him back.
While the film starts fast, there really isn’t much of a plot going on, but as we slow things down, the thread and the threat of the Manson family slowly appears. “Charlie” is only viewed in one scene, where he supposedly mistakenly is lost in Dalton’s swanky gated neighborhood, where he lives next door to actress Sharon Tate and film director Roman Polanski.
Tate is portrayed by Margot Robbie. She is blindingly gorgeous, and her character is a breezy, lightweight person almost floating around through the film. She is pleasant and nice, and seems absolutely delighted that she has stumbled onto an acting career, in one scene going into a theater to watch one of her own films, beaming when the patrons appreciate something she does onscreen.
The mood grows more intense when at first delightfully goofy hitchhiker hippie Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), unsuccessfully tries to catch rides with Cliff. He eventually does let her take a ride, she tries to seduce him, and he refuses since he is sure she is a minor. But the ride ends up at an old movie lot where some of “Bounty Law” was shot, which now is the haven for the Manson Family. Pussycat is excited to introduce Cliff around, but they aren’t amused by the intruder. The scene goes on far too long, but is undeniably tense, and sets the tone for the remainder of the film. (See if you can catch the continuity mistake at the end of the scene when Cliff drives home, I wouldn’t be shocked if Tarantino did it on purpose.)
While the Manson storyline is the thread, the film is far more a pastiche of extremely well-played and directed small vignettes about the changing Hollywood, and American, landscape. The Manson Family is certainly the creepiest version of hippies, but Tarantino clearly has disdain for the entire counterculture, and it is filtered through Dalton and Booth.
There are the usual small, but meaty, parts for familiar faces, many of whom have appeared in multiple Tarantino films, like Kurt Russell, some who have not, like Al Pacino. Pacino plays Marvin Schwarz, an agent who warns Dalton of the dangers of playing too many heavies, and steers him to Italy to star in spaghetti westerns.
Unlike most of his films there aren’t a slew of operatically staged violent scenes, but the one big one that comes at the end is certainly typical of his work. I have to admit to being queasy as a women’s face is smashed repeatedly into a picture frame, while many in the audience, clearly avid fans, are laughing. The use of an old movie prop flamethrower is, however, absurd enough to actually be funny.
Any Tarantino film comes with more than a slight dose of misogyny. This is a macho man culture we are visiting and he definitely likes it that way. And while the characters are perhaps reflecting the morays of the time, the movie is also dominated by white males, who have little restraint in tossing off a slur or three.
Of course, many Tarantino films toy with historical facts and this one fits right in. He clearly has fondness for the Hollywood era that is passing away at the time, with many saying that the Manson Family murders of Tate and others marked its end. Tarantino would prefer it didn’t end, and has a vision of how maybe it didn’t have to.
There are always things to pick at in his films if you like, but “Once Upon a Time….in Hollywood” has so much going for it, it demands praise. Spot-on performances across the board, technical skill of the highest order, snappy dialogue, great use of period music, and a whole lot more.
As I mentioned, Tarantino has now made nine features, and has hinted that he might stop at ten. For all the flaws that his films wear proudly on their sleeves, it would be a shame if he hung it up anytime soon.
