Thoughts On Tarantino's "'Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood"

Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood (2019)
written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

I consider myself a fan of Quentin Tarantino, so I was really anticipating this one. I have to say, though, that I haven't always liked his output. This new one is touted as the director's ninth screen outing as writer/director. So let's see:
1. Reservoir Dogs. Saw it on video years after release. Enjoyed it.
2. Pulp Fiction. Saw it opening night at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Loved it.
3. Jackie Brown. This may be my favorite.
4. Kill Bill, Vol. 1 & 2. Loved it.
5. Death Proof. Have yet to see it all the way through, so no opinion.
6. Inglorious Basterds. Seen it. Was left cold.
7. Django Unchained. Liked it until the last quarter. Not anxious to see it again.
8. The Hateful Eight. Can take it or leave it. A slog that delivers its payoffs at a glacial pace.
And now
9. Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood.
While critics and folks whose film opinions I value have raves for it, I've been having trouble processing it.

The film took my expectations of what a Tarantino film is -- fast, witty, hip, and violent -- and didn't so much defy them but twist, thwart, and sidestep them. While still managing to be witty, hip, and violent. It's simply that the story is rendered at a different pace; the tale of how middling actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double turned friend and factotum Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) spend their days and nights in 1969 L.A. and ultimately cross paths with real-life starlet Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) unspools in an episodic fashion, though -- unlike in Pulp Fiction -- Tarantino doesn't scramble the timelines.

See, our awareness of the timeline is pivotal in this picture. The previews for the film don't shy away from showing that these affable bros and their ethereally gorgeous neighbor are impacted by followers of infamous "Helter Skelter" psycho Charles Manson. Anyone who knows history is familiar with the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders that horrified the country and cast a pall over the freewheeling Hollywood lifestyle that Tarantino so lovingly recreates here. Because of that, I spent my entire watch time at attention, waiting for the inevitable to happen, and of course, it does -- or does it? The conclusion left me emotionally exhausted and mentally confused. Also confusing to me was the intermittent use of a narrator. Was it an omniscient narrator? Or was the narration from a character in the story, because it sounded a lot like Kurt Russell (who plays a role) to me.

Once Upon A Time does offer numerous notable episodes, classic dialogues, monologues, moments of tension and chuckles along the way, as Dalton scrambles to keep himself from sliding into alcoholism and keep his acting career on a forward trajectory, while Booth is satisfied to run Dalton's errands and get his kicks stunt driving around L.A's sun dappled neighborhoods with the radio blasting the latest groovy pop rock hits (in classic QT style, the soundtrack is filled with gems from the Mama & the Papas, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Rolling Stones, Jose Feliciano, Deep Purple, Neil Diamond, and many others).

It's an era of spaghetti westerns and swinging 60s pseudo private eye stories, of flower power and political assassinations. Though it's a tale about the Hollywood lifestyle, and the film studio system that birthed it, the story is as much a tribute to the then-seminal medium of television as it is to movies. The film is crammed with details and homages, to goofy TV variety shows, the kind of Wolfman Jack radio DJs, inane radio jingles, the stern TV westerns and crime procedurals, the TV producer screen signatures, the Hollywood landmarks and institutions from Musso & Frank;s, the Brown Derby, Schwab's, El Coyote, the Cinerama Dome, the Pantages Theatre, the Capitol Building. Viewers who don't know the city may not get all of the references, including how far it is from Hollywood & Vine out to the abandoned film studio in Chatsworth where Manson's followers have taken up residence. It's fun to see how many real-life characters (Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Michelle Phillips, Mama Cass, Roman Polanski) and cameo appearances (Kurt Russell, Clu Gallagher, Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino, Luke Perry. Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Rumer Willis, Lena Dunham) are crammed into the flick.

As we watch their days unspool, we learn that Dalton is volatile, emotional, insecure, and often clueless; Booth is laconic, laidback, philosophical, and capable of explosive violence. They make a perfect odd couple, and it's a treat to see two men easily enjoy each other's company and not fret about their employer/employee status. Meanwhile, Tarantino gives a lighter touch to Tate, who after all was a real-life figure whose existence was cut short, so she does little but prance around the city looking beatific, as though she is a symbol of angelic purity in THE City of Angels. (<--- edited)

DiCaprio and Pitt have earned raves for their performances in this flick. DiCaprio is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest actors of his generation with an impressive number of roles under his belt, except I personally don't find him all that accessible as an actor. It's that little something that makes the audience identify with the actor as they take on the role; it's a quality that Denzel Washington and particularly Tom Hanks have in droves. It's a quality of magical engagement -- or charm, if you will. For all DiCaprio's skill, he leaves me cold.

Pitt, who has impressed me over the years as he's grown from a pretty face to an actor with some depth (Kalifornia, Moneyball, Snatch, Thelma & Louise, Fight Club) is far more engaging in my book. But truth be told, Pitt has done too many roles where he is called on to be the pretty, mysterious/sad brooder (Benjamin Button, Babel, Interview with A Vampire, A River Runs Through It, Meet Joe Black, the Ocean flicks).

If I had my druthers, I would have cast 50something Pitt as challenged actor Rick Dalton and made 40something DiCaprio play the iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove Cliff Booth -- imagine the creative possibilities of that! Brad, world-weary, weepy and insecure, and Leo, caged fury with a smile.

As one of my movie compadres and I repeated to each other as we hashed it over, it's not that I don't like the film, exactly. I just may have to do a re-set on my expectations and watch again.

Backward Glance: "Django Unchained" (2012)

directed by Quentin Tarantino
starring Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz

WAY BACK IN 2011 A FRIEND sent me a pdf copy of script for the then-upcoming Quentin Tarantino flick Django Unchained. I took a couple of days to read it. It was sick. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. The script was kind of like Mandingo (trashy soap opera) meets both Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds (WWII revenge yarn that I did not like at all) and his Kill Bill (modern-day femme revenge yarn, which I did). Tarantino called it a "Southern," in that it's a Western genre piece set in the South. The time period is slavery, so the n-word, which Quentin sprinkled liberally all over Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, is now the inch-high frosting on the entire thing, And here Tarantino graphically depicts the very worst treatment of slaves: psychological torture, mutilation, humiliation, sexual abuse, and other forms of degradation and violence. While this is meant to give a true picture of the horrors of slavery, it also borders on exploitation; since this is Tarantino, after all, he takes things to stomach-churning extremes.

The story centers on Django, a slave who was just sold away from his beloved wife and is being marched to a new plantation with a shackled coterie of other slaves until a German bounty hunter shows up, shoots his sibling overseers (a criminal lot with a price on their heads), and then mentors him to be his bounty hunting partner. With a Beatrix Kiddo-times-ten focus on vengeance, Django only wants to rescue his beloved and do some death-dealing to those who mistreated her, primarily infamous plantation owner Calvin Candie. The German King Schultz (who explains that as a European he has no stake in the slavery game) agrees to free Django and help him rescue his love in exchange for help nabbing some high-priced quarry.

The storyline also involves slavers who operate literal death matches between slaves, basically human dogfights where white gentlemen of leisure can gamble and entertain themselves with a bloody spectacle (critics have since said that few slave-owners would throw away money by allowing one of their slaves to be incapacitated or killed unnecessarily, but seeing as how the institution of slavery itself was mutilating and killing black folk on the daily, who knows). The script also lingers quite a bit on the existence of exclusive brothels where white men can use pretty black slave women, here called “ponies,” for their pleasures. And wouldn't ya know, this is one of the fates in store for Django's missus (many of the brothel scenes do not make it into the final film).

I could only guess at what actress would want to take on the role of Django’s beloved, since she appears nude for most of her scenes and is raped, beaten, abused, and worst of all made to speak German (horrors!) in the film! (just kidding). Somehow Kerry Washington springs to mind. (And indeed, that is who they cast.) And I can't picture who will be Django -- it's a role that requires a Sam Jackson, but he's too old. And I couldn't see Will Smith operating within the Tarantino milieu.

What amused me most about the script I saw is that it was riddled with misspellings – and why should that make me feel good? Bleh. Culture doesn't stop for little things like spelling. Anyway, the black female character is here named "Broomhilda," a name that Tarantino tells us is a legendary moniker connected to a Rhine-soaked folktale of yore, as in Wagner's Siegfried opera. Except, Quentin, “Broomhilda” is the cartoon witch whose name was a play on the real name, which is actually Brunnhilde or Brunhilda.

At least get your lore right, when you are basing a whole plot point around it! For indeed, the story of Django's quest to reunite with his Broomhilda is equivalent to Siegfried's quest to climb a mountain, slay the dragon and claim princess Brunhilde for his own.

In the months after reading the script, I watched as Tarantino cast Jamie Foxx as Django, Leonardo DiCaprio as the sadistic owner of Candyland plantation, Samuel Jackson as a typical house n---er, and Christoph Waltz as the bounty hunter.

I did see the film, Christmas weekend, 2012. It is an odd movie, both visually arresting in some places, and cold and flat in others. So many of Quentin's films are about paying tribute to other films and other genres that occasionally the here-and-now of the singular narrative gets obscured. By turns irreverent and chilling, Django at times feels like it should have stayed in the oven a bit longer. Appearances by spaghetti western icons Lee Van Cleef and Franco Nero (star of the 1966 Italian-made western Django), as well as '80s TV veterans Tom Wopat and Don Johnson, character actors Bruce Dern, Russ Tamblyn, and black film pioneer Don Stroud, not to mention a completely anachronistic Jonah Hill, smack of stunt casting. Seeing Tarantino himself as an Australian in the slave trade just totally takes you out of the movie.

Overall Django Unchained is stylish, in that Jamie looks the part, and you root for him to win: He goes from a whip-scarred, unkempt, downtrodden slave in rags to a gun-totin' badass who looks damned fine on a horse in his western duds as he carries out a mission in the name of love. Christoph Waltz, playing an alternate version of the courtly killer Nazi in Basterds, does a fine turn (he won his second Oscar). As Calvin Candie, the sadistic owner of the Candieland plantation, Leo DiCaprio is a bit of a surprise -- as a racist scion of a Southern family he hits all the marks with chilling ease, particularly the scene where he lovingly strokes the skull of a former slave and expounds on his twisted belief in the inferiority of the black race. Washington has little to do but look pretty and helpless, as she becomes the star of her very own Perils of Pauline.

But when Sam Jackson, as the most nefarious of all Uncle Toms, shows up, the film takes an even nastier and more depressing turn. The final shootout is an unrelentingly gory bloodbath that makes the shootout at the climax of the Tarantino-scripted True Romance look like a pajama party.

I have a fondness for many of Tarantino's films, but this isn't at the top of my list of faves. I didn't hate it by any means; Quentin took home a Best Original Screenplay for Django, and that seems fair. But the script lacks the snappy, memorable dialogue of many of his other classics. Django says relatively little during the first half of the story, compared to other Tarantino heroes, though he gets off some choice lines. (Waltz's King Schultz character gets most of the laughs for his turns of phrase.)

Many of the scenes may trigger your squeamish side. By the time it's over you will be glad of the outcome, but if you watch it again you may wish you could fast-forward a few times. In my opinion.

Django is a film unlike any other -- no western has yet starred a black protagonist since the days of Buck And The Preacher and Thomasene & Bushrod (the 1970s) or, perhaps, Will Smith in 1999's the Wild, Wild West. Certainly none were set during slavery, when a black man had any agency. Tarantino continues to draw criticism for how he treats African American stories and characters on film, but he is one of very few filmmakers whose worldview includes people of color.