Days of Hollywood Past.

Rating: 10/10 (29 November 2019)

Ever since watching Pulp Fiction in late 2017, I've been a fan of Quentin Tarantino and his filmography. As a director, Quentin is nothing short of masterful in the realm of storytelling and as a writer, he's one of the best at writing dialogue and referencing pop culture in a way that sounds natural and helps the story rather than just trying to be trendy as well as his ability to writing flawed yet likable and charismatic characters as shown in Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films. So, when I heard that Tarantino would be making a film about Hollywood in the late 1960s and would focus on the Charles Mason murders, I was pumped beyond belief so when I did see the film in August of this year, I came out a bit perplexed but happy by what I had seen. Despite a few small issues, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a masterclass in filmmaking and shows why Tarantino is one of the best directors working in Hollywood today.
The film opens in early 1969 where Hollywood actor Rick Dalton, star of a 50s' western show, worries that his career may be ending and casting agent Marvin Schwarzs suggests that Dalton star in Spaghetti westerns but he refuses to do so. Rick's friend and stuntman, Cliff Booth serves as Dalton's driver due to his alcoholism resulting in numerous DUIs. Meanwhile, actress Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski move in next to Dalton. Now, Dalton and Cliff must find a way to reinvent themselves as the Hollywood landscape changes before their eyes amongst a background of changing tastes and sinister people.
Simply put, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a fantasy, no question about it. The mystery at the heart of the film lies in reuniting both its adulthood as well as its innocence. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has notably marketed as Tarantino's next to last film even though there's an awful lot of back and forth on that matter as well as being packed with a proper sadness. This sadness is reflected in a number of a different way, most apparently in the movie's 1969 setting. Here, Tarantino brings the Los Angeles of the late 1960s to life from the drive-in movie theaters and Old West film sets to celebrity parties at the Playboy Mansion. The majority of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood takes place over the course of one weekend in early 1969. The story gives us exact dates with a clear purpose as the film begins a mere 6 months before the Manson Murders occur. To some, these killings marked the end of the 60s along with the hippie culture and the hope and optimism that movement had fostered. As such, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood feels like a countdown to the end of an era both for Hollywood and for the 60s as a whole. A lot of the film feels like a death march setting up an evitable end. When watching the movie, the viewer gets the sense that there is something sad happening within this world.
There's no shortage of self-importance and narcissism in the claim that the 1960s ended simply because of a few savage murders in Hollywood that involved a couple of celebrities. Given how much of the mess the USA was in 1969, it's not really surprising as US troops were slogging it out in Vietnam and Nixon had just become president. Hell, Warren Beatty actually based the film Shampoo around the Manson victim Jay Sebring, and actually considered adding to his murder, however Beatty felt that this would portray a very selfish history of the late 60s and, instead built the film around the idea that celebrities were removed from what was actually happening in the world. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood only briefly explains any kind of reality outside of the glitz and glamor of Hollywood as there are some faint news reports of the chaos unfolding on the outside being heard through a car radio. Receiving a ride from Dalton's stunt man Cliff Booth, a young hippie complains that actors only mimic reality while people are dying out in the real world. Of course, this young lady is being a complete bigot as she's part of the Manson Family, a cult built around Charles Manson whose brutal actions were entrenched by his own failed attempt at stardom and whose crimes targeted celebrities while on a hunt for celebrity status.
So there is a sense of fulfillment in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in the form of the same kind of self-praise that one would expect from a movie made Hollywood about Hollywood. Now, to be fair to Tarantino, the film is intelligent enough to wear its viewpoint on its sleeve and also remain shrewd enough to ever-so-slightly hide its romanticizing of history. Even more than that, Tarantino has a filmography that is largely rooted in virtuous anger and avenging bloodshed, so the kindness and sympathy of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood feels very much like an understandable end-of-career exercise in self-praise. Indeed, your opinion on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will depend on the degree that you are able to handle Tarantino's style as there are a fair amount of people who aren't fans of his style of filmmaking or storytelling but in my case, I happen to love Quentin's style when it comes to story and characters. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is an astonishing work of kindness and understanding. Tarantino's gift for sympathy has always been something unnoticed by film audiences and critics alike, maybe because his sympathy tends to be in league with characters who have done terrible things to those who in turn have done terrible things to them in return. In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, that sympathy feels a lot more hazy and philosophical. In its own right, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the most sincere Tarantino film since Jackie Brown.
Of course, the big question with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is if the audience can or is able to connect with Tarantino's sympathy as most all the subjects of his sympathy are completely deserving of it. In the case of filmmaking, making your characters sympathetic and relatable is critical in getting the audience to care about them. If the viewer doesn't emphasize or care about the lead hero or what stakes he or she must face then in my opinion, the film has failed and no matter how hard the director and writer may try to make the viewer care about the protagonist, they won't be invested in the character or their journey if the lead isn't empathetic. Thankfully, Quentin Tarantino is a master of this as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gives us one of the best lead heroes in any Tarantino film in the form of Rick Dalton. Dalton is portrayed as a has-been cowboy actor who feels out of place with the changing landscape of Hollywood in the late 60s and it is this pain that shows itself most prominently in a scene where Rick appears on a teen show but also in his distaste for hippies. Dalton drinks too much, is erratic in his behavior, too worried about his image as an actor and horribly out of tune with what is happening in Hollywood at this time. Early on in the film, casting agent Marvin Schwarzs suggests that Dalton should do Spaghetti westerns in order to keep his career afloat but Rick sees those as beneath his talent range and refuses. Even so, we can tell that Dalton is a good person at heart. He takes direction fairly easy, he sometimes falters in delivering his lines and feels bound by a foil of insecurity and practices his lines with the help of a tape recorder even if his drinking cleans that out of his mind.
Now, compared to protagonists in other Tarantino movies, Rick Dalton isn't exactly the epitome of a perfect person but he isn't a terrible person either. Even more than that, he does try and he gets the job done. And given the fact that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood never seems to condemn Dalton. Some of the film's greatest moments are when we see Rick's fears show themselves in full force as an actor, capturing both his grasp on his current predicament as well as his dream of being something more than just an actor. As Rick purely comforts a young actress that he was never actually considered for Steve McQueen's role in The Great Escape, the viewer is allowed a peek into Rick's head to see a different version of the classic film. Dalton is the main driving force of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but he isn't the only focal point for the movie's sympathy. Much has been said about how the film treats the character of Sharon Tate, most notably the film's habit of just focusing on her and not giving her much in the way of dialog but these objections are missing the point what Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is trying to do with the character of Tate. Sharon isn't really treated like a character here nor does the film try to make her out to be an emblem.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood never turns Sharon Tate into anything as stereotyped as a tragic symbol of classic Hollywood or the human manifestation of the late 60s nor does the movie never reduce Sharon to anything as lowbrow as what one might see in a Michael Bay film. There's a sense that the distance that the film is putting between itself and Tate is meant to respect her as a person rather than provoke newspaper gossip or rumors of any kind as well as avoiding overpowering her influence with Tarantino's creative voice. Instead, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood feels like an almost peaceful approach to the way it treats Sharon Tate and given what happened to her, it's for the best what the film and Tarantino do with her. The film plainly centers on Tate just being in the story rather than be the main focus of it. The majority of the film's story is disconnected from the Manson murders by a six-month gap so any time that it does spend with Sharon Tate is simply showing us a day in her life. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood doesn't treat Tate as a clone of Rick Dalton, declining to comment on the well-publicized issues that were troubling her at the time such as her battle to be taken seriously as an actress, the thought that she might consider retiring from acting and her problematic relationship with Ro