A Hollywood Journey

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2020)

Just like any other Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood is incredibly intriguing. The depth of Quentin's film making never fails to amaze me. He uses every detail to tell the story. This movie is about so much, but the surface is an actor, Rick Dalton, who is struggling to deal with success and live up to what he once was. Rick is most known as a western actor, and as such there are western themes all throughout the film. Many of the most tense scenes and action scenes seem to be structured in western standoff fashion. A lot of the dialogue is the same way. Maybe this is closer to how life was in 1969, the year the movie was set in, but I think it's just a motif especially considering Hollywood is in the west of the United States and the title is basically an homage to the movie "Once Upon a Time ... in the West".
In westerns there is a certain kind of status of respect that cowboys need to uphold in order to survive or be able to get what they want at least. I think this movie may be comparing this odd social ladder to the social ladder in Hollywood or even just fame in general.
In this film we are definitely shown a lot of the actor/Hollywood person experience as well. We see Rick going through all of his struggles as an actor on and off set. On scene and behind the scenes. We see him identifying with his career and thinking he is getting too old and useless as his career comes to an uncertain point. We see him struggling to remember lines as well as giving stunning performances on set. We also see him take note of the fact that the famous Roman Polanski has lived next to him for months and he hasn't yet met him and only ever seen him once. At the end of the film, after going through an incredibly wild night where his house is broken into by hippies who are trying to kill everyone who lives there in a delusional revenge plot, he is finally noticed by his neighbors and invited to meet and talk to them. I think this may be a way of showing how much he had to go through just to get noticed by someone who is in direct proximity both physically and in terms of his field of work.
Another part of the Hollywood person experience is portrayed by Cliff Booth, Rick's stunt double, assistant, and friend. Cliff does a lot of the dirty work on screen in Rick's shows and movies, but he also seems to do a lot of the dirty work off screen as well, like protecting Rick and his wife when the hippies invade his house or fixing his TV antenna when it goes out. Rick has more fame and recognition for his work as he is the face shown in the movies, whereas Cliff is more under the radar even though in a lot of cases he does things very worthy of praise. The film showcases the differences between the Hollywood experiences that these two have. There is as entire scene collection designed specifically to clearly juxtapose their home lifestyles where Cliff drives Rick to his large lavish home in his fancy car and then gets in his own beat up barely running car and drives out to the trailer that he lives in right by a drive-in theater. Rick is practicing his lines in his nice kitchen wearing a robe and making an alcoholic beverage, while Cliff is in his trailer making macaroni and cheese to eat and feeding his highly trained pit bull a disgusting looking canned dog food meal. Cliff and Rick are both standing at their kitchen counter and the shots are clearly designed the same way for comparison.
Another look into the Hollywood experience is Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, who is a starring role in many big movies and in the peak of her career and success. She is incredibly happy, dancing and smiling all the time almost to the point of madness. An interesting part with her is when she goes into a theater to watch some of her films and we see her waiting for the audience's reactions to all of her scene and is incredibly joyous when they react the way the scene was meant to make them react. Sharon's scenes are a look into the pleasure of success and having a very promising future. The fact that Sharon is pregnant at the end of the film might even be a symbol of this success and her future.
Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood is a film that allows viewers to see the Hollywood experience by telling a story in a very original (Tarantino) way. The entire movie has an atmosphere, a tone, and structure of a western both in the content of the film and in the way it was created and filmed etc. (on and off set). Definitely a film worth watching. 9/10