In Tarantino’s latest, a radiant Hollywood fable
Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Andrew Cooper / Sony-Columbia Pictures via Associated Press
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Caribbean Life, J BQ uly 26–Aug. 1, 2019 35
By Jake Coyle
Quentin Tarantino has, for a while
now, been reminding us what’s so
great about movies — or at least, what
he thinks is so great about them.
He’s made an old-fashioned doublefeature
(“Death Proof,” of “Grindhouse”),
resurrected the wide-screen format of
70mm Ultra Panavision (“The Hateful
Eight’’) and generally presided as the
pre-eminent B-movie evangelist for a
generation. The power and thrill of
exploitation movies, he has earnestly
espoused, can conquer all evils — or at
least slavery “Django Unchained”) and
the Nazis (“Inglourious Basterds”).
But “Once Upon a Time ... in
Hollywood,” set in 1969 Los Angeles,
is Tarantino’s most affectionate and
poignant ode yet to the movie business.
It’s a breezy, woozy Hollywood fable
that luxuriates in the simple pleasures
of the movies and the colorful swirl
of the Dream Factory’s backlot. Some
pleasures are nostalgic, and some —
like driving down Sunset Boulevard
or martinis at Musso & Frank — are
everlasting.
Here, movie love feels contagious,
like something in the air. In one
of the film’s best scenes, Margot
Robbie’s Sharon Tate explains at a
theater’s ticket office that she’s in the
movie, the newly released caper “The
Wrecking Crew,” (“I’m the klutz!” she
says cheerfully). Inside, she giggles
with delight at seeing herself on the
big screen, giddily mimicking her
character’s martial-arts moves and
watching to see if the audience laughs
at one of her lines. (They do.)
The pleasures in “Once Upon a Time”
are also ours. Tarantino, has lowered
his typically feverish temperature to
a warming simmer, bathing us in
the golden California light and the
movie-star glow of his leading men,
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.
They spend copious amounts of time
driving through the Hollywood Hills
in a creamy Coupe de Ville, riding
along like Butch and Sundance and
just as nice to look at.
DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, a Burt
Reynolds-type actor of TV Westerns
(his claim to fame is the `50s hit
“Bounty Law”) whose career is
stalling. Pitt is Cliff Booth, his stunt
double and best friend, a war veteran
with a bad reputation but a friendly,
relaxed manner. They have a natural,
easy rapport, with Booth doubling as
a drinking buddy and support system
for Dalton, who’s increasingly anxious
about his typecast future. (Al Pacino,
as his agent, urges him to head to Italy
for a spaghetti Western.)
In DiCaprio’s finest sequence, he
chats between takes on a Western
called “Lancer” with a frightfully
serious Method Acting eight-year-old
co-star (Julia Butters) before forgetting
his lines. After a bout of self-loathing
in his trailer, he returns and nails the
scene. DiCaprio, a preternaturally selfpossessed
actor himself, captures the
whole arc beautifully.
When word got out that Tarantino’s
latest film would take place around
the Manson murders, it was easy
to wonder what genre mayhem the
director would bring to this epochal
moment. We know what carnage
resulted when Zed was dead, so what
did Tarantino have in store for the
demise of the `60s?
It’s not that “Once Upon a Time ...
in Hollywood” doesn’t revolve around
that grisly tragedy. It looms always in
the background, and eventually in the
foreground, too, after Booth picks up
a hitchhiker (Margaret Qualley) who
leads him to the Manson compound at
Spahn Ranch, the former production
site of TV and film Westerns where
Manson’s mostly female acolytes
emerge and Booth goes to check on
the owner, an old friend, George Spahn
(Bruce Dern). Dalton and Booth are
fictional concoctions surrounded by
real people, including their neighbors:
Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski
(Rafal Zawierucha).
By the film’s climax, blood will spill
and movie-made historical revisionism
will have its day. But I suspect a lot
of Tarantino fans will be taken by
surprise at the film’s leisurely pace,
set more to a (and this a good thing)
“Jackie Brown” speed. As in that film,
Tarantino isn’t purely living in an overthe
top movie fantasy world, but one
teetering intriguingly between dream
and reality. The dialogue and action
has slowed down enough to allow a
little wistfulness and melancholy to
creep in.
At times, his path is a little wayward
and prone to digressions. Tarantino
feels perilously close to simply turning
his movie into several of Dalton’s,
so eager is he (like the Coens were
in “Hail, Caesar!”) to lovingly adopt
those period styles. But usually, the
detours are hard to resist. In one,
Booth ends up in a fight with Bruce
Lee (Mike Moh) on the set of “The
Green Hornet.’’
And if you’re going to make a movie
that celebrates what’s grand about
Hollywood, it helps to have Brad Pitt
in it. The chemistry between him and
DiCaprio, together for the first time,
is a delight; I would gladly watch them
drive around lacquered, golden-hour
Los Angeles, with cinematographer
Robert Richardson trailing them,
for longer than the already lengthy
running time of “Once Upon a Time ...
in Hollywood.”
Pitt, in particular, appears so utterly
self-possessed. It’s a swaggering
grade-A movie star performance in a
movie that celebrates all that movie
stars can accomplish — which, for
Tarantino, is anything. That the
youthful, exuberant Tate was robbed
of that potential is one of the wrongs
Tarantino is righting here. But his
fairy tale also swells with an even
larger and optimistic vision. For today’s
doomsayers of movies, which are seen
by some as a less potent art form,
“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”
imagines an apocalypse denied. Tate,
and the movies, will live forever.
“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,”
a Sony Pictures release, is rated R
by the Motion Picture Association of
America for language throughout,
some strong graphic violence, drug
use, and sexual references. Running
time: 161 minutes. Three and a half
stars out of four.
MPAA definition of R: Restricted.
Under 17 requires accompanying
parent or adult guardian.
Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/
jakecoyleAP
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