Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
I am not the biggest fan of Tarantino. I recall one wit saying he has a hole in his chest where others have a heart. I do like Jackie Brown (1997). I've seen Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) many times and I think it is very great film. It makes me like the director more.
Ten Academy Award nominations, a Best Supporting win for Brad Pitt and another for Best Production Design. Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio have about equal screen time and are both vital to the story.
We have two big problems in presenting this film to modern audiences.
First: people appreciate the vivid recreation of 1969, but memories of the Manson Family atrocities have faded into history. Viewers don't know the significance of everything they are seeing and miss much of the tension and dread as fact and fiction and alternative history unfold. There is really no way around that. You can't make people read histories or watch documentaries first. But the unsettling wonder of the "once upon a time" ending is lost.
Second: I've watched reaction videos of younger people seeing this, and no one understands how crazy the Family members were. They sense a weird, maybe dangerous cult but do not realize the butchery the young people intend to do on Cielo Drive that night.
How crazy? Along with using speed and the usual hallucinogens they were smoking belladonna. Even Manson left the house on those nights. They believed that love = death, that Manson was Jesus, and that after the coming Race War Manson would rule the world. They were white supremacists, although this is not often remembered.
They are shown as more comically inept than they really were.
Notes:
Youtube has Manson (1973), a documentary with much original footage, both before and after the murders. The "All is One" song the girls sing was a Family anthem. "We kill the ones who taught us to kill" is a close paraphrase of an original quote.
A stuntman concerned for George Spahn was killed at the ranch and his body not found for years. If you know that then Cliff's visit to the Ranch is even more fraught with menace. In history: Manson, Tex and Clem (who had to change the tire) were among the killers. Cliff turning the tables is part of the fantasy.
Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme (played by Dakota Fanning) is the boss girl "taking care" of George Spahn at the ranch. She later tried to kill President Ford, escaped from prison in a attempt to reunite with Manson (how?), went back to prison, was eventually released and wrote a book.
Other young actors: Margaret Qualley, Austin Butler, Mikey Madison and Sydney Sweeney, all Family members.
Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) goes into a bookstore to pick up a present for her husband: Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Later Polanksi would make Tess (1979), a fine adaptation. It is about innocence violated and at the time I thought he would use it as an apology for his sex crime, but no: in an interview he doubled down, how everyone wants to screw little girls and they take it out on him.
In the episode of F.B.I., DiCaprio's part was actually done by Burt Reynolds, who died before he could play George Spahn in this film. Bruce Dern took over. Dern was also in the pilot episode of Lancer we see so much of. DiCaprio's part in that was played by Joe Don Baker.
I had no idea "The Green Door" was a 1950s pop song. My mind goes to porn associations.
When the Family break in on the final night, watch Cliff give a quiet "stay" gesture to Brandy the pit bull. And he's high as a kite.
I swear that DiCaprio is giving a Kurt Russell impression when the violence starts but no one has confirmed that. Russell is in the movie and narrates.
Tarantino wrote the novel before making the movie. In it we get plausible background for Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth, a boggling elaboration of the Lancer pilot, and answers to some questions: Did Cliff really kill his wife? How did he get Brandy? And why did Sharon go see her movie that day? The big violence night is mentioned only in passing.
A sequel is due in 2026: The Adventures of Cliff Booth with Brad Pitt again. Written by Tarantino and directed by David Fincher.
Photographed by Robert Richardson who has often worked with Tarantino, Scorcese, Oliver Stone: the heavy hitters.
Tarantino always has amazing soundtracks. His music supervisor is Mary Ramos. I'll never hear Vanilla Fudge's cover of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" without thinking of the ultra-violent climax.
Good dog.
Available on Blu-ray and UHD.
