Once Upon A Time .in Hollywood

A few thoughts on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (OUTIH). It’s been more than a month since I saw it and now it’s being re-released with ten minutes of additional footage. Do I want to see it again? Do I care?

Like most Tarantino movies OUTIH has sparked some controversy. This isn’t evident from Rotten Tomatoes but some well-regarded critics have dismissed it while others have canonized it. I am divided, about the movie and about Tarantino. I thought the movie was well made but disappointing. I believe Tarantino is a good film maker whose worldview, acquired entirely through cinematic lenses, repeatedly undermine his movies. He has nothing to say. And he says it with such conviction and bravura that it’s hard not to be taken in by him – at least for a while. In his previous movies this didn’t matter. But in OUTIH which is fiction based on realities – and complex realities at that – his limitations betray his immaturity. OUTIH wants to be more than just a movie. It wants to be a fairy tale with an agenda, an instrument of vengeance bringing loathsome psychopaths to justice. Instead it comes across as just another excuse for its creator to be gory, gleeful, shocking, clever and smug.

There is not much in terms of plot to OUTIH. Its FEB 1969 – the final year of an eventful decade. The story revolves around three protagonists. There is TV actor Rick Dalton whose star is on the wane. He is consigned to playing the weekly heavy on various TV shows and is in danger of being typecast. There is Rick’s cofidant and man-Friday, Cliff Booth who is also facing difficult times. Cliff is an army veteran and stunt-man who can’t find work because he may or may not have murdered his wife. And then there is Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski, whose movie The Wrecking Crew has just released. She’s pregnant and lives on Cielo Drive, as does Rick who is her neighbor – a detail that sets up the climax.

The episodic plot then moves in and out of the lives of the three. Rick Dalton acts – first in American TV shows and then later in the year in Spaghetti westerns. His existential crisis causes him to drink, screw-up dialogues,  throw tantrums, and seek redemption. He yearns for the approval of New Hollywood, epitomized by his neighbor Roman Polanski. He’s an excitable, despairing man and Leonardo Di Caprio plays him superbly. Cliff Booth on the other hand is not excitable at all; he’s restrained, cryptic and dry. His epsiodes are more colorful; he does odd-jobs, fights Bruce Lee, gives underage hippie-girls rides, investigates the well-being of an old friend at the Spahn Ranch who may be being exploited by the Manson family, and he beats up a hippie who punctured his tire. He also has a dog – a very obedient dog. Brad Pitt plays Cliff cool – perhaps too cool. Finally there is Sharon Tate. She doesn’t have much to do other than remind us of her angelic existence; she parties, watches the Wrecking Crew in the cinema and gets pregnant. Margot Robbie is a very good actress but this has to be her most undemanding role.

The climax approaches.The year rolls on. Its August 1969. The Spaghetti Westerns fail to provide Rick with the career boost that he needs. He tells Cliff he can no longer afford his services. They go out for drinks. They return to Rick’s home on Cielo Drive. Four of the hippies from Spahn Ranch arrive at Cielo Drive to murder everyone in the Polanski household. But a confrontation with Rick Booth convinces them to go after the actor instead. One of the hippies develops cold-feet and drives off. The other three hippies break into Rick’s house where Cliff is busy smoking an acid-laced cigarette. Cliff and his dog attack the transgressors smashing their heads, and goring their privates. One of the hippy-girl flees into the swimming pool where Rick is listening to music on his headphones. A startled Rick retrieves a flam-thrower from the pool-house and lights the girl on fire. All hippies are killed. After the melee has subsided one of the Sharon Tate’s guests, intrigued by the wild goings-on in the neighboring house, invites Rick into the Polansky residence and in doing so provides Rick with a gateway to the new Hollywood.

And so there it is – the plot of OUTIH. Once upon a time … it’s a fairytale. Two lovable losers save the day (with the aid of the scriptwriter) by destroying insane hippies out to murder the innocent Sharon Tate and her friends and in doing so find acceptance in the new world order. A fairy tale: Two disinherited white-knights save the damsel in distress and in doing so reclaim their legacy.

But fairy tales are problematic not because of the tales themselves but because of the stereotypes they reinforce. This idea of two guys reclaiming history and avenging Sharon Tate’s memory seems miscalculated. In depriving the character of Sharon Tate of all agency the movie sets itself up to accusations of exploitation.

How else to view the Sharon Tate angle? The plot derives a lot of its power from the Manson family killings. The killings themselves don’t occur. History is subverted. Instead  of Sharon Tate and her friends being killed, the wannabe murderers meet with horrific ends at the hands of our heroes. But anyone who knows the history of the Manson killings, the fact that they occurred sometime in August 1969, expects something gruesome to unfold by the end of the film. That it doesn’t, that the carpet in a sense is pulled from under the expectant viewer, is the electric twist that’s supposed to elevate the tale. However instead of elevating the film the climax degrades the movie – Sharon Tate is reduced to a plot device, a license for Tarantino to go full gruesome.

Tarantino played with history in Inglorious Basterds as well.  There too history was subverted, or more accurately rescued from the boring hands of reality. In that movie Hitler didn’t kill himself but was blown to bits by the explosive strapped to Eli Roth’s legs. Many other Nazi officers and their wives were roasted as well, burnt to a crisp by the highly inflammable silver nitrate film-stock – cinema’s revenge on history’s greatest villains. That ending was problematic too. It’s one thing to incinerate Nazi officers live but to roast their wives – that borders on cruelty. Tarantino has a ready defense for such accusations. He points to Dirty Dozen in which Lee Marvin and company lock German Officers and their wives in an underground bomb shelter and drop grenades and gasoline on them. If Marvin and Bronson could do it then why not Tarantino? One doesn’t need a conscience. Cinematic references will do.

I liked Dirty Dozen but even as a child I thought the ending was unusually heartless. Seeing women in gowns running around, trapped like rats, screaming and exploding, is hard to take. But Tarantino doesn’t care. Getting to the gore that’s what he’s about and sometimes it feels that’s all he’s all about.  These are pure b-movie instincts. Everything is a setup for egregious violence. And it can be enjoyable. But not when it’s dealing with memory of a pregnant woman and her friends who were brutally murdered by deranged psychopaths. Especially when that woman – Sharon Tate – has nothing to do in a movie but symbolize purity and innocence lost. Yuck.

Why doesn’t Tarantino make the movie exclusively about her? Why not give her the agency, allow her to do the killing? She’s is afterall trained by Bruce Lee in the movie. Why not allow her to kick ass and gore privates a la Home Alone? Because the audience wouldn’t buy it. And so we are stuck with men doing all the bashing and killing – of other men and women. Oh so radical!

OUTIH is a well-made movie. Robert Richardson’s images are as always great to watch, and the production design, the attention to detail is commendable. It’s a movie good in parts, indulgent in others, and disappointing as a whole. If Tarantino had made a movie without alluding to the Manson Killings, restricted his imaginations to the troubles and tribulations of the lovable Rick and the ultra-cool Cliff, a Once Upon A Time along the lines of Boogie Nights, it would’ve worked. But all this business of handing out cinematic vengeance, righting historical wrongs, degrades the film, highlights its flaws, and in the end undermines the entire effort.

So the answer to the question of whether I want to see the movie in the theaters again is a no. Anyway, apart from a few Red Apple cigarette ads there isn't anything new.