Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

Director Quentin Tarantino on the set

Tarantino on the set with actress Margot Robbie

Tarantino on the set with Leonardo DiCaprio

Tarantino on the set with DiCaprio and Brad Pitt

Tarantino at Cannes surrounded by DiCaprio (left to right), Margot Robbie, and Brad Pitt

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD                C             

USA  Great Britain  China  (161 mi)  2019 ‘Scope d:  Quentin Tarantino         Official site

History may not look back too kindly on Quentin Tarantino, who exhibits a flair for flash, but missed decades of opportunities to actually offer something of consequence to say.  Instead his breezy style of macho mayhem fits the profile of overly privileged movie nerds raised on television and video games and B-movies, never having the patience to read books, so any introspective element is lacking in his films, as is empathy.  But his prolific use of the n-word throughout his career is clouded in highly stylized artificiality, as if that makes it OK, with a tin ear for criticism from those who took offense, not to mention his longtime partnership with movie producer Harvey Weinstein, whose near instant fall from grace was shocking, the producer of all of his films until now, the target of current litigation from endless scandals of sex abuse from using his position over multiple decades for sexual favors, resulting in dozens of actresses crying rape, with Tarantino acting dumb, pretending he had no idea.  Despite several films written for strong women (with roles that are almost interchangeable with men), Tarantino also has a tendency to underwrite female characters in his films, to treat them as if they barely exist, where bimbos and airheads pass for the norm.  This film is no exception.  For a guy who survives on dialogue and stereotypes, with an unadulterated love for grotesque violence and comic book revenge, he’s made a niche for himself and survived for decades, receiving adulation and acclaim around the world, bolstered by the extraordinary work of actor Samuel L. Jackson, who has built a career starring in Tarantino films, not to mention Pam Grier and Uma Thurman, but the pillorying of his work has not yet officially begun, as his films work best in the moment, and once that moment has passed they may not stand up so well to the passage of time, as most are overly smug, lightweight fantasies that will begin to date themselves, with each new generation wondering why people thought this was so cool, as there’s always a targeted group that is the butt of the jokes, accentuating derogatory comments that are equally offensive and obnoxious, which may grow more apparent over time.  The targeted group includes women, people of color, and foreigners from other nations, with very few viewed in a positive light, which sounds very close to the mindset currently occupying the Oval Office at the moment, with Tarantino perfectly in synch with that mentality, where his insults are like Trump tweets, seemingly boxing himself in.  Make America Great Again?  This movie was made with that same demographic in mind, where his once upon a time motif fondly recalls the nostalgia from a similar era, as there’s barely a person of color anywhere to be seen, as if designed for the exclusive pleasure of white people.  Only 6 when this supposedly takes place, Tarantino’s recollections produce a whitewashed 60’s that looked nothing like this (Where is all the soul music?  Was anyone listening to this particular Neil Diamond song?), as Los Angeles is a town of diversity, where his vision of the times leaves out essential specificity that actually defines this period of time, so it’s not really a love letter to Hollywood or the times, more like an internalized message to the director himself, perhaps filling some therapeutic need, where making a movie about Patty Hearst will be next, recast as THE BAD SEED (1956).  Nonetheless this colorful movie fantasia is shot on glorious 35mm in ‘Scope, immersed in neon signs, vintage cars, radio jingles, movie posters, iconic music, and meticulously recreated TV shows, including the dumb ads, yet also tinged with intentional racial slurs, this time laced in a toxic undercurrent of animus towards Mexicans, Asians, and “the fucking hippies” (always said with a sneer).            

There are multiple parallels in place here, all triggered by the idea of an aging Hollywood star whose time has come and gone, which certainly fits movie mogul Harvey Weinstein who’s been expelled from the Academy as damaged goods, but may also be applicable to the director himself who may view his career coming to an end as well (allegedly one more in the works), with many believing this plays out like his swan song.  Meant to be a feel-good fantasy set in the nostalgia of the year 1969 as the rebellious counterculture movement (no sign of it here) was coming to an end, Tarantino saves for last his own take on the hideous Charles Manson murders that rocked Hollywood, defined as the culminating event that many believe brought that era of idealism and hope prematurely crashing to a close, a kind of punctuation to the political assassinations that took the lives of the era’s greatest hopes.  This trip back through memory lane features a couple of good ‘ol boys in the lead, Leonardo DiCaprio as aging Western star Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, his stunt double, both joined at the hip, seemingly going everywhere together, where the deal is if you hire one, you hire the other as a kind of bonus.  From the world of movie sets, a kind of protected bubble that thrives on fantasy, the story is, as the title suggests, more of the same, a kind of preposterous revisionist history that Tarantino has come to exemplify, from the Nazi’s in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) to slavery in Django Unchained (2012), and now the Manson derelects.  In each, evil is perceived as an abomination that needs to be eradicated from the earth, much like the epic Bible rant that Samuel L. Jackson goes on in Pulp Fiction (1994) before he blows somebody away, using fake scripture to morally justify murder.  That may be, in essence, the theme of Tarantino movies, creating a revenge scenario as a moral cleansing, ridding the world of evil incarnate, gleefully depicting murders onscreen for laughs and public entertainment, where the world is just an extension of a comic book fantasy.  This film never gets out from under that bubble, but in Tarantino-land that’s what we’ve come to expect.  Starting out as another day on a movie set, we quickly learn Dalton made a name for himself on the popular TV show Bounty Law, known for bringing in wanted outlaws returned as corpses for the reward money, where his notoriety grows by the body count accumulated in the course of his job.  These black and white episodes, viewed as boxed squares on a ‘Scope screen, are balanced by insipid commercials of the time, including a live TV interview with both Dalton and Booth on the set of the show.  Quickly moving to the present, the self-pitying Dalton is haunted by the thought that his best days are behind him, missing his lines, screwing up on the set, embarrassing himself before the crew, something he once thought unthinkable, tearing up the inside of his trailer in a momentary lapse of reason, but he recovers, with the help of a precocious young 8-year old actress named Trudi (Julia Butters) who calls him out on being called a “pumpkin puss,” yet ends the day in glory, with everyone thrilled with his work, while Booth returns home in an old beat-up Porsche that he whizzes around the hills to the music of Deep Purple, Deep Purple - Hush - YouTube (4:25), living out in the valley somewhere in a trailer on what looks like unused land behind a drive-in theater with his pit bull, which is miraculously well-trained to the sounds of his owner, easily one of the film’s biggest surprises, becoming a bonafide star by the end, while the dog food labels are a hoot.

While Dalton is suffering a midlife crisis, Booth is the picture of calm reassurance, giving his hung-over partner a pep talk before dropping him off on the set, making easy eye contact with a flirtatious female hitchhiker on the street, but he’s not going her way, heading instead for the Hollywood Hills to fix Rick’s TV antenna that may have come off its moorings in the night.  Finding a tool belt with a special pocket for a beer, he hops onto the roof in three leaps without a ladder, an eye-catching move that draws oohs and aahs from the audience, followed almost immediately by another moment when Brad Pitt pulls his shirt off and suns himself on the roof (more murmurs from viewers), showing he is completely at ease with himself and the world.  From that vantage point up on the roof Booth watches a seemingly innocuous occurrence, as some hippie guy pulls up in a broken-down ice-cream truck and knocks at the house next door, turning out to be Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) in search of Terry Melcher, a record producer known for the California sound, but he’d moved out some time ago, as the new occupants are newlyweds actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), seen dancing in her room to “Good Thing” by Paul Revere and the Raiders, Paul Revere And The Raiders Good Thing - YouTube (3:01), one of the groups Melcher produced, and her husband, legendary filmmaker Roman Polanski, director of the hugely successful Rosemary's Baby (1968).  Manson leaves without incident, but sets the stage for what happens later.  Meanwhile, Booth recalls earlier days, including a flashback of what originated his reputation as a wife-killer, revealing an ominous moment just before it happened, alone on a boat calmly aiming a harpoon at his shrill, nagging wife, eventually cleared of all charges, but that hasn’t stopped some from refusing to work with him.  While waiting on the set of a shoot, Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), who was starring at the time as Kato on the TV series The Green Hornet, was talking some shit about how he would have ripped apart boxer Cassius Clay as his hands are registered as lethal weapons, drawing a snicker from Booth, who is quickly challenged to a fight, showing his prowess, displaying fighting dexterity when he throws Lee into the side of a car parked nearby, doing damage to them both, with Zoë Bell the stunt coordinator outraged at what she sees, screaming profanities afterwards, as it’s her car, firing Booth on the spot.  She’s the wife of Kurt Russell, who hired Booth as a favor to Dalton, who then becomes an unseen narrator later in the film, which is a rather clever transition, as are the scenes of Dalton imagining he got the Steve McQueen part in THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963), which are seamlessly (and digitally) juxtaposed into the movie.  This happens again with Sharon Tate, almost always seen with a perpetual smile on her face, with no worries whatsoever, on a natural high apparently, walking into an afternoon screening of a rather mediocre Dean Martin film she’s in, the last of the Matt Helm series entitled THE WRECKING CREW (1968), using her wannabe celebrity status to get in for free, propping her feet up and clearly enjoying watching herself onscreen, which includes interacting with actual clips of Sharon Tate.  Later we see Polanski and Tate partying with Michelle Phillips, Mama Cass and other celebrities around the pool at the Playboy mansion, with Steve McQueen bellyaching about how he’s not Tate’s type, as she seems to prefer little short guys that look like they’re still in high school.  The irony, of course, is that McQueen was invited to the Tate/Polanski residence the night of the bloody massacre, but never showed up.

All this is basically a backdrop for what seems like a harmless visit to the Spahn Movie Ranch, where Bounty Law was shot, with Booth finally picking up that hitchhiker, Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), who sells him an acid cigarette for 50 cents, quickly finding the lot inhabited by hippies and weirdos, given a near surreal look, almost like a zombie movie or a Twilight Zone episode, utilizing the macabre reputation surrounding the Manson family to heighten the suspense, as they’re inhabiting the place, but acting strangely, overly paranoid about receiving visitors, always sensing trouble.  When Booth persists about visiting the aging George Spahn (Bruce Dern), who owns the place, it all gets very creepy, as this group of misfits doesn’t like confrontation, viewing it savagely, as it does with all authority, preferring to live by their own rules.  This extended scene takes place at a snail’s pace, but establishes the central thread of psychotic hatred lurking on the periphery, mostly out of sight, hiding under a pretentious banner of hippie peace and love, but exceedingly dangerous.  After watching Dalton make a guest appearance on a The F.B.I. TV show, Al Pacino makes a cameo as an unbelievably weird and overly enthusiastic producer/agent Marvin Schwarz, who wants Dalton to star in spaghetti westerns, suggesting he can turn his career around from being the heavy that gets killed in movies to the hero that does the killing, but he’d have to spend some time in Italy, which for Hollywood actors is the kiss of death, as low as you can get, believing it’s proof your career is over.  After a successful 6-month run, however, and a new Italian wife (Lorenza Izzo, almost nonexistent), the two old friends decide the time has come to part ways, getting good and drunk, with Tarantino pulling off one of those signature shots with a sequence of different marquees lighting up, matched by his love for the look of old movie houses and vintage cars, giving the film a retro look.  The way it all plays out in the end begins innocently enough with Booth smoking that acid cigarette in Dalton’s home, figuring what the hell, taking his dog for a walk while Dalton goes ballistic when a group of hippies pulls up to the cul-de-sac in front of his house with the muffler smoking noxious fumes, ordering them to get the hell out of there, figuring they got lost and were just a bunch of jerks.  When the Manson bunch finally get their act in gear (depicted here as buffoons), it stretches credulity, even for a fantasy, set to the psychedelic music of Vanilla Fudge, Vanilla Fudge - You Keep Me Hanging On - YouTube (7:25), becoming a wildly over-the-top exaggeration of fortunes gone wrong, much like the heist gone wrong story that started it all in RESERVOIR DOGS (1992), with Booth’s dog turning into Rin Tin Tin on steroids, nearly singlehandedly wiping out the entire Manson crew, turning deliriously violent to the point of absurdity, with one drunk guy and the other tripping on acid somehow managing to save the day, and the world, from the Manson mayhem that so demoralized Hollywood for a while, petrified by the vicious scope of their aims, stunned by their depravity and total absence of remorse.  It was an end to innocence and any traces left of the American Dream, turned into a Mad magazine comic sketch in a Tarantino movie.  The irony is that Manson had actually plotted to start a race war, killing rich Hollywood celebrities, drawing plenty of attention, making it look like the Black Panthers did it, leaving paw prints and the word “PIG”in blood on the wall, hoping to turn the world into utter chaos and annihilation, stoking the flames, hoping to leave an opening for their group to fill the power vacuum, a deluded dream if ever there was one, but it’s not that different than what finally graces the screen, gruesome, emptyheaded and outrageous, but selling popcorn and tickets. 

The Hateful Eight

THE HATEFUL EIGHT                    B+                  

USA  (168 mi, 70mm version 187 mi)  2015  ‘Scope  d:  Quentin Tarantino           

It’s less inspired by one Western movie than by Bonanza, The Virginian, High Chaparral,” Tarantino said. “Twice per season, those shows would have an episode where a bunch of outlaws would take the lead characters hostage. They would come to the Ponderosa and hold everybody hostage, or to go Judge Garth’s place — Lee J. Cobb played him — in The Virginian and take hostages. There would be a guest star like David Carradine, Darren McGavin, Claude Akins, Robert Culp, Charles Bronson or James Coburn. I don’t like that storyline in a modern context, but I love it in a Western, where you would pass halfway through the show to find out if they were good or bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed. “I thought, ‘What if I did a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, no Michael Landons. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.’”

—Tarantino quote by Mike Fleming Jr. from Deadline, November 10, 2014, "Quentin Tarantino On Retirement, Grand 70 MM Intl Plans For ‘The Hateful Eight" 

Outside of Pulp Fiction (1994), this is easily the most fun film in Tarantino’s career, and the reason is largely the towering performance from Samuel L. Jackson, where this is something that only he could have pulled off, a perfect mix of intelligence and outlandish humor, where he’s like an eloquent spokesperson for the times who literally grabs our attention before he walks us through this movie like our own personal guide.  While he’s only one of several well-defined characters, curiously he’s not even the man in charge, as that would be Kurt Russell’s John “The Hangman” Ruth, doing his very best John Wayne imitation as a notorious rifle-toting bounty hunter who always brings his wanted outlaws in alive so they can have a proper hanging, which in the era of the American West is the closest thing to defining justice.  Part of the attraction to the film is that it was released in two versions, one a 187-minute “roadshow” that includes an opening overture and intermission, shot on 70mm which can only play in selected theaters equipped with appropriate reel projectors, where this resembles the glorious spectacle of the golden age of Hollywood, while an alternate digital cut will be shown in regular theaters without an overture and intermission, where the film itself is about 6-minutes shorter, using alternate takes of earlier scenes shot on 70 mm that might look distorted on smaller screens.  Of note, this is the first western scored by Ennio Morricone, the music behind the Sergio Leone westerns, in 40 years, the 6th collaboration between Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson, while it is the third film in a row where someone is shot in the testicles.  Imagine an entire movie resembling the extraordinary opening sequence from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009), one of the most unique examples of protracted storytelling, where the extensive lead-up to whatever happens next is a film in itself, filled with its own plot twists and dramatic crescendos, where the audience is drawn into a different time frame, as patience is a virtue.  Tarantino seems to be saying “Stick with me, and I won’t let you down.”  The resolution of these scenes, at least to some, have always been a disappointment, as a fury of violence always prevails, where it just becomes a bit too predictable.  But no one can deny the power of Tarantino’s theatrically-inclined, dramatic construction of a scene, building tension throughout, with peaks and valleys, where he slowly and patiently builds up to that momentous edge that he eventually crosses.   

Opening on a lone stagecoach led by a six-horse team driving its way through a snowy blizzard in Wyoming, set sometime after the end of the Civil War, the nation has not exactly mended its wounds, as a good deal of lingering resentment hovers over the country like a festering wound, but all that is kept tightly under the vest as a wicked storm approaches.  The mountainous landscapes are put to good use as the audience gets a whiff of the widescreen Ultra Panavision 70 format, where the last Cinerama film to be shot in a similar format was KHARTOUM (1966) a half century ago.  But as Tarantino is one of the last remaining holdouts insisting upon shooting his movies on celluloid, compared to everything else that we see in theaters today, the look is spectacularly vivid and crisp.  John Ruth is transporting his prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to Red Rock in order to watch her hang, while also collecting the $10,000 reward, but he picks up two stragglers along the way, Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren, a particularly successful black military leader in the Civil War, whose claim to fame is carrying around with him at all times a genuine letter written by Abraham Lincoln, while also transporting 3 dead bodies worth an $8000 bounty, but also Walton Goggins as Sheriff Chris Mannix, the newly appointed sheriff of Red Rock who once rode with his notoriously racist father‘s Confederate renegades, developing a reputation as a degenerate killer.  The political divide between these two decorated war veterans on opposite sides increases the racial tensions, creating immediate antagonism, with John Ruth ready to bust heads if there’s any trouble, though Mannix warns them both they’ll have a difficult time collecting their bounties if something happens to him, as the sheriff pays out the reward money.  The worsening weather forces them to stop at Minnie’s Haberdashery to wait out the storm, though Minnie and her loyal sidekick Sweet Dave are both mysteriously missing, with Cowboy Bob (Demián Bichir) supposedly left in charge, along with a motley group of criminally inclined outcasts sidelined by the raging blizzard outside.  Sizing up the situation, including a broken front door that needs to be hammered shut after each opening, the two bounty hunters suspect something is up and form a pact protecting their property from the others, as each one of the guests looks eminently suspicious. 

Divided by chapter headings, we are slowly introduced to the twisted group of unsavory characters trapped inside a single room with no way out, where their pasts and secret motives are revealed, while their notorious reputations curiously precede them, as they all get acquainted waiting for the first one to blink before they make their move.  Spanning around the room, along with the stagecoach driver, O.B. (James Parks), we meet Tim Roth in a bowler hat as Oswaldo Mobray, who contends he’s the hangman at Red Rock, Michael Madsen as Joe Cage, an irritant and lowlife, and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), an unrepentant racist idolized by Mannix, but despised by Major Warren, particularly for his gruesome treatment of black Union soldiers during the war.  While John Ruth and Major Warren suspect there is someone working against them in the room, perhaps more than one aligned with the prisoner, they maintain their pact of working together as they don’t know who it is, but taking no chances, they do disarm all the suspects, creating an uneasy tension that suffocatingly chokes on its own inherent, claustrophobic cabin fever atmosphere.  As prejudices and resentments are revealed, it’s surprising how these few men coincidentally brought together by a storm have already heard of all the others and developed opinions about what kind of men they are, with all manner of trash talking taking place, but none more venomous than Major Warren’s contempt for General Smithers, which leads to the most grandiose and extraordinary story of the film, an extended soliloquy by Jackson, whose performance dominates the film, none more memorable than his provocative comments and personal insults reserved for the General, taking great pleasure in cornering the man into a position of weakness and disadvantage, then slowly tightening the screws, literally stripping away any pretense of manhood, leaving him disarmed and completely exposed, offering him a firearm within an arm’s reach, goading the man, literally toying with him until he has no other alternative but to reach for the gun, only to be shot down in cold blood, yet presumably deemed self-defense under the circumstances.  This theatrical display reveals Tarantino at his best, as it’s an extremely well-written scene, set up by such antagonistic character extremes, embellished by the most vulgar and detestable humor imaginable, yet somehow it’s an exceptional and memorable moment leading into the intermission, where viewers will have plenty to talk about. 

On the other side of the intermission, Tarantino himself indulges in a little narration, offering unseen clues the audience may have missed, turning this into a variation on Agatha Christie’s best-selling 1939 novel And Then There Were None, a murderous chamber drama where ten people have been invited to a remote location by a mysterious stranger, where each of the guests holds a secret leading to someone else’s innocent death, and then one-by-one, the guests themselves start dying.  First published under the name Ten Little Niggers, the book went through a series of title changes, including Ten Little Indians (The History of 'Ten Little Indians' - ICTMN.com) before settling on the words drawn from a nursery rhyme.  While it’s not nearly as simplistic as that, the film instead moves in a more circuitous path, where each of the characters has a major scene, with each one revealing themselves to be abhorrent and revolting, with Daisy Domergue, the object throughout of nonstop abuse, outshining all the other men for the dubious honors of the most vile character of them all, where Major Warren is the closest thing to a protagonist.  As they weave their way to unraveling the underlying mystery, complete with a flashback sequence with the delightfully plump Dana Gourrier as Minnie, Zoë Bell as Six-Horse Judy, and Gene Jones as Sweet Dave, the stage is reset with different implications, yet a good deal of the film is an appropriate commentary on xenophobia and the racial divide in America, exposing the roots of the race hatred, and showing how little progress has been made in the last 150 years, as we are still dealing with the same visceral anger that has plagued America throughout its contentious history, perhaps best expressed by the seemingly neverending sentiments from the Civil War.  When Major Warren suggests, “Let’s slow it down.  Let’s slow it way down,” it allows the audience to reevaluate our own history but also enjoy the art of storytelling, where Tarantino is simply having a blast with this film, returning to his own roots, as the one-room structure certainly resembles his own existential Reservoir Dogs (1992), which recalls the hopeless futility of Sartre’s No Exit, a portrait of eternal damnation, where the ultimate realization is “Hell is other people.”  While it’s often brutal and excessively violent, and once more there are grotesque uses of the n-word, this is the one Tarantino film that seems designed for a theatrical stage, as even the flashback sequences are set in the same location, so expect to see possible variations in the future, yet this original casting is sublime, as the fun on the set cannot be denied, as they are all in complete synch with the director’s sick humor and tendency for tastelessness, where it’s not lost on the viewer that the director ironically heralds this spectacular 70mm widescreen “Ultra Panavision,” and then sets a 3-hour film in the suffocating confines of a single room.  Nonetheless, through a witty structure of endless dialogue, politics makes strange bedfellows, and the final alliance in the film is perhaps the strangest of them all, where the Lincoln letter, in all its ambiguous implications, figures prominently.