You let a kid loose in a lolly shop, and he will indulge in absolutely everything. You let Tarantino make a movie about 1960’s Hollywood, and he too will cram as many references, homages, and gimmicks into just under 3 hours as he can. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is Tarantino at his purest and most reflective, and while these attributes make for an affectionate look back at his earliest influences the demonstrable lack of restraint on his creative processes isn’t always for the best.
Over the course of the film Tarantino paints a dreamlike image of 1960’s Hollywood before it was shaken to its core by the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends; a time when stars, tourists, and LA residents would meet and mingle like old friends with everything in common, and when the film industry seemed like it would remain eternally young. This is the bygone era that Tarantino yearns for, and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is his idealised fantasy of a world where this idyllic (though undoubtedly imperfect) lifestyle could potentially continue forever.
The controversy that has permeated the discussion of Margot Robbie’s role as Sharon Tate has focused on her lack of screen time and speaking lines, though these are simply smaller symptoms of a larger issue. Tate is flattened quite significantly, depicted as a pure, angelic figure who represents the innocence of Old Hollywood rather than a real historic figure. Robbie is still able to shine in her own ways, expressing unbridled joy as Tate absorbs audience reactions to her film performances and takes in the magic of cinema. But by conflating her character with a melancholic longing for the time she lived in, Tarantino reveals that he is more interested in the mythos that surrounds Tate than her complex, human identity.
Sharon Tate only lives on the fringes of this film though, as our main focus remains with Leonardo DiCaprio’s stammering portrait of an ageing Western star, Rick Dalton. As a classical Hollywood actor, Dalton fears that his career is on the downslide and attempts to resist the inevitability of making Spaghetti Westerns, which, as far as he is concerned, would truly mark him as a has-been. At times it is difficult to tell whether we are watching him through the fourth wall of our cinema screen or through the lens of a camera that exists in the scene itself, and this effect forces us to question how Tarantino wants us to observe the events of the film. Are we passive observers of these actors in their ordinary lives, or are we being manipulated to watch these scenes unfold within the constraints of cinematic and genre conventions?
Sometimes we think we have it figured out. Obviously the “fake” drama is what we see when Rick Dalton is performing a role, and the “real” drama is everything else, whether we are watching him relax in his pool or drive through the streets of LA with his friend and stunt double, Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt. But then our expectations are subverted when Booth arrives at Spahn Ranch, the home of the Manson Family, and suddenly we feel as if we are back in a classic Hollywood Western. The dusty, golden colours shining through in every shot à la The Searchers, the cinematography that positions Booth as a lone ranger against the rest of the town, and the gradual rise in tension that we know will eventually erupt into violence all come together to heighten this scene from a simple encounter with a community of hippies to a dramatic Western standoff. By bringing in these stylistic touches, Tarantino blurs the lines between movies and the lives of Hollywood stars, and forces us to question whether there really is much of a difference given how ridiculously dramatic both can be.
Much of the tension in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood derives from the ever-present threat of the Manson Family and our knowledge of Sharon Tate’s impending death, but these rarely distract from Dalton and Booth’s own character journeys. Sometimes this works spectacularly, as it truly is a lot of fun to spend time with both these characters, but at other times it seems that Tarantino played with too many ideas of how the Manson Family could tie in, decided to settle on them all, and consequentially didn’t develop any of them.
This is clear in Booth’s interaction with the Manson Family at Spahn Ranch, which, despite standing as a great scene on its own, has very little impact on anything else in the film. When the Manson girls inevitably turn up again towards the end it is completely unrelated to their previous appearances, and it is hard to not feel a little cheated. Additionally, at this point it seems as if Tarantino is attempting to reframe the Manson Family murders as a spiteful, violent reaction against the Hollywood elite – though this plot point is a little muddled, given that in reality this was always a key part of Manson’s motivation.
All of Tarantino’s most recognisable trademarks are on display in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but at this point in his career he appears to be getting a little too comfortable with them. Here he uses them more as empty gimmicks, and neglects to consider what usually makes them work as storytelling devices. The narration exemplifies this, appearing sporadically and serving little purpose other than to remind us that Tarantino likes to use narration. This may satisfy his subset of fans who obsess over spotting every stylistic cliché in his movies, but there is little connection between these filmic choices and his melancholic reflections on Old Hollywood.
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is Tarantino’s penultimate film, and as such it is likely that he is making the most of his directorial freedom before bowing out. In this tribute to the mid-twentieth century film industry, his desire to indulge in his favourite cinematic devices without restraint is ultimately at odds with his desire to make a cohesive movie. Whichever one wins in the end will simply be a matter of personal taste.
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