“I can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s like the world’s expert made a movie about the thing he knows the most about, which is the movies, this city, and the humanity of it.”
While this writer would love to claim the above quote as his own genius take on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it’s from someone certainly more accomplished than yours truly – Paul Thomas Anderson, a modern master of cinema. He happily goes on to say that he has watched the film four and a half times – and absolutely loves the joy in it. While that’s two and a half more watches and a substantially more celebrated body of work than my own, I wanted to share what I thought about this film because I was left absolutely in awe of what I had witnessed.
While opinions on this film vary wildly from being ‘a masterpiece’ to being ‘an over-indulgent slog’, most people agree on two things – that this was unlike any other Tarantino movie and that the ending was absolutely insane (in a very good way). Hilariously, there is a part just before the ending where a man on a television program in the movie tells us now is the part that we’ve all been waiting for. All through it, the theatre erupted in laughter as we cheered on every act of bloody violence enacted upon the Manson Family. This was the movie many were expecting from the get-go, and many were questioning why it took so long to get around to it. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I experienced something quite different.
So, what is a Tarantino movie? Or an easier question – why wasn’t this like a Tarantino movie? I think a big part of the answer lies in the character played by Margot Robbie – Sharon Tate. While many complain that she doesn’t have as much to do with the plot of this movie, I think she is the heart of this movie. From the first sequence of her dancing in the Playboy mansion set to Son of a Lovin Man by the Buchanin brothers, the whole world around her is lifted by her presence. Even Steve Mcqueen, the coolest cat in Hollywood, looks at her in awe and says he never had a chance. Trademark Tarantino wit common among his other female characters (the Bride from Kill Bill and Mia Wallace from pulp fiction come to mind) is replaced by heart-warming innocence, and she hardly feels like a character in ‘Tarantino’s world. His characters are almost always interacting with others in any scene – whether it’s engaged in gory duels or quoting highly edited Biblical verses. However, with Sharon, we see her by herself very frequently – dancing by herself, walking to the bookstore and watching her own film. This feels intimate, and when she does interact with other characters, she is always lifting their spirits with infectious joy. One such instance is when she is driving, she meets a hitchhiker on the way and we see her engage in what seems to be a joyous conversation, bidding her goodbye with a hug. We witness the transition ourselves from her driving alone to meeting someone on the way and while we have no idea what they spoke about (the scene is set to The Circle Game by Buffy St Marie), it’s easy to see the effect she has on people around her. To a lesser extent we see the same with Brad Pitt’s character Cliff Booth – with several songs used with his ride back home toward the start of the movie. With Leonardo Di Caprio’s character Rick Dalton, we see him by himself quite a lot but it’s almost always with some form of interaction – whether he is hilariously screaming at himself for not remembering lines, or making his 24th Margarita of the evening – everything his character does is an ode to the wacky, glorious Golden Age of Hollywood.
One couldn’t quite shake off the tension of real-life events – especially after the sequence with Charles Manson. It felt like evil was just around the corner and about to infiltrate this joyous world at any second – with several eerie sequences that were definitely designed to feel off. The introduction to Pussycat and the scene at Spanhn ranch before Cliff meets George comes to mind. The film is littered with these scenes that remind us of the tragedy in real life – but it gives us hints as to how it’s going to end. When George turned out to be alive and well and Cliff effortlessly beat Clem into a pulp, we’re told not to take the ‘evil’ (the Manson family in this case) as seriously. The shot of the Manson family driving into Cielo drive near midnight set to ‘12:30’ by the Mamas and Papas felt like the evil had finally entered the magical world of our characters, and it filled me with dread. Immediately after that, we have a drunk Rick Dalton shouting at the ‘fucking hippies’ and threatening to call the cops. This is followed with the Manson family bickering in their car about what to do – with one of them (played by Maya Hawke) eventually driving away from their plan at the first chance she got. They’re constantly undermined and insulted, but you still can’t feel at ease, knowing what happened in real life. As they walked up Cielo drive into Rick Dalton’s house instead – they meet Cliff Booth (high on acid), along with his dog Brandy. It was a faceoff between the evil from real life and the magic of Hollywood – and let’s just say the Hippies sure aren’t okay at the end of it. Cathartic violence has definitely been Tarantino’s MO over the years – but for Rick Dalton to torch one of the family with a flamethrower? That was the evil getting ripped to shreds (or burnt to a crisp) by the magic of Hollywood – Tarantino’s Hollywood.
At its heart, this movie is quite simply about the magic of Hollywood, and the limitless, unbridled joy it can bring to the world. Comedy, romance and action are in a way represented by the three central characters, and the movie is a testament to how Hollywood can make us feel about real life. In several interviews, Tarantino has stressed on the importance of movies being for the working class and not just for the elite. His filmography has never felt too hard to comprehend, but not once has he compromised on the quality of his work in favor of mass appeal. This film is rich beyond imagination – with references and layers that I will never be able to decipher on my own – but your enjoyment of the film is never dependent on understanding these references. For me, it was a joy to just witness his gorgeous love of movies – an always inclusive cinephilia (love of films) that left me to marvel at what was unfolding. To cite one example, the final shot of Jim Stacy on his bike, about to leave set was a reference to a real-life motorcycle accident that the real Jim Stacy had that made him lose an arm and a leg.
As I was watching this film, I was left in awe of his abilities as a filmmaker – this was a quiet, thoughtful, melancholic and affectionate ode to the world he grew up in, along with being an absolutely bonkers highlight reel of that zany world. The montage beginning with Cliff and Rick returning from Italy and ending with the neon lights of Hollywood coming on set to Out of Time by The Rolling Stones brought me to tears – something one would hardly expect from a ‘Tarantino movie’. They were tears of joy and wonder of course – it was as though I could feel the magic of moviemaking and the grandeur of a time in a place that I have no association with (yet). In that moment, I also experienced a great deal of sadness. This was the penultimate film in the filmography of a true titan of cinema, and I feel that I still have so much more to experience and learn through his movies. I’ve watched this film thrice at the cinema, and I’ve been deeply moved by the joy of this film each time. It leaves me with fond memories of the Golden Age of Hollywood, a time that ended decades before I was born in a place half-way around the world from me – something that I will always be grateful to this film for.
If nothing else, you can watch a drunk Di Caprio fail at acting, Brad Pitt tripping on acid and killing murderers alongside his dog, and Sharon Tate come to life again through Margot Robbie just for a few hours forty years after her death.
Me gushing about films I love 