Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - 2021
At this point, I cannot deny this genius production of Quentin Tarantino any longer. I thought there was nary a chance he could craft a masterwork stretching to the towering heights of Pulp Fiction. Yet, here we have it - Once Upon A Time To Hollywood - a glorious homage to the waning days of the Golden Era of Hollywood, on the brink of the gruesome Manson murders.
It must be stated from the outset that this is a film imagined, lovingly crafted, written, and steered by the man himself. Quentin is all over this thing. As such, OUATIH (the acronym you never knew you needed) has all of his hallmark touchstones - a thoroughly inhabited historical era, LOADS of pop culture references, his usual cast of recurring characters, the hyper ultraviolence in the film's denouement, a timely soundtrack, pristine fashion and style, etc. etc.
As the film dawns, we're watching this story about two characters, Rick an aging film veteran turned TV bit actor and his stunt double, Cliff. The story of the two men kind of diverge in places and collide in others. But (and this is crucial), because of the historical antecedent of the Manson Family we believe that these two characters are ultimately going to become subsumed by this bigger story of the Sharon Tate murder. Alternately, what actually happens is something wholly different. The centrality of the film IS the two men. This is Rick and Cliff's story. It is about their friendship. And the only way that all of the peripheral characters, the commune etc., become important at all is when they cross paths with Rick and Cliff at the end of the film. So Tate's character is really as much of a decoy as anything else. In this way, Quentin ingeniously subverts our expectations.
When you back up from the film, what you actually see is this incredible way that Tarantino sets everything up. He spends an entire scene, for instance, displaying the extreme discipline of Cliff's pit bull. Likewise, the flame thrower used in one of Rick's old films is introduced to us early in the proceedings (if you've seen it, you'll readily recall how it becomes important in the end). When you see these little details, you initially just perceive them to be examples of the kind of excesses of which Quentin is so fond. His refusal, for instance, to take scissors to a reel, allowing a scene to linger on and on (time being one of the chief things Quentin regularly "messes with" in his pictures). Here, however, it's more than extravagance. He's shaping a picture for its conclusion. So what you end with is a story which doesn't do much of anything for two hours and fifteen minutes and then blows up into this massive, encore fireworks display.
In the end, it turns out that Once Upon A Time is an incredibly apt title. Without giving away the whole farm, I'll say what we're actually dealing with is a fairy tale of sorts. This idea of fairy tales and retelling historical elements in a creative way is not new for Quentin. We saw it, in fact, in Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds. But, this subversion of a historical event is somewhat unique and a feat of sheer genius. OUATIH...a pure gold love letter to Old Hollywood from the odd auteur himself.
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