Film Views: “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood”

This review contains spoilers for “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a long, slow, romantic, and violent look at the film industry and parts of Los Angeles in 1969. By romantic, I mean looking at a past era through an idealized view of reality. You know the type: someone who constantly extols the past as “those were the days.” Of course, the good old days never were. No matter what time in history one refers to, it always seems to be a messy stew of human triumphs, horror, boredom, elation, and depression. Those elements are certainly present in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, but Tarantino is also making a cultural stand against the counterculture. Granted, it’s easy to take a stand against a countercultural group like The Manson Family, but in Tarantino’s hands, they become an emblem of the ’60s era counterculture — when in reality they were more like an outlier group who were elevated in stature due to horrific murders at their hands. However, The Manson Family isn’t what this film is about. They more or less become a Big Bad cult evolving toward a violent showdown that lingers in the margins for much of the film.

The main story centers on Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) who work in Hollywood. Dalton is an aging TV actor who had a good run in a western-style bounty hunter show called Bounty Law. Booth works as Dalton’s stunt double, and the two are more than just working partners and friends. Booth is more like a man-servant to Dalton, but one who is often a pal, comforter, and protector. It’s not a sexual attraction, but rather, one that is based on a pecking order that’s also rooted in a code of personal loyalty and patronage that existed in Hollywood — and probably still does today. In other words, Booth relies on Dalton for work and connections. Dalton needs a driver and confidant to buck up his fragile ego — which Booth is more than happy to do.

Dalton’s career is on the downward slope, and the only kind of jobs he can get in 1969 is guest star appearances in other TV shows — where he always plays the villain. It takes a lunch meeting with an agent like Marvin Schwarzs (Al Pacino) to bring to light that unless Dalton changes the kind of roles he plays (i.e., from villain to hero), he will eventually lose his career and just be a footnote in Hollywood TV history. Against that backdrop of Dalton trying to get better roles, do better work, and keep on top so he can afford his Hollywood Hills home, we get the next generation of stars and filmmakers entering the scene.

They are embodied by Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) and an assortment of creative types who at one point congregate at the Playboy Mansion for a big party sequence. So, it’s old Hollywood and the Young Turks coming in at a time when the culture and the politics are changing in the country. The Hippie counterculture is fairly or unfairly represented by The Manson Family, but other elements of the ’60s manifest themselves with the ease of drug use, sexual freedom, fashion, and music. Those are “safe for consumption” because they pose no threat to the current Hollywood order. Indeed, those ’60s era elements inject new life into a town where to stay relevant, one has to be at the cutting edge of the culture. “Dirty Hippies” do pose a threat to the Hollywood order. As represented by The Manson Family, their “back to nature” ethos was unglamorous, anti-materialistic, and fiercely devoted to a cultish sense of right and wrong. In short, they rejected the culture Hollywood created. Tarantino doesn’t flinch away from that cultural production which enforced a kind of conservatism that was oppressive for many but could provide an unbounded sense of freedom from those who benefited from it. The parade of TV shows and movies Tarantino features glorifies violence with weapons like guns, flamethrowers, and fists of fury — but it’s often done with a patina of nostalgia that seems to also suggest this is what makes for the good society.

The camera lingers over different types of cocktails, Los Angeles eateries, storefronts, movie houses, while an always present soundtrack from AM Boss radio plays in the background. Commercials about colognes for men (“Numero Uno”), fragrances for women (“Heaven Sent”), Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, blonde hair dye (“Summer Blonde”), and Mug Root Beer are presented as standards of beauty, intellect, and refreshments. We can snicker watching how in 1969 people were fed a steady diet of consumer goods and film glamor, but in 50 years, will our current moment in time look any less ridiculous? No. I don’t think so. In fact, it may look more ridiculous.

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood often meanders in that, there are scenes that don’t really advance the plot, but rather seem to be designed to luxuriate in that era. However, Tarantino is a savvy enough filmmaker to keep things interesting. For example, there’s a sense of impending doom with the murder of Sharon Tate and her house guests at the hands of three members of The Family (Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel). Now, what really happened on the night of August 9, 1969, is not what happened on the screen during the movie. In Tarantino’s telling, Manson’s “Family” members get a heaping helping of revenge at the hands of Booth, Dalton, and Booth’s very well trained, but lethal dog, Brandy. It’s a nice fantasy to the reality of the grisly murders committed against Tate and others. But what is Tarantino conveying in this alternate timeline? On the one hand, it could just be as simple as a revenge fantasy — much like Inglorious Basterds was. On the other, the cathartic effect of seeing truly evil people get their due morphs into a prolonged exercise of brutal violence to, um, hammer home the point that structures of power will always prevail against threats to its dominance. It’s also possible (now that I’ve run out of hands, I’ll have to just go with something less limiting) it means none of these things. Rather, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is just a big slice of life that one can read in various ways. However, Tarantino is too clever of a filmmaker to do something so shallow.