Quentin Goes to Hollywood

When director Quentin Tarantino announced his ninth film would take place in Hollywood in 1969, it was a given that I would be excited to see the movie. As his PR machine deftly released casting notices, and lurid plot points (Would it or would it not be about the Manson killings- wait, Margot Robbie is playing Sharon Tate- it must be!) I prepared myself to manage my expectations so I wouldn't go in wanting more than Tarantino could give me. I'm happy to report Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) delivers on some of my highest hopes.

As the title suggests Once takes place in Hollywood and follows the intersection of the lives of three people in 1969: fading TV actor Rick Dalton (the not fading Leonardo DiCaprio), aging stuntman and professional best buddy Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt- more on him later), and doomed actress Sharon Tate (the appropriately Sharon, Margot Robbie).

Dalton is watching his career fade away in an angry haze of booze and cigarettes. Booth tries to keep his drunk and emphysema-level hacking friend together enough so Dalton can shoot any number of "heavy" Western roles. Booth is struggling himself though- a stuntman whose rumor-fueled past keeps him from actually stunting. He's a Hollywood appendage who has an unappreciated body of his own.

Tate is Dalton's neighbor and acts as the propellant for the unavoidable ending- a sort of blond tracking shot that leads Dalton and Booth to the historic events on Cielo Drive on August 8, 1969.

Tarantino's evolution as a director is in full flower. His earlier predilection to allow the Tarantino style of cleverness and cultural curation to overwhelm his story is actually used in Once to immerse us in this dizzying, mod world.

Like a pubescent teen who can't shuttup about the latest new thing he's discovered, Tarantino floods the screen with a multitude of 60's uber-specific references: radio ads, TV show footage, movie marquees, neon-signed Hollywood hotspots, eclectic soundtrack, and even dog food cans.

Cool Hollywood cameos are in abundance: Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis), Bruce Lee (hilariously pompous Mike Moh), Mama Cass (Rachel Redleaf), George Spahn (Bruce Dern still giving us acting realness at age 83), and the cast of infamous "hippies" that inhabited the Spahn Ranch.

Tarantino has a field day showing us that no one knows more about this time period than he does. But wisely, these gorgeous details are kept as elements of the setting- like a trippy kaleidoscope that his leads walk through as they navigate their show business destinies.

Tarantino has also learned to master the art of dramatic suspense- not in a thriller sort of way- but as a creeping dread. From the moment we see Tate and Polanski depart the Pan Am airplane, we know what the ending is.

I practically squeezed my theater armrest to shreds imagining how Tarantino was going to shoot the Manson Murders. It allows Tarantino to stretch out the apprehension to sometimes unendurable levels, while at the same time creating fantastic and hilarious moments of subverted expectations.

That dread is mirrored in the lives of Dalton and Booth because as surely as we know the fate of the occupants of 10050 Cielo Drive, we also know Hollywood is about to fall apart and these two showbiz brahs could wind-up as the detritus of a new age.

As Booth, Dalton, and Tate cross paths the tension of what must happen provides enervating fuel, raising the stakes of this oft-told story of unfulfilled and empty Hollywood lives. It's like the first gut-knot inducing scene of Inglorious Basterds (2009) stretched out over a whole, swinging movie.

I also have to give Tarantino credit for giving Brad Pitt a role that fits him like a torn and used glove. Pitt is perfection as a Lebowski-level cool guy who is nonetheless aware that he's a hanger-on. While he isn't really sure what he should be doing- he knows he's wasting himself. Pitt's screen charm is electric and so casual, it's hard to tell he's acting at all. I suspect with the success of this film, Pitt can look for an Oscar nom come next year.

Is the film too long? Yes. Are there long stretches where actors play actors acting? Yes. But the ending of this film is as satisfying as anything I've seen recently. Tarantino believes that movies can redeem and save us. Once graphically illustrates that belief.

Not Hating the Hateful Eight

I know I'm supposed to be preparing myself for the red carpet this evening... well, the red carpet in front of my television, but I can't stop thinking about seeing The Hateful Eight yesterday.
I am a pretty un-apologetic Tarantino fan. I have been critical of his preciousness with himself and dialogue diarrhea about hip things like mix tapes, but on the whole I have been impressed with how he has grown as a filmmaker. The Hateful Eight seems to me to be another complicated step in Tarantino's evolution.

There is very little I can say about the story of Hateful without ruining critical plot points.The film is a violent, western mystery thriller- Stagecoach meets Ten Little Indians meets The Wild Bunch. The plot twists are superb and Tarantino's love of the non-linear story comes to full bloom in the second act. In Inglorious Basterds (2009) Tarantino explored the use  of the length of a scene itself to create tension and he has continued that trend here- perhaps too much at times.

Robert Richardson's  Oscar-nominated cinematography is both expansive and uncomfortably closed-in by Yohei Taneda's wonderful one-room set. The actors are universally superb- with Samuel L. Jackson, Oscar-nommed Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tarantino new-comer Walton Goggins standing out in a room crowded with acting talent. Ennio Morricone's tense yet familiar score that plays as the blizzard howls should win him the statuette.

But I don't want to talk about any of that. I want to talk about what the fuck Tarantino is doing.

Hateful Eight is a hateful movie. It assaults its audience with nausea-inducing gore, racially-vicious verbal warfare, and punishing violence towards women. It is too simplistic to say that Tarantino is being a provocateur or that he is just showing the West as it was- a place where racism and violence against women were commonplace- where death was bloody and drawn out.

The tenuous period after the Civil War where the truce between the North and South seemed always on the verge of exploding into violence over the issue of Blacks is the perfect setting for Tarantino's obsession with race. The gratuitous use of the "f" word of past films is replaced by a racheting-up of his characters' proud use of the "n" word. And it is used in its most hateful form- spat from the mouths that utter it. The disgust of hearing the expletive soon becomes numbed through overuse- uncomfortable laughter trying to muffle the sound of the word.

But like Django Unchained (2012), the hero of this movie is a black man. Samuel L. Jackson has starred in six Tarantino flicks- and this is the first one where he receives top billing. Major Marquis Warren is one tough, wily son-of-a-bitch, but he still has to deal with the indignities of black life after a barely concluded Civil War.

The Major is a flawed man- a bounty hunter with a history of shooting first and asking questions never- but he is the hero no matter how many times he is degraded. In his previous outting with Tarantino, Jackson's character was a racial capitulator- defending his white master to the death. Now he takes great pleasure in raining retribution on a cruel Confederate general (Bruce Dern in fine form) and punching a woman in the face who spits on a letter from Abraham Lincoln. So in that sense, despite the negative racial slanders, Tarantino is raising a Black Power salute, making his lead star a powerful, smart Black man.

But it's so complicated. Like the Blaxpoitation films that inspired Tarantino as a youth, the depiction of blackness is steeped in raging violence, as if blowing away all the racists was the answer. It was a depiction that shook white audiences in the '70's- and if the reaction to Beyonce's Superbowl performance is any indication- there are those who are still frightened of an image of Black Power.

I think Tarantino wants us to be uncomfortable with the issue of race- and partly achieves that sensation through the visceral use of vile language and gruesome violence- much of it heaped upon a woman. Maybe he is haunted by the image of himself as a quirky white boy watching Blaxpoitation movies in a crowded black theater, absorbing the culture of those around him through film, but still aware that he was "The Man." Whatever his motivation, three of his eight films have dealt directly with racism through the use of discomforting degradation and violence. And another two use the equation of Minority + Violence = Retribution? Revenge? Justice? (Kill Bill 1 & 2 (2003 & 2004)- Women and Inglorious Basterds- Jews). It makes me fantasize what the story of Stonewall would look like in Tarantino's hands. Drag queens marching down the street with machetes, castrating all those who stand in the way of marriage equality. The other F-word being spouted every few minutes.

Without ruining the ending- I think it can be argued that the film believes the races can come together in a sort of respectful partnership and serve justice- but the road of violence leads to a dark ending for everyone. A strangely self-destructive message from an artist whose whole career has been advanced by legendarily violent pictures.

The dear friend I saw the movie with will never watch a Tarantino film again. And I'm not sure that I will add The Hateful Eight to my film collection- but I can say that despite all the excesses of this film, I can't stop thinking about it- and that to me means there's more going on here than curse words and blood.