Movie review by Michael Isenberg.
But Quentin Tarantino is one of the most talented and politically incorrect directors in Hollywood. I’ve been a huge fan ever since 2003’s Kill Bill, Part I. Every time I watch the scene of the plane landing in Tokyo, I just shake my head and mumble, “This is f—king brilliant.” So this week’s release of his ninth film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood seemed like a good time to head back to the theater.
I recognize that not everyone shares my enthusiasm. A piece by Sara Stewart in The New York Post this week, “Quentin Tarantino’s exploitation has no place in Hollywood anymore,” captures the controversies swirling around the director:
Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” is a love letter to the film industry days of yore — the late ’60s, to be exact. Men were men, female actors were “starlets” and the words “Me too” had yet to be hashtagged. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that a guy who partnered with producer Harvey Weinstein up until the latter’s shattering downfall would feel a bit nostalgic about the good ol’ retro days in the film biz. But just like Harvey, Tarantino and his oeuvre are things that should now move quietly into the “boy, bye” column.
There was a time and place for Tarantino, who gave us his share of strong female characters — Uma Thurman’s Beatrix Kiddo in “Kill Bill,” Pam Grier’s fierce “Jackie Brown” — but never strayed far from his urge to exploit in his films, fetishizing the N-word and relishing the sadistic treatment of women. Look no further than Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Daisy Domergue taking a truly stupendous number of punches in the face, and then much worse, over the three-hour span of “The Hateful Eight.”
And yet, even Stewart had to concede, “Tarantino worshippers and cinephiles will gush over his new movie’s gorgeous depiction of old Hollywood, its twisty conclusion and Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt’s dedicated, leathery performances.”
Love him or hate him, one thing is clear to anyone who has ever seen a Tarantino film: the man loves movies. So it was inevitable that he would eventually make a film about Hollywood.
The film covers the six months leading up to the real-life Tate Murders. For those unfamiliar with them, here’s some background; it's critical to appreciating the film: On the night of August 8-9, 1969, a little after midnight, members of Charles Manson's infamous Manson Family gang brutally murdered actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child (she was eight and a half months pregnant), and four of her friends. The atrocity occurred at the Beverly Hills house she shared with her husband, director Roman Polanski, who was away in Europe directing a film at the time.
In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, these months in 1969 are not seen from the viewpoint of Tate herself, at least not primarily. Rather the POV characters through most of the movie are her fictional next door neighbor, actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), and his stuntman, driver, sidekick, and best friend Cliff Booth (Pitt). Dalton had starred in a popular Western TV show in the ‘50s, as well as a number of action films. But he blew his chance at the lead in 1963’s The Great Escape, losing out to Steve McQueen, and now his career is on the downswing. He sees Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) and Tate (Margot Robbie) driving in and out of their home, but he doesn’t interact with them. He’s frankly intimidated living next door to the director of Rosemary’s Baby. And it doesn’t help that their careers are on the upswing.
IRL, Tate spent the early 60’s toiling in bit parts on television—including that of one of the girls in the typing pool on fifteen episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies. But by the end of the decade, she was getting some fairly decent movie roles. “I did a lot of research on Sharon and became very enamored of her,” Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly:
She seemed like an incredibly sweet person. When you talk about all the different friends that she had, even acquaintances that she had, they all tell the same story about her, about this unaffected beauty, just this reservoir of goodness and kindness. Now, that almost sounds too good to be true, but for whatever reason, as I’m reading all this stuff, I’m really buying it. Every account about her that I found backs up that version of her. Unfortunately, she’s kind of been defined by her murder. I thought the best way to get her across was not sticking her in a bunch of scenes with Roman or with other people where she’s [furthering] a plot, but just hanging out with her, letting her drive around Los Angeles, do her errands, and just see where the day takes her. I wanted to show people a glimpse of Sharon before the murder, so they think of her as more than just a victim.
It was a gamble on Tarantino’s part, but thanks to Margot Robbie’s amazing performance, it pays off. Sharon Tate comes across as pretty, carefree, and happy, in that natural, long-haired, barefoot 60’s kind of way. We like Sharon Tate. We don’t want to see her get murdered.
Robbie captures her so well that Tate’s real life sister Debra said, “She made me cry because she sounded just like Sharon. The tone in her voice was completely Sharon, and it just touched me so much that big tears [started falling]. The front of my shirt was wet. I actually got to see my sister again… nearly 50 years later.”
The film has all the usual Tarantino trademarks. Cool people looking cool with cool cars and cool music. Red Apple cigarettes. Feet. Long conversations about nothing important, but with a subtext that has us on the edge of our seats.
And yet, I thought the movie started slow. We sympathize with Dalton as he struggles professionally. And he has a very sweet friendship with a precocious child actor (not actress!, she insists) on the set of his latest TV pilot, in a scene-stealing performance by nine-year-old Julia Butters. When I saw it, more than one “aww” went through the audience during their scenes together—without irony. It was all very nice, but where was the real conflict?
Things picked up about halfway, when Booth picks up a hitchhiker who asks him to take her to the Spahn Ranch—a deserted movie site where Booth used to film Westerns, now a commune for hippies. They seem like nice enough people, albeit the woman who is apparently in charge, Squeaky, is a little suspicious of strangers. Perfectly understandable since their leader, referred to only as Charlie, isn’t around. And this is why I say that knowing the back story is so crucial to appreciating this movie. We’re never told explicitly that they’re the Manson Family. We’re just supposed to know that, and because we do, because we know that Booth is alone among these seemingly nice flower children who are actually killers, the scene takes on chilling nail-biting tension and suspense.
After the scene at the ranch, there’s a brief interlude to wrap up Dalton’s career arc, and then, for the remainder of the movie, the notorious and brutal events of August 8-9 unfold.
I mentioned at the beginning that I was sick of politically correct movies, so I was eager to see how Tarantino would handle the pressure from the likes of Sara Stewart to get in line. Would he present women in keeping with feminist orthodoxy—independent, frigid, and ugly? Would he tone down the violence? Would he pussyfoot around minority characters, out of fear of offending somebody? In other words, would Quentin Tarantino stop being Quentin Tarantino?
To his credit, the answers were no, no, no, and no. With Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino told political correctness to F—k off. The women are hot. The violence is violent. And the people of color are human.
Clearly the decision to just hang out with Tate as she did her errands, and not really give her a story line, was problematic from the feminist point of view. “We don’t need that type of guy anymore,” harps the Post’s Stewart, “especially one who thinks silencing Sharon Tate for most of his film is somehow a fitting homage.” But as I said, that gamble paid off.
More generally, the women in the film are frankly sexual. (As are the men. IMDB reports, “At the film's world premiere screening at the Cannes film festival, the scene where Brad Pitt, 55, takes off his shirt to show off his still muscular stuntman physique, drew gasps and spontaneous applause from the audience.” Quentin Tarantino is an equal-opportunity objectifier.) Margaret Qualley as Pussycat, the hitchhiker (Pussy, for short) absolutely sizzles. Well, she does if you like pit hair. It was the 60’s. And if you expect some obscene double entendres concerning her name, à la 1964's Goldfinger, you won’t be disappointed.
As for violence in general, and violence against women in particular, if anything, Tarantino has doubled down. Compared to one of the women in Once Upon a Time, the Jennifer Jason Leigh character in The Hateful Eight got off easy. And you may not want to watch what Dalton does with a flamethrower. You heard me. There’s a goddamn flamethrower.
Tarantino even has the courage to trash the late, beloved martial artist Bruce Lee. IRL Lee was friends with Tate, had given her martial arts lesson to prepare for a film role, and was briefly a suspect in her murder, at least in Polanski’s mind. He was the subject of the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. It’s an excellent film which treats Lee with reverence. There are many touching scenes that take on the subject of racial intolerance. But there's no reverence for Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Played by Mike Moh, whose physical resemblance to the original is uncanny, Tarantino's Lee is just a dick.
To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, sex and violence are fun, that’s all there is to it. By refusing to back away from that, despite pressure from the forces of political correctness, Tarantino has made an entertaining, gripping, and touching film which, in his own words, will be his “memory piece.” I’m glad I picked it for my return to the Megaplex.
| Michael Isenberg drinks bourbon and writes novels. He is the author of Full Asylum, a comedy about politics, hospital gowns, and political correctness run amok in Hollywood. It is available on Amazon.com |
This was worth reading for many reasons, but number one for me was this line:" Would he present women in keeping with feminist orthodoxy—independent, frigid, and ugly?" This line portrayed the courage that the reviewer admires in Tarantino. I will definitely see this film, and appreciate the review.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I didn't know what sort of reaction that line would get, but I feel strongly that the sort of thinking that insists on presenting women as asexual beings are ruining movies and literature, so I included it. For both men and women, sex is part of who we are.
ReplyDeleteGreat review! My daughter has a class if Film Critiquing this fall as part of her Masters studies if Film Directing. I will make it a point to show her this.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete