Quentin Rides Again

It is not only possible to be nostalgic for a time one never experienced, it is commonplace. I’ve mentioned my own nostalgia for certain aspects of 1940s pop culture, though of course not for the decade’s brutal conflict. The culturally pivotal 1960s have great power to stir nostalgia not only from those who remember the decade but from members of the majority who don’t. For example, writer/director Drew Goddard, born in 1975, evokes 1969 with uncanny precision in his 2018 movie Bad Times at the El Royale. Quentin Tarantino, born 1963, also chose 1969 for his Once upon a Time in Hollywood, currently in theaters. I caught it last Friday. I turned 17 in 1969, by the way, which no doubt gives me a different perspective on the era than younger folk – Drew Goddard included.

As the title suggests, Quentin Tarantino has directed a fairy tale of sorts in Once upon a Time in Hollywood, albeit of the bloody Grimm variety rather than a sanitized Disneyesque version. He has lovingly and humorously portrayed 1960s Hollywood and its denizens in a way that someone who didn’t see them first-hand might regard as parody. It really isn’t. Brief portrayals of Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee, Joey Heatherton (unnamed, but that is who it has to be), and others intersperse the movie. However, when the ‘60s were good they were very very good, but when they were bad they were horrid. (Longfellow’s poem is better known slightly misquoted for some reason, so I’ll stick with the pattern of the misquote.) The horrid aspect remains very much a part of the American psyche and mythology, and it is central to the movie. It is a Tarantino movie after all.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a former TV Western lead who now mostly plays one-off parts as the heavy in TV shows such as Mannix and Bonanza. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is his stunt double and best friend, who, as Booth narrates, is “more than a brother and a little less than a wife.” Dalton is so concerned about being past his prime that after playing a scene (as the heavy) in a movie Western, he is sincerely and deeply moved by validation from an 8-year-old girl (an “actor” not an “actress,” she tells us) who praises his acting. He mulls an offer to star in spaghetti Westerns. Dalton’s house is located on Cielo Drive neighboring one rented by Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. (A 50^th anniversary is coming up next week on August 8.) There is a truly menacing scene as Booth gives a teenage girl a ride back to the Spahn Ranch where Charlie Manson and his followers have taken up residence. A well-cast Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate, who is on her way up the hill that Dalton has crested. She is still excited enough to see her own name on a marquee that she spontaneously walks into a movie theater to watch herself in a showing of The Wrecking Crew; she enjoys laughs from the audience at her comic turns on screen.

It might be hard to imagine calling anything with these elements a comedy, but to a large degree it is. The soundtrack is a well-selected mix of ‘60s numbers. There is a remarkable cast in minor roles including Al Pacino, Bruce Dern, and Dakota Fanning. The movie is as un-PC as the decade itself.

This is the 9^th Tarantino movie. Hardly anyone is likely to score it in the top three. Yet, it is fun and definitely re-watchable. This is no Pulp Fiction, but thumbs solidly up.