Hollywood
It’s downright romantic. That shouldn’t work, given the horrors that end the era.
Tarantino’s presumed analog is Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an aging actor past his prime whose sad bragging right is that he was maybe (he’s not sure) on the shortlist for Steve McQueen’s part in “The Great Escape.” Now, he’s reduced to playing TV cowboy villains while younger bucks play the heroes, chauffeured to and from set by his faithful hype man and sometimes stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, who shines in his full charismatic oddball glory). Dalton is grappling – drunkenly, fumblingly – with his looming exit from an industry he loves and that is evolving beyond him.
Dalton also lives on fated Cielo Drive, next door to new tenants Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), who herself is on the opposite end of the creative spectrum from Dalton, having just made her promising Hollywood entrée. While Dalton is mournful and beaten, Tate is all youthful, luminous hope. Knowing what we know, it’s almost unbearable.
As for Manson and his gang, they exist on film the way they would have for these characters in life – peripherally. Manson’s half-feral hippie girls hang menacingly at the edge of things, dumpster diving and flashing peace signs at passing cars driving through the neon-lit streets of LA. Rarely has the city looked so beautiful, filled to bursting with pristine film paraphernalia since consigned to antique stores: 35mm film prints in metal canisters, drive-in screens, blazing white and cherry red marquees, looming billboards the size of gods and movie posters hung like fine art. It’s also rarely been so fun, with appearances by a riotously arrogant Bruce Lee boasting on set and the aforementioned McQueen lusting after Tate at a Mansion party.
Tarantino has always worn his love of cinema on his sleeve, fetishistic and in the form of homage. But here, that love is reverent. He’s also pointedly recalling his own oeuvre: a multicolored tiled wall from “Jackie Brown” makes an appearance, Nazis are barbecued with a flamethrower a la “Inglourious Basterds,” etc. He’s not just taking us on a tour of film history, he’s taking us on a tour of film history.
Tarantino has long said his tenth film would be his last, a self-imposed limit meant to send the director off at the height of his powers rather than in the twilight. He credits “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as his ninth, and watching it in that context – as the possibly penultimate work from a man who loves movies as much as Tarantino does – makes the film play all the more bittersweet.
And it’s the first of his films this decade that has really found its rhythm and nailed its tone since the 2010 death of his of longtime editor, Sally Menke. This isn’t an artist creatively spent, but one hitting a new groove.
Tarantino may have set the finish line at 10, but after watching “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” it’s impossible to believe he only has one more good movie in him.