Tarantino’s latest is a radiant Hollywood fable
AP Film Writer
Quentin Tarantino has, for a while now, been reminding us what’s so great about movies — or at least, what he thinks is so great about them.
He’s made an old-fashioned double-feature (“Death Proof,” of “Grindhouse”), resurrected the wide-screen format of 70mm Ultra Panavision (“The Hateful Eight”) and generally presided as the pre-eminent B-movie evangelist for a generation. The power and thrill of exploitation movies, he has earnestly espoused, can conquer all evils — or at least slavery (“Django Unchained”) and the Nazis (“Inglourious Basterds”).
But “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” set in 1969 Los Angeles, is Tarantino’s most affectionate and poignant ode yet to the movie business. It’s a breezy, woozy Hollywood fable that luxuriates in the simple pleasures of the movies and the colorful swirl of the Dream Factory’s backlot. Some pleasures are nostalgic, and some — like driving down Sunset Boulevard or martinis at Musso & Frank — are everlasting.
Here, movie love feels contagious, like something in the air. In one of the film’s best scenes, Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate explains at a theater’s ticket office that she’s in the movie, the newly released caper “The Wrecking Crew,” (“I’m the klutz!” she says cheerfully). Inside, she giggles with delight at seeing herself on the big screen, giddily mimicking her character’s martial-arts moves and watching to see if the audience laughs at one of her lines. (They do.)
The pleasures in “Once Upon a Time” are also ours. Tarantino, has lowered his typically feverish temperature to a warming simmer, bathing us in the golden California light and the movie-star glow of his leading men, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. They spend copious amounts of time driving through the Hollywood Hills in a creamy Coupe de Ville, riding along like Butch and Sundance and just as nice to look at.
DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, a Burt Reynolds-type actor of TV Westerns (his claim to fame is the ‘50s hit “Bounty Law”) whose career is stalling. Pitt is Cliff Booth, his stunt double and best friend, a war veteran with a bad reputation but a friendly, relaxed manner. They have a natural, easy rapport, with Booth doubling as a drinking buddy and support system for Dalton, who’s increasingly anxious about his typecast future. (Al Pacino, as his agent, urges him to head to Italy for a spaghetti Western.)
In DiCaprio’s finest sequence, he chats between takes on a Western called “Lancer” with a frightfully serious Method Acting 8-year-old co-star (Julia Butters) before forgetting his lines. After a bout of self-loathing in his trailer, he returns and nails the scene. DiCaprio, a preternaturally self-possessed actor himself, captures the whole arc beautifully.
When word got out that Tarantino’s latest film would take place around the Manson murders, it was easy to wonder what genre mayhem the director would bring to this epochal moment. We know what carnage resulted when Zed was dead, so what did Tarantino have in store for the demise of the ‘60s?