New Tarantino Movie

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sets its stock out in its title. It could either be a mythologizing statement a la Sergio Leone, or a light-hearted fairytale. In some ways, it’s successfully both. It’s a fascinating mythologizing of that era of Hollywood, which then segues into an alternative history which, oddly enough, in how it firstly frames then validates Sharon Tate, feels warm hearted. Most of its (overlong) three-hour run time cast a woozy spell over me – its use of music and cinema hypnotic – but then when Tarantino needed to say something about why this era of Hollywood matters, I feel he’s left us with a statement that might be the defining love letter and historical document of this moment. It’s not just a fairytale, but specifically a bedtime story – a dream, meant to inspire dreams.

Firstly – Brad Pitt is SO GOOD in this movie. He’s always great, but here, largely with mere physicality, he portrays a has-been, a once-great titan, a physical threat, an unknowable menace, a man’s man, a man not to be trusted. There are scenes that, I think, Tarantino wanted to be funny – Bruce Lee, Pitt’s wife – but Pitt made scary. The way Pitt portrayed menace in masculinity denied those moments any humour. When he had to be likeable, though – it’s Brad Pitt! The rest of the cast are good, but it’s Pitt’s movie, and maybe Pitt’s best movie.

Nonetheless there are demonstrable flaws – or mebbe iffy moments – in the movie. It’s too long. It’s waaaaaaaaaay too long. The Dicaprio plot’s less interesting than Tarantino thinks it is. With threw shrew wives, two of whom have murders attempted against them, I’m not sure I’d be happy to have just married Tarantino, and I think Tarantino is not a feminist. The Bruce Lee scene is a mess. Whilst most of the mud thrown at the wall sticks, some doesn’t.

Where this worked for me where, say, Basterds and Django didn’t, is the framing of the villains. I have a sneaking suspicion that Tarantino secretly admires style over substance, and that does characters like Waltz’s smooth-talker (who happens to be a Nazi) and Dicaprio’s exuberant ham (who happens to be a slaver) a LOT of good. Cinema loves villains, and the style of the Reservoir Dogs is fine and dandy for cinema – but applying that cool to Hans Landa, the most stylish, the most quotable, the most intelligent character in a largely forgettable movie, is iffy. In one scene, he’s put against Pitt’s nominal hero, and his use of language and peacockery is something framed as cooooool. Here, though, Tarantino’s idea of cool may still hinge on violence and masculinity, but in every way, it harks back to Reservoir Dogs – that movie cool is different to real world cool, movie violence different to real world violence, and understanding the difference makes both worlds richer. Rick Dalton isn’t a stylish man, he’s a stylish TV hero (in fact, in the real world, he becomes less stylish as the movie goes on, only heroic at the end when recreating the movies). Where I think Tarantino’s been a wee bit undisciplined with styling history before, here he’s almost moral.

The last act, then, should go in the dictionary for ‘sticks the landing’. My entire cinema held its breath when “Out Of Time” came on – knowing the scene to come, knowing the ways it could go – and when Brad Pitt happened, firstly ridiculousness then judicious, the triumph in Tarantino’s success was palpable. Hollywood serves as the last statement on these characters being losers. It’s almost beautiful in how it shows just how pathetic this kind of violence ultimately is (admittedly, by showing another kind of violence (Hollywood violence) is better?). Whilst I think the extremity of the violence is a bit Old Testament (Tarantino doesn’t care about brainwashing by Manson, for example), I think the reasoning behind is to honestly display the cruddy cult cruelty of not just Manson but every such cult before or since as the empty, unnecessary, ugly evil it is. It is brilliant not in terms of how it rewrites history, but in terms of how it frames the reality. There’s surprisingly deep consideration for the victims; this not just gives them their moment in the sun, but now gives their perpetrators a permanent record of their worthlessness. No line will EVER crack the Manson myth better than “I am the devil” – “No, it was dumber than that”.

The more I think about it, the more I like this film, and find myself siding with it – and I use that terminology deliberately. I think Tarantino takes this horrific moment in pop culture, and posits not just a perfect alternative history, but a perfect framing of the ugly reality. Overall there’s no doubt that bits of it are iffy – but its ‘fairytale ending’, its odd sentimentality, its weirdly good heart, all add up to a film that absolutely cast its spell on me. It’s the most charming movie with that much ultraviolence. Four stars, because it’s too long, but brilliant other than that: challenging, controversial, and strangely considerate too. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a film this in love with being a film.