Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood

Blending realism and fantasy with convincing creative bombast, Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood masterfully cloaks the absurd.

Closely following Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth's (Brad Pitt) declining filmic fortunes, it patiently develops resounding depth where a closed mind might only breed shallows.

It's quite long.

I asked myself, why are we following Booth home for 7 to 10 minutes to watch him feed his dog and eat Kraft Dinner? The sequence establishes him as a loveable everyman, but this characteristic could have been highlighted without taking up so much time.

Similarly, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) goes to the movies. Her visit doesn't seem to have much purpose besides paying visceral tribute to a star who's life was cut brutally short, but it's there, again and again, taking up ample sensuous space, it's kind of cool to see an actress go out to see her own film, but couldn't the scenes have only lasted for a minute or two, in total, or been removed entirely without effecting the plot?

In less gifted hands, these scenes may have seemed trite, and the film might have become unbearable after the 45th minute, but they add so much character to Once Upon a Time without really saying anything at all, like essential gratuitous indulgement, generating agile lucid meaninglessness.

It's quite long, but also quite good.

What first drew me to Proust's Search was the ways in which he seemed to enable every one of his ingenious indulgements no matter what happened to be taking place in the story, and there's a little of that bold genius at work in Once Upon a Time . . . 's sweet nothings, so much of it could have been cut, but the film's so much stronger because it was left in.

The whole Manson subplot could have been cut, and you'd still have a tragic tale of a struggling actor who may have blown it unreeling for 100 minutes or so (he could have met Polanski [Rafal Zawierucha] in a different way), Tarantino's love of genre actors shining through with understated ease, Dalton's trials heartfelt and revealing, DiCaprio exemplifying generic tenacity.

Sort of wish his character had been played by Michael Biehn.

Dalton gives the film its strength as he strives to keep keepin' on, delivering a powerful performance for a pilot no one will remember.

But here I've written, "no one will remember", and it's precisely that kind of snobbery Tarantino critiques, he truly loves television with all its wondrous diversity, whether it's genius or ridiculous or hokey, the ideas networks come up with and for who knows what reason decide to share (see They Live?), whether the stories are haphazardly crafted, or the narratives expertly hewn. 

Where would I be without Cheers, a show where everyone hung out in a bar for 11 seasons praising shenanigans that were generally lighthearted?

Clone High? Parker Lewis? Star Trek? Twin Peaks (The Original Series)?

Once Upon a Time . . . absurdly plays with history but genuinely brings struggling actors to life, forging an imaginative dreamy mélange that's as otherworldly as it is down to earth.

It's the first Tarantino film I've liked since The Basterds, but unfortunately it's still too toxic to recommend.

One of the protagonists murdered his wife and got away with it and this is supposed to be okay, the other lost his license for drunk driving and still gets wasted all the time, hippies are one-dimensionally vilified, Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) comes across as a flake and he's the only ethnic character to be found, Dalton stars in a filmic adaption of The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian, and violence often solves the problem.

Perhaps it's just a product of its time, but the film is ultra-violent, and doesn't offer alternative points of view.

He diversifies dimensions that are often one-dimensionally depicted (Westerns) while one-dimensionally depicting others to exaggerate the distinction.

A more balanced approach would have generated higher yields.

Especially in light of MeToo, and the intensifying climate crisis.

Kitschy insubstantial cool yet chilling art, obsessed with things that look pretty, putting a capital P back in patriarchal.

Why spend so much time thinking to wind up thoughtless?

Still better than so many of his films.