Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, premiered at the 2019
Cannes Film Festival, where it got a "six-minute standing ovation." Here's the story behind
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Quentin Tarantino has said that all his movies are very personal, and in 2019 he described
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as, quote, "probably [his] most personal" film. The year in which
it's set, 1969, holds special significance. He explained to Esquire:
"I think of it like my memory piece. Alfonso [Cuarón] had Roma and Mexico City, 1970.
I had L. A. and 1969. This is me. This is the year that formed me. I was six years old
then. This is my world. And this is my love letter to L.A."
Tarantino also explained how his childhood affected his filmmaking in an interview with
the Telegraph:
"As a child, my mom took me to the movies all the time. It was cheaper than getting
a babysitter."
He watched violent, R-rated films like Deliverance, which co-starred Burt Reynolds, who was cast
in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood before he passed away.
Vintage News noted that the movie's title is also biographically relevant. It alludes
to Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America, films directed by Sergio
Leone, who had a huge impact on Tarantino.
Burt Reynolds was slated to play rancher George Spahn, who ill-fatedly rented his land to
Charles Manson. That casting decision seems significant on several levels. Reynolds landed
his breakout role in 1972's Deliverance, which was emblematic of New Hollywood, an edgier
era of filmmaking that started in the late 1960s. Per the British Film Institute, New
Hollywood explored more mature themes and featured scenes of extreme violence. These
trends reflected "the hip young America of the counterculture."
Ironically and perhaps intentionally, Burt Reynolds was cast as someone whose real-life
counterpart was unwittingly involved in killing the counterculture that spawned New Hollywood.
Interestingly, film protagonists Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth are modeled after iconic actor-stuntman
pairings like that of Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham. Holdovers from Hollywood's Golden
Age, Rick and Cliff face the specter of career death because of the counterculture movement.
Unfortunately, Reynolds died of a heart attack before he could shoot his scenes. The role
was recast with Reynold's longtime friend and sometimes castmate Bruce Dern.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt portray the tight-knit duo of Western TV actor Rick Dalton
and stunt double Cliff Booth. As DiCaprio explained to Esquire:
"Rick and Cliff, they're part of the old guard in Hollywood, but they're also trying to navigate
this new world of the hippie revolution and free love."
As Rick tries to halt the sunset of his career, he finds himself living next to Sharon Tate,
whose star power is approaching its zenith, and her husband Roman Polanski, "the hottest
director in town" at the time. Tarantino explained:
"Sharon and Roman represent the new Hollywood, and Rick is notably not part of it. He doesn't
understand it."
But Rick and his trusty stuntman don't just represent an abstract struggle against the
looming deaths of their careers. Their story is rooted in real people Tarantino worked
with on a previous film. While Tarantino never named the film in question, his description
suggests either Death Proof or Inglourious Basterds.
The writer-director said the real-life inspiration for Rick, whose name he withheld, had been
an actor for a long time and had worked with the same stunt double for more than 20 years.
The actor asked Tarantino if they could bring his stunt double on for one of his scenes,
and the director loved the duo's dynamic. He recalled:
"I thought the relationship was fascinating. I didn’t know that much about them, but
I knew I wanted to explore a couple like that toward the end of their careers. I might want
to do a movie about Hollywood someday."
The movie's one-two punch of Rick and Cliff is joined by the one-inch punch of Bruce Lee,
portrayed by Mike Moh. The martial arts legend had a crazy connection to the Manson Family
murders which author Matthew Polly unpacked in Bruce Lee: A Life. Specifically, Roman
Polanski thought Lee committed the murders.
First: a bit of context. Bruce Lee kicked his way into Hollywood with help from hairstylist
Jay Sebring, who dated Sharon Tate before she married Polanski. Sebring was murdered
alongside the pregnant actress and three other people at her home. Lee also knew Tate and
Polanski personally. He reportedly taught Sharon Tate how to kick for The Wrecking Crew,
gave private lessons to Polanski, and visited their home.
After losing his wife and unborn child, a grief-stricken Polanski conducted his own
murder investigation. Believing the killers belonged to his inner circle, he zeroed in
on Lee because of an awkward coincidence. A pair of glasses had been left at the crime
scene, and during a training session with Polanski that took place sometime after the
murders, Lee had remarked in passing that he'd lost his glasses. Internally panicking,
Polanski accompanied Lee to an eyeglasses store and secretly compared Lee's prescription
to that of the crime scene eyewear. They didn't match.
A trifecta of talent, charm, and stunning beauty, Sharon Tate had Hollywood written
all over her. In fact, her onscreen counterpart, portrayed by Margot Robbie, literally has
the word "Hollywood" all over her outfit in Once Upon a TIme in Hollywood. Since the story
takes place in Hollywood during a year that was defined by Sharon Tate's death, one might
surmise that Sharon is a main character. Perhaps that's why culture writer Farah Nayeri pressed
Tarantino about how seldom Margot Robbie spoke in the film.
"You haven't really given her many lines in the movie. I guess that was a deliberate choice
on your part. I just wanted to know why that was."
A noticeably vexed Taratino limited his own lines in his reply:
"Well I just reject your hypothesis."
Numerous Twitter users immediately accused Tarantino of showing disdain toward women
both on and off screen, but Robbie had a different take:
"I think the tragedy ultimately was the loss of innocence and to really show those wonderful
sides of her I think could be adequately done without speaking."
Later, Tarantino expanded on his terse reply in an interview with IndieWire, saying that
the film isn't really about Tate:
"It’s not her story, it’s Rick’s story. It’s not even Cliff’s. And she is an angelic
presence throughout the movie, she’s an angelic ghost on earth, to some degree, she’s
not in the movie, she’s in our hearts."
The creative process is often an exercise in compromise. One kind of limitation in filmmaking
is time, not just how long it takes to make the film, but the duration of the film itself.
Thirty-hour movies just wouldn't sit well with audiences.
"This movie is boring already."
The first version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood clocked in at nearly four and a half hours,
according to IndieWire. That was reduced to two hours and 39 minutes for the Cannes Film
Festival screening.
Obviously, a lot of scenes ended up on the chopping block, which is a shame because the
movie features a ton of talent. Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, and many other big
names have limited lines and screen time. IndieWire reported that some of the listed
cast isn't even in the Cannes cut. However, Tarantino has indicated that he may eventually
recut the film to make it longer. So all those lucky Cannes attendees might not have seen
the version that the general public gets to view.
In 2016 Tarantino revealed to an Australian TV program how his films all relate to each
other:
"There's the realer than real universe, all right, and all the characters inhabit that
one. But then there's this movie universe."
He explained that some films, like Reservoir Dogs, inhabit the real universe, but more
fanciful films inhabit the movie universe.
"So basically when the characters of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, when they go to the
movies, Kill Bill is what they go to see."
But what about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a movie that revolves around filmmaking? Is
it another watchable film in the Tarantinoverse, or does it depict where the other movies are
made? Are Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth acting in films that Jules might go see on a Friday
night, with a tasty beverage in hand?
"Ahhh."
That's definitely a question to think about during a viewing of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Bruce Lee was perhaps the greatest martial artist to grace the silver screen. So if you
watched the March 2019 teaser trailer for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that featured
Bruce Lee engaging in fisticuffs with stuntman Cliff Booth, you may have raised an incredulous
eyebrow when Booth seemed to be an even match, at least briefly. Is it unrealistic to portray
a washed up stuntman holding his own against Bruce Lee? Plenty of viewers thought so. And
thus, the internet outrage began.
The Wrap asked Bruce Lee biographer Matthew Polly to weigh in, and perhaps unsurprisingly,
he wasn't bothered by this snippet of a fictional fight. He said:
"It's a pretty good representation of the fighting style of Lee's character Kato on
The Green Hornet. Lee himself didn't fight like Kato in real life, he invented a new
style for the series. Tarantino is riffing on the Kato character."
The interpretation of art is subjective, and even when it isn't, people see what they want
to see anyway. It's easy to see how people would think that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
is fundamentally about the Manson Family murders. In the trailers and preliminary descriptions,
all roads seem to lead to Charles Manson. Yet Tarantino has been adamant that the film
isn't really about the infamous cult leader, saying:
"It's not Charles Manson; it's 1969."
Producers David Heyman and Shannon McIntosh elaborated on that point, saying, "It's about
the loss of innocence that came about in 1969 with the Manson Family" and about the bond
between characters Rick and Cliff. In many ways, it sounds like it parallels a film by
Tarantino's longtime antagonist Spike Lee.
In July 1999, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam hit theaters. Though seemingly about killer David
Berkowitz, the movie was really, quote, "about that summer, 1977," according to Lee. It was
the carefree prelude to the age of AIDS. It was also the summer when Lee discovered he
wanted to be a filmmaker, somewhat echoing the formative influence of 1969 on Tarantino.
Even if you consider Tarantino a virtuoso writer-director, you might have noticed that
tact isn't his biggest virtue. He has a history of bristly interviews and depicting violence
in the most graphic fashion imaginable. So it makes sense that the prospect of a Tarantino
film that refers to the murder of Sharon Tate would make the late actress' sister, Debra,
wary about how the director would handle it. It probably didn't allay Debra's concerns
that the film's initial release date was the 50th anniversary of the Manson Family murders.
Debra tore into Tarantino's flick, reportedly telling TMZ:
"To [celebrities] it's a paycheck and these people just don't care. They are terribly
hurtful to the actual family and all the living victims. They don't give a s---."
But then the director contacted her, the release date was changed, and Debra accordingly had
a complete change of heart. Speaking with People just four months after the initial
TMZ report, she said:
"I'm pleased [Tarantino] reached out. I thought it showed a lot of class and sensitivity to
move up the release date. He has done nothing but respect me and be very forthcoming. I
have very high hopes for this project."
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