Film Review

FILM REVIEW:  ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Starring Leonardo Di Caprio , Brad Pitt and Margo Robin.

Film Review by Stephen Wilson

 

            

How wonderful! After an almost endless odyssey around Moscow I found a cheap cinema and could watch Quentin Tarantino's new film 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.' It was in Russian, but you can't have everything. {Many of the cheap and accessible Soviet Cinemas have been closed down leaving only highly expensive cinemas at Malls which sell tickets for a staggering price of three times the amount of the former.} I was not disappointed. It is worth watching just for a few hauntingly beautifully atmospheric scenes.  It is fair to say that there is a lot of brilliant acting, witty dialogue as well as excellently crafted shot scenes which leave an indelible imprint on your memory.

 

            

Of course, one might express reservations at the length of the film: two hours and forty minutes, confusion arising over ambiguity of the plot and some over the top violence of scenes. A Russian administrator and English teacher Tania told me, "I could not watch those scenes. I turned my face away from the screen. It was just too much." But compared to most Hollywood films, the dialogue, script and shooting is above average. Although given the track record of Hollywood, this is arguably not a difficult feat.

 

            

Some viewers asked me, "Is there a story or plot behind this film?" Well, the film can be confusing, but yes there is a plot.The film largely centers on the strong friendship between the 'failing' actor Rick Dalton played by Leonardo Di Caprio and his double, Cliff Booth, a stuntman, played by Brad Pitt. Rick who largely plays the part of cowboys in televised serials feels his career is faltering as some work dries up. His work in the serial 'Bounty Law' is cancelled and Rick takes his setbacks very hard. He starts over drinking, forgetting his lines and is even prone to weeping. He loses his driving licence so he has to be driven around by his only friend Cliff. Cliff always remains loyal to Rick and helps him out. When Rick confesses to Cliff, "It is official. I am just a has been" then cracks up in tears, Cliff hands him his sun glasses so Rick can hide his tears. Cliff even defends his friend against his wife who callously mocks Ray as a loser. We don't even know if he really killed his wife or not.

 

            

Here we witness  two different ways of seeing success in life. While Cliff honestly admits to Rick he can't completely fathom why Rick gets so distraught at a failing career, "I have never had a career to develop", Rick believes that if he does not become a movie star that it is the end of the World. Failing and succeeding seems to be everything. In contrast, Cliff does not see what the fuss is. He lives for the moment. He enjoying cruising around Hollywood admiring and smiling at girls and offering them a lift. He is the cool cowboy who remains serene and at the ready for any danger. Nothing and nobody can shake his nerves.

            

Ironically, his friend Rick , who plays cowboys, becomes 'all nerves'. Most of the time he seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In one poignant scene while about to act he befriends a precocious girl, played brilliantly by Julie Butters.

            

She is only a tender eight years, but is endowed with wisdom well beyond her age. When Rick asks her, 'What are you reading?" she answers, "a Biography of Walt Disney" who she claims is a genius that arises one every 1000 years. She states that she tries to intensively prepare and do research for every role. Rick is reading a cowboy novel and while narrating the plot bursts into tears. The life of the hero in the novel mirrors his own misfortune. Both are dying breeds. The girl runs up to Rick to console him. When he later plays a rogue brilliantly in one scene she tells him, "You are the best cowboy I have played with ".Once Rick learns to see life through the eyes of a childlike, but highly perceptive girl, he starts to get his act together.

 

            

Another female actress who also conveys a sense of childlike innocence and intelligence is Sharon Tate. The scenes of her dropping into the cinema to watch her own film incognito, and lavishly enjoying it is original. Sharon Tate was one of the victims of the horrific murder carried out by members of the Cult, the Family, headed by the deranged maniac Charles Mansion. She just happens to be the next door neighbor of Rick. His friend Cliff picks up a vulnerable girl who happens to live at the ranch where the Cult is based. The scene where members of the Cult shoot paranoid and poisonous looks as Cliff walks through the ranch is eerie. We don't know who or what is going on in certain houses. Cliff ends up badly beating up one member of the cult for slashing a car tire. He also beats up Bruce Lee for boasting too much.

 

            

During much of the film you hear the old songs of the 1960's and see billboards of advertised films. One which caught my eye was an ad for the film Tora, Tora, Tora, a film made in 1970, about the attack on Pearl harbor in 1941. Yet the film was made after 1969 where Tarantino's film is set. Is this an error? Maybe the film Tora, Tora , Tora , best captures the tense atmosphere of an imminent attack looming against Hollywood. So many viewers are wondering will Rick and Cliff hear or act to fight members of the Cult about to attack their neighbors? What will happen? Anything can happen in a Tarantino film. I'm not going to spoil things for you if you have not seen the film.

 

            

Tarantino's film can be construed as rendering homage to Sharon Tate who deserves more to be remembered as great and accomplished actress than a victim of some cruel cult. But Tarantino is also paying homage to his favorite film directors, films and the old televised serials of the cowboys. He seems to express nostalgia about all the legends which Hollywood invented and wonders how some Americans try to live up to them in real life. Strange as it seems, but some Scots in Glasgow were walking into pubs challenging people to fights and mayhem followed. Glasgow was even called the Wild West. Had those bored brawlers been watching too many Cowboy films ?

 

            

One of the problems Russian viewers had was that they had never even heard of the murders carried out by Charles Mansion and his cult. Tania told me, "I did not know that this film was partly about those events. I only learnt about this after I watched this film. Perhaps that is why I did not understand this film."

            

If you don't know about those events then the film might just appear to be a strange cowboy film. Whatever the weaknesses of the film it is still worth a visit to the Cinema!