The following contains major spoilers for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
At the end of last year Quentin Tarantino released his ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. One of his most mature and patient films. It feels distinctive amongst his filmography while still keeping several of his trademark stylistic choices intact. It feels different enough from his other works while still holding true to his own immediately recognizable film making style. The movie is patient and idealistic, sometimes to a fault. But I think these narrative choices paint a picture that's incredibly vivid and as well realized as any Tarantino film that’s come before it. It may not be his most visceral or exciting film, but it may well be his most focused in achieving its weighty vision.
I say all this because in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Tarantino toned down the acidic wit his earlier films carried (without dropping it completely) and allowed his crime fueled cynicism to melt away in favor of something that's a little more content; a little more in awe of the worlds more synthetic beauty. Sure the film is not without it’s darkness, but as it reaches for it’s climax or winds down to it’s conclusion, Tarantino taps into a message, an idea that’s a little more blissful and sun kissed. Like the gorgeous California sun that lights so many shots of the film, Tarantino let's small rays of optimism hang in the corner of every moment, every frame of the movie. This is all vital because it really reinforces the main crux of the story he’s trying to tell here.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood isn’t just a love letter to the golden age of American cinema, it’s a love letter to cinema. One of the great joys of movies, of fiction in general, is that there’s full control. You are free to write your story, create your characters and your world in any way you see fit. There are no unforeseen consequences, no tragic surprises when you are in full control, and that’s what this movie reminds you of. In it’s conclusion, Tarantino narrows his focus towards the Manson family murders that took the life of actress Sharon Tate as well as several others in one of the most publicized murder sprees of the 20th century. But instead of letting things play out the way they did in real life, the killers show up to the wrong house and instead become the victims of their own violent intentions.
Sharon Tate, for the purpose of this movie, is a symbol of youth, and innocence. This is contrasted against the films main characters, Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. These characters represent the bitterness and indifference of the Hollywood industry, but also celebrates its ability for redemption. Tarantino mashes together these real and fictional characters together in an effort to celebrate the true power of the medium; control. Tarantino reminds you that in its purest form a movie is an escape. The world can break you. It beats, maims, or murders the deserving and the undeserving alike. But in a movie, there’s no set way anything must be. When it’s the characters from your brain, the pen in your hands, no one has to fail, no has to slip and stay down, no one has to die. Tarantino changes real world events for the purpose of his story to remind us that you’re free to create a piece of art where nothing bad has to happen, where things really can turn out ok, where someone truly can live forever. When Once Upon a Time in Hollywood concluded, I could feel the relief in the characters voices, I could hear the waves crashing onto the sand down below, I could feel that warm summer air.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood it was a fairy-tale. A story of princes and princesses and trial and hardship, and ultimately redemption. The name rings true because what this movie sets out to do and I argue, so resoundingly succeeds at; is taking the time to remind you that life isn’t a movie, which is why we have movies at all. Maybe you’ll never get to live the life you see on the screen, but we have this beautiful art of film making to allow us to escape that harsh reality and let us live, if even for a few moments, in the world we’d always hoped could exist.