Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
It's very hard for me to articulate my feelings about it because I'm not sure yet. I wanted to like it really bad. When I saw him get a standing ovation at Cannes I thought maybe this was his masterpiece and he would finally win an Oscar. But walking out of the theater, I was like, What was that about? It felt really indulgent. Normally his scenes are very concisely cut. Every shot has meaning and matters. This time, there are sequences that just follow people or watch them drive so we can listen to music of the time. Shots linger to show us marquee's of films in the background that he loves from that time. It felt like a love letter to a time period. When I walked out of Inglorious basterds I turned to my 3 actor friends who were talking about performances and said I didn't get it. It was confusing and didn't seem to be about anything. 30minutes later I wrote a blog post about how it was about glory and the power of violence to glorify and how cinema is the most powerful way to glorify. I thought maybe, time would make Once Upon a Time settle in. I walked out wondering, what was the point of the sharon tate storyline. She just goes to a movie and watches herself and goes to dinner and nothing happens. She doesn't effect the story at all. And then it hit me. I think it's just a snapshot of hollywood or hyper-real snapshot of what Tarantino's favorite parts are. It's about the washed up actor, the struggling stuntman, the owners of studio lot's and through sharon tate, the few people who actually enjoy the experience. There's about 10 minutes of the Tarantino we are accustomed to. That guy who explores violence. But the rest is a love letter to the film industry. love it or hate it, I think he decided he's only making 10 films and wanted to use one to explore what he loves. The result is a disjointed modern western. With western moments and a western structure. Just like the book he reads, it is about a broken man past his prime and has scenes that play out like a western in the way they build tension leading to a confrontation. And while some will find the scenes visceral and real, they don't amount to the same meaningful statements his other works do. I don't think it's horrible. But I think it was long and indulgent. He communicated what he wanted to say, but at the expense of story. And what was that story? It was about the end of an era in Hollywood. How the murder of sharon tate ended it and what would it be like if reality didn't suck. Where those washed up actors didn't get washed up, they actually got to torch intruders with a flamethrower from their movie. Where out of work stuntmen get to save their best friend. It's a Once upon a time where hollywood didn't gobble sharon tate's up and kill them or spit them out as washed up has-been's. The film was tarantino's most wishful thinking about something he loves. And while it wasn't a great film. It was a love letter made public. Once upon a time in hollywood, people didn't lose their lives to a place.
