Movie Magic in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Quentin Tarantino’s ninth feature film, “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” arrived in local theatres at the tail-end of last week for a very brief theatrical run after being released worldwide in July and August. Tarantino movies come with expectations since he has influenced so much of millennial film culture since his flashy debut in the early nineties and yet as the credits rolled at the end of the 160-minute film I found myself struggling in some ways to situate “Once Upon a Time” within Tarantino’s oeuvre of films. It’s not that the film doesn’t play like a Tarantino film necessarily, but as the waves of melancholy washed over me during the final credits, I was surprised that the emotion that the film conveyed most relentlessly was warmth.

It makes sense. We’re in California, after all. It’s 1969 and the city of LA is awash with a golden light that shines on the best and brightest. We are witnessing the rise of Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski and future golden-girl. Historically, Tate’s fate was less fortuitous than her promise, but “Once Upon a Time” isn’t a history lesson, nor is it a sociological examination. Instead, it’s a warm amble through the lives of the rich and famous, but imperfect. Despite Tate serving as the entry point, the film is more concerned with Sharon’s neighbour, Hollywood actor Rick Dalton, who is concerned his career, big in the 50s, is nearing its end, and his closest confidante, his former stunt-double turned friend-for-hire Cliff Booth, who saves him from his feelings of despair.

“Once Upon a Time” is all the about the past. The film is set at a time in California that has been etched into memory because of the climactic results of the Charles Manson saga, which it will get to soon enough. It’s about the past as fable and also the past as a mirror as the film makes fun of then interrogates that fear of impermanence for those in the film world wrestling with their legacy. There is also the past as fantasy. This Hollywood is so pristine, so tender that at times its fantastical elements seem too charming for reality. It’s a precise balance and the final forty minutes where things take a turn for the bizarre as the film gets closest to typical Tarantino fare treads the line between fantasy and foolish often, but the full-throated exuberance of everything on screen is consistently beguiling. It helps that “Once Upon a Time” is perhaps the best looking of Tarantino’s films. Cinematographer Robert Richardson and Tarantino are writing a love letter to the past, golden and beatific and completely charming. Then in the middle the film goes crazy creating (and recreating) moments of Hollywood- studio goodness. This leads to a series of the funniest moments in the film that turn on DiCaprio’s winning performance as Rick Dalton – an actor battling with himself.

 And, to be fair, “Once Upon a Time” is funny throughout. Sometimes the humour is wan and open like Tate watching and listening to an audience watch her on screen. (Margot Robbie doesn’t get much to do but she’s note-perfect in that scene). Or sometimes irascible and off kilter, like Cliff’s visit to the Manson-family farm. It’s even the typically ugly and violent Tarantino humour, like in the final violent confrontation that strains credulity but works out of sheer gumption. But what’s sustaining “Once Upon a Time,” what’s keeping it alive, is a melancholy mood, so much so that the humour is best when mixed with a kind of consistent sadness As if the film itself is watching us watch it and cocking its head to the side and smiling lopsidedly, but regretfully. It’s kind of funny, but also kind of not.

It’s why Rick Dalton is such an ideal protagonist. He is caught between the fantasy world of his lost prominence as an actor and the present reality of his fading value. DiCaprio’s penchant for showing unease on screen (best utilised in “The Aviator” and “Revolutionary Road”) works so well here as he emphasises Dalton’s insecurities without making him a buffoon. The film’s aimlessness is overwhelming at first but it’s so tender. Typically, Tarantino’s inclination for excess seems more pugnacious than bearable. But here, the excess seems tender and thoughtful. It is as if the inclination to show and do much as emblematic of him being unable to pull away from these strange people, so the camera keeps on wandering, going further and further into these lives of excess and bizarreness. Even the Manson clan reveal themselves as kind of sad and kind of silly; pathetic more than obscene. In this ninth film, Tarantino displays a capacity for empathy that’s so moving. I was floored by how moved I felt even as he rewrites history in an ending sequence that shouldn’t work, but yet manages to.

In an incidental moment in the last scene, a character talking to Rick expresses knowledge of one of his older films. The way Rick’s face lights up is like a child. It’s so good to be remembered. Considered. And it’s what “Once Upon a Time” is caught up in. The idea of memory mixed with fantasy as a panacea. Something to ease the tension, not finitely and not forever, but intimating the power of art on us. There’s a temporary salve to the evil the film offers. It won’t last but it’s aching and sweet while it does. Movie magic.