Once Upon a Time in Knowing Hollywood History

Just like any movie, there are endless reasons a moviegoer may have disliked Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Even the most lauded films have their detractors after all. There is no greater proof than the fact that there are people  who believe Children of Men is a bad film (pray for them). On the other hand, I once met a guy whose favorite movie of all time – of all time! – was Shanghai Knights (sorry to knock Shanghai Knights, but you get it). Movies are personal, so a critique only holds as much weight as you give it.

There is, however, one reason people may have hated Tarantino’s newest effort that bears such credence it can’t be ignored. That is the fact that the final act’s emotional resonance hinges on the viewer knowing a fading piece of Hollywood history: the Tate Murders.

Those familiar with the Tate Murders are rolling their eyes at the very notion that the Tate Murders are esoteric in any way, while those who left Once Upon a Time questioning what Margot Robbie was even doing in the movie are saying “thank you.”

I’ve seen the movie three times. It’s safe to say it’s going to be in my Top Ten – hell, Top Five – and possibly even my number one movie of 2019. But if your criticisms derive from the fact that you didn’t know about the Tate Murders beforehand (which isn’t your fault), I completely understand. I might even agree with you given the lens you viewed the movie through.

Ultimately though, the movie just wasn’t made for you.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a movie made for people at least somewhat familiar with the Tate Murders. Full disclosure, I went into the movie only knowing the following:

• Sharon Tate was an actress.
• She was murdered by Manson acolytes.
• Margot Robbie plays her in the movie.

Luckily, that’s the bare minimum the movie begs you to know. Sharon Tate’s inevitable fate gives the character purpose. That’s why every part of Margot Robbie’s performance played for me. Her sincere and innocent love of life . Her pregnant belly, a distended symbol of a hopeful future.  Her destiny mutates that pregnant belly into a school bus without a steering wheel hurtling towards a brick wall. It’s what makes the ending so cathartic. With his fairy tale reconstruction of history, Tarantino gives us a steering wheel. My mom, who remembers the murders like they were yesterday, wept at the end, lamenting, “Why couldn’t real life be like that?”

For someone like my girlfriend, who grew up in France, far away from the bubble of Hollywood-centric culture, everything I just stated was entirely absent. Robbie’s inclusion seemed like nothing more than fruitless eye candy. The ending wasn’t cathartic. It was confusing. Violent without reason.

If only she would have known… But she didn’t. For her, it wasn’t a great movie. It was one of the most disappointing failures of the year.

For me, it’s Top Ten – hell, Top Five – and possibly even my number one movie of 2019.

With the exception of four-quadrant films, not every movie is made for everyone. That’s how we get some of the most interesting works. Hereditary is an incredible movie, but there are many people who will never see it simply because they don’t watch movies to be scared. That’s perfectly fine. Why watch a movie if you’re going to hate the experience? People like myself, and I suspect many of you reading this, might be eager to watch a challenging film, but for many people, watching a movie is just about having some simple fun.

That brings us back to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the questions it evokes. Does a movie need to connect with everyone to be considered a great film? Is there a point where a movie has an obligation to appeal to a broad audience? Or is this more about the film suffering from the unignorable flaw of its audience needing to know information not present in the film to truly grasp it? Would this not even be an issue if Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was just some small, independent film whose reach didn’t extend past its niche? Probably not.

If you’re not in on the joke, who do you get mad at? Yourself or the filmmaker?

Can we only truly judge a film in terms of who it was made for, not caring about the opinion of those whom it was not?

If film making is a battle between creator and viewer, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood seemingly breaks the rules of engagement, but it’s not as if Tarantino hasn’t broken the rules before. It’s what he does. And it might be what I love most about his newest film.

“Loved the script, Quentin. Just a few notes. Maybe less n-word.”

I’m fresh off of seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I thought was incredible, but I’ll leave it at that since this isn’t a review. I do, however, need to give the tiniest of spoilers with this one simple, and possibly surprising, fact: the movie doesn’t have a single utterance of the n-word. That, my friends, is progress. The lack of n-bombs seemingly comes at the detriment of not having a single black speaking role in the movie, but some progress comes at the expense of others, I guess.

Tarantino’s scripts have never shied away from the word, and his bold use of it has even created some iconic movie lines, for better or worse.

But there’s one of his films that particularly sticks out to me in its flagrant use of the word. I’m talking about The Hateful Eight.

Watching The Hateful Eight can at times be an uncomfortable experience if you’re not someone who delights in hearing white people saying the N-word. A more prudent writer might have prepared for this article by watching The Hateful Eight and counting every utterance of the word, but that sounds like a great way to go insane, so I skipped that. Plus, if you’ve seen it, you already know exactly what I’m talking about.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie. I saw it in 70mm and watched the four-part episodic series on Netflix. I’m not saying that wins me the “biggest fan” award, but suffice to say, I am a big fan of the movie. And no, this isn’t me flexing my woke muscles either, mostly because I don’t think it’s a particularly heroic stance to say that white people saying the n-word makes you uncomfortable.  As a screenwriter myself, it just brings up one one simple question: how do you give that script to someone for notes?

You’d have to expect the first note you’d get is, “maybe less of the n-word.”

OK, so maybe the note “less n-word” doesn’t give Tarantino enough credit as a writer who knows what he’s doing. Let’s go with the note, “I know that it’s probably historically accurate, but at what cost?” That’s part of what makes the word work in his films, after all. The word always fits with how the characters would talk, whether due to the setting, time, or characters in the scene, but is that level of accuracy in historical fiction even necessary? Will the audience be taken out of the movie because the characters aren’t using that common vernacular of the time? Or will they be taken out of it because at this point, that vernacular is jarring no matter the context?

I know Tarantino hand writes the first draft of his scripts, then types them out page by page using some old half-computer/half-typewriter thing, so this is more of a rhetorical question than anything, but at what point do you CTRL-F the n-word, see that you’ve used it 37 times, and then decide, “maybe I can delete a couple of these.”

The argument against everything I’m saying here could be made as simple as “Tarantino is a genius.” That it is exactly his use of bold, unwavering language that makes his work resonate. From top to bottom, this is how he crafts his movies. With unwavering, confident choices that few others would dare to make. There’s an old zen quote that says, “the way a person does one thing is the way they do everything.” How he uses the n-word is the same mechanism he makes all his directorial and prosaic choices with. They simply can’t be parsed.

Maybe that’s giving him too much credit and the movie would be better off with a few less n-words though.

Or maybe I’m just being overly sensitive.

Or maybe he should have added more. Who knows?