{"id":42624,"date":"2019-08-09T11:20:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T16:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=42624"},"modified":"2020-08-01T16:45:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T21:45:48","slug":"when-worlds-collide-mixing-the-show-biz-tale-with-true-crime-in-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2019\/08\/09\/when-worlds-collide-mixing-the-show-biz-tale-with-true-crime-in-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"When worlds collide: Mixing the show-biz tale with true crime in ONCE UPON A TIME . . . IN HOLLYWOOD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeff Smith here:<\/p>\n

Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>might turn out to be the buzziest film of 2019. Some of this water-cooler talk is due to its unusual status within an ever-enlarging field of true crime stories. (Call it a \u201cnot quite true\u201d crime story.) Indeed, the genre is hotter than ever thanks to a bevy of new podcasts, telefilms, and miniseries.<\/p>\n

Industry analysts, though, are also keen to interpret Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>\u2019s box office fortunes. As that rare big summer release that is neither a sequel nor a franchise title, it can be seen as a test of whether original content can survive amidst heavily marketed, presold tentpoles.<\/p>\n

The lesson so far? To quote William Goldman, \u201cNobody knows anything.\u201d In The Washington Post,<\/em> one unnamed studio executive warned, \u201cI don\u2019t see any blue-sky meaning here.\u201d The executive added, \u201cThis movie has assets that almost no other film has. That\u2019s what drove it.\u201d At least one of those assets is Tarantino himself, who is a brand, if not a franchise. Fans know what to expect in a Tarantino film, which is why the film is sui generis <\/em>when it comes to this summer\u2019s slate. Due to its unique IP, it can\u2019t really be compared with films like Men in Black International <\/em>or Spider-man: Far from Home<\/em>. Yet thanks to Tarantino\u2019s larger than life presence, it also isn\u2019t Long Shot <\/em>or Booksmart <\/em>or Stuber<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em> is catnip to Tarantino nerds like me. It has the usual surfeit of references to obscure films and television shows. Some of these are deftly interwoven into the story itself. It boasts a carefully curated soundtrack that unearths \u201csome-hits\u201d wonders. It also contains scenes depicting nasty yet comical violence, a hallmark of Tarantino\u2019s work ever since Reservoir Dogs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At first blush, Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>would seem to be Tarantino\u2019s most linear film. Yet it still displays certain continuities with his oeuvre<\/em> in terms of story structure and technique. Although the film eschews the chapters and title cards found in Pulp Fiction <\/em>and Kill Bill<\/em>, it still contains elements of what David calls \u201cblock construction.\u201d<\/a> In the case of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, it is all about threes. The plot is structured around three days in the winter and summer of 1969: February 8th<\/sup>, February 9th<\/sup>, and August 9th<\/sup>. Each \u201cchapter\u201d is introduced showing the date via superimposed text. And all three chunks of narrative crosscut among the activities of three actors \u2013 Sharon Tate, Rick Dalton, and Cliff Booth \u2013 as they try to adapt to changes in the film and television industries.<\/p>\n

If all of this assures that you\u2019d never mistake Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>as the work of another director, other elements show Tarantino striking out in new directions. Chief among these is his mash-up of two normally distinct story types: the show-biz tale and the true crime yarn. Think of it as Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em> meets In Cold Blood<\/em>. In what follows I outline some of the ways that Tarantino adapts his signature style to two well-established storytelling options: the multiple draft narrative and the network narrative. I also consider the effects Tarantino\u2019s counterfactual history has on the conventions of the show-biz tale and the celebrity biopic.<\/p>\n

My analysis contains major spoilers<\/strong>. If you haven\u2019t seen Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, stop reading now!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My world and welcome to it<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Quick trivia question: what actor was on the cover of TV Guide<\/em> during the week that Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family? Sharp viewers of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>should know the answer. We see Tate\u2019s housemate, Woychiech Frykowski, reading that issue of the magazine as he watches Teenage Monster<\/em> on late night television.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Give up? It was character actor Andrew Duggan, who played the cattle baron Murdoch Lancer on the TV show of the same name. Yes, that Lancer<\/em>! The same one that featured Rick in a guest spot some six months earlier.<\/p>\n

Tarantino\u2019s film treats this little bit of pop culture ephemera as an uncanny coincidence. It simply becomes yet another way that he can intertwine the destinies of his three protagonists. But that brief shot got me thinking: did Tarantino start with the idea that he\u2019d recreate whatever series was featured on TV Guide<\/em> the week Tate was killed?<\/p>\n

If so, Rick might have appeared just as easily as an aspiring cartoonist next to William Windom on the NBC sitcom, My World and Welcome to It<\/em>. The show debuted just six weeks after Tate\u2019s death. It is not unthinkable that NBC would have pushed for a cover on TV Guide <\/em>in an effort to promote the premiere. Yet Tarantino\u2019s counterfactual history in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>would have been vastly different if that had been the case.<\/p>\n

Did Tarantino really base his screenplay on this conceit? I doubt it. Lancer <\/em>fits so snugly into the world that the director captures onscreen that it is not be so easily replaced. Tarantino seems to have a nostalgic fondness for the show, much as I did in my wasted youth. (I recall having a Lancer <\/em>lunchbox at age six.) Production designer Barbara Ling describes the steps she took to recreate Lancer<\/em>\u2019s mix of Spanish\/Western design. This involved adding adobe storefronts to the wooden ones, and substituting iron coils for wooden pegs on the saloon\u2019s staircase. Ling added, \u201cThis was a [rich] cattle town and the buildings are two and three stories. It\u2019s not Deadwood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many critics have characterized Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em> as another hangout movie. This is Tarantino\u2019s designation for a film that is leisurely paced, fairly light on plot, and mostly gives the audience a chance to spend time with the characters. Indeed, because of these qualities, reviewers often compare Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>to Jackie Brown, <\/em>a film that Tarantino himself compared to Rio Bravo<\/em>, which was Howard Hawks\u2019 hangout movie.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The resemblances don\u2019t stop there. Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>\u2019s three-headed protagonist bears certain similarities to Jackie Brown<\/em>\u2019s Jackie, Ordell, and Max.<\/p>\n

Yet while watching Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, I felt this film, more than any of Tarantino\u2019s others, was an exercise in world-building. Normally we associate that term with sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book movies. It is especially important for transmedia properties where the fictional universe depicted exceeds the bounds of any individual film, television series, book, or video game.<\/p>\n

Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>is also an alternate history, a type of speculative fiction also common in sci-fi and comic book stories. The Avengers: End Game <\/em>and Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse <\/em>are both relatively recent examples. This suggests a loose affiliation between Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em> and other blockbusters even as Tarantino tweaks that formula by situating his speculative fiction within the generic framework of true crime.<\/p>\n

Tarantino largely avoids the industrial motivations behind these two narrative techniques commonly seen in tentpoles. Instead, he simply recreates the pop culture world of his youth. In doing so, the director\u2019s real world, his \u201crealer than real\u201d universe, and his \u201cmovie movie\u201d universe all collide.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keepin\u2019 it real (and realer)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Tarantino has explained in interviews, the \u201crealer than real\u201d universe is an alternate reality close to our own where his fictional characters can intermingle with real people. The \u201cmovie movie\u201d universe, on the other hand, is a more overtly fantastic world closer in spirit to comic books or exploitation films. The characters have unusual abilities or even supernatural powers. The \u201cmovie movie\u201d thus downplays the realistic motivations usually found in the \u201crealer than real.\u201d In Tarantino\u2019s oeuvre<\/em>, Reservoir Dogs<\/em> and True Romance<\/em> exemplify the \u201crealer than real.\u201d Kill Bill <\/em>and From Dusk to Dawn <\/em>are instances of the \u201cmovie movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each universe features a web of connections that can link particular tales together. For example, Kill Bill<\/em>\u2019s Sheriff Earl McGraw and his son Edgar pop up in Death Proof<\/em>. Similarly, Lee Donowitz, the cocaine-sniffing movie producer in True Romance<\/em>, is purportedly the son of Sgt. Donny Donowitz, the \u201cbear Jew\u201d in Inglourious Basterds<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, the most obvious references to these two Tarantino universes are the fictional brands he has created. During the end credits, we see Rick in a TV ad for Red Apple cigarettes. According to a Tarantino wiki, \u201cads or packs of these flavorful smokes\u201d can be seen in The Hateful Eight, Inglourious Basterds, Planet Terror, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, From Dusk till Dawn, Four Rooms <\/em>and Romy and Michele\u2019s High School Reunion<\/em>. (The latter is an obvious outlier. Yet the Red Apple nod was likely an in-joke related to Tarantino\u2019s offscreen romance with Mira Sorvino, who played Romy.)<\/p>\n

Similarly, Tarantino\u2019s fictional fast food chain, Big Kahuna Burger, appears on a bus billboard in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>. It previously was featured in a memorable scene in Pulp Fiction. <\/em>(\u201cThat\u2019s a tasty burger!\u201d) But it had already debuted as a delicious snack devoured by Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs<\/em>. Big Kahuna later comes back in two other Tarantino films, From Dusk Till Dawn<\/em> and Four Rooms<\/em>, as well as\u00a0Romy and Michele\u2019s High School Reunion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Other references to the \u201crealer than real\u201d are more arcane. In a montage sequence where Randy the Stuntman summarizes Rick\u2019s experience starring in Italian films, we see a poster for Operazione Dy-no-mite<\/em>, a James Bond knockoff directed by Antonio Margheriti. Fans of Inglourious Basterds <\/em>will recognize \u201cAntonio Margheriti\u201d as the alias Donny Donowitz uses for the premiere of Nation\u2019s Pride<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Much of the fun of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em> comes from the way Tarantino overlays these three universes to create a singular fictional world. For example, at one point we learn that Rick was considered for the role of Captain Virgil Hilts, the part played by Steve McQueen in John Sturges\u2019 The Great Escape<\/em>. Tarantino even inserts digitally altered footage\u00a0of The Great Escape<\/em> to show us a scene of Rick as Hilts. Since Rick claims he never met Sturges, this moment appears to represent an imagined version of the film that could exist in some type of alternate history. It invites us to consider how different Rick\u2019s career might have been had fortune smiled upon him instead of McQueen.<\/p>\n

To disentangle this knot, one must surmise that The Great Escape<\/em> and Steve McQueen belong to both the real world and the \u201crealer than real\u201d world. Yet the scene of McQueen at the Playboy mansion and Rick describing his missed opportunity can only belong to the \u201crealer than real.\u201d And the character of Hilts himself exists only in the \u201cmovie movie\u201d world. Hilts shares this status along with other characters Rick plays onscreen, such as Bounty Law<\/em>\u2019s Jake Cahill and The FBI<\/em>\u2019s Michael Murtaugh. After all, movie magic enables Cliff Booth to stand-in for Rick for scenes involving physical action. That two actors can play the same character within the same scene suggests that fictional personae in cinema have a unique ontological status quite different from the real world.<\/p>\n

Arguably, the scene where Sharon Tate watches herself in The Wrecking Crew <\/em>raises even more vexing issues about what is real and what is fictional. Unlike the clip from The Great Escape<\/em>, the theatre screening shows the real Sharon Tate playing the character Freya in The Wrecking Crew<\/em>. The fictional Sharon Tate watches the real Sharon Tate, along with the rest of the Bruin Theater\u2019s audience. Yet, because Margot Robbie only pretends to be Sharon Tate for Tarantino\u2019s camera, she doesn\u2019t really watch herself playing the role. Obviously, Robbie belongs only to the real world. Yet Sharon Tate, as both an actual person and a fictional character, inhabits both the real world and the \u201crealer than real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here the film indulges the Bazinian conceit that cinema has indexical properties. While making The Wrecking Crew<\/em>, the film camera captured an imprint of the real Sharon Tate that preserved her being beyond the reaches of time and even death. In Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, this moment is both joyful and sad. The viewer imagines the thrill that Tate feels in watching herself on the big screen, basking in the glow of incipient stardom. Yet the delight we experience is colored by our knowledge of what happened to the Sharon Tate seen falling on Dean Martin\u2019s camera case. Unlike Robbie\u2019s character, that Tate is doomed to a grisly death at the hands of psychopaths.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By film\u2019s end, however, we are forced to reevaluate where Sharon Tate fits into Tarantino\u2019s universe. When Cliff and Rick thwart the attack of Tex Watson, Susan \u201cSadie\u201d Atkins, and Patricia \u201cKatie\u201d Krenwinkel, both Sharon Tates appear to move solely to the realm of the \u201crealer than real.\u201d Like the fictional Sharon Tate played by Robbie, the actress who appeared in The Wrecking Crew<\/em> also lives on in a parallel universe created by the forking of time. And the fate of that character remains completely undetermined. Now fully a part of the \u201crealer than real,\u201d Tarantino\u2019s Sharon Tate might eventually snort cocaine with movie producer Lee Donowitz or bum a Red Apple cigarette from Pulp Fiction<\/em>\u2019s Mia Wallace.<\/p>\n

Once she joins the \u201crealer than real,\u201d almost any fate you could imagine for Sharon Tate seems possible. And it is that sense of the actress\u2019 unlimited horizons that gives the ending of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>its resonance. Sergio Leone\u2019s Once Upon a Time <\/em>films always situated viewers in the realm of myth. Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, on the other hand, evokes the fairy tale.<\/p>\n

Tarantino is known for his experimentation with narrative, and the simplicity of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>\u2019s \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenario could seem like a retreat from the formal play seen in his earlier films. Yet I\u2019d argue that Tarantino\u2019s merging of fact and fiction is even more audacious in certain respects. It strikes me as an unconventional example of what David calls \u201cmultiple draft narratives,\u201d<\/a> like Krzystof Kieslowski\u2019s Blind Chance <\/em>or Peter Howitt\u2019s Sliding Doors<\/em>. Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>gives us a second draft of history, albeit one where the key decision point is saved almost until the end of the film. And unlike Blind Chance <\/em>or Sliding Doors<\/em>, Tarantino doesn\u2019t need to tell us what the different outcomes are for each of these tales. The first draft of history is one we already know.<\/p>\n

In fact, the notion of multiple drafts offers a useful lens for all three films in Tarantino\u2019s \u201ccounterfactual\u201d trilogy. (The other two are Inglourious Basterds <\/em>and Django Unchained<\/em>.) In Groundhog Day<\/em>, Source Code<\/em>, and Edge of Tomorrow<\/em>, each iteration of the basic situation shows the protagonist inching toward his goals. They gradually progress to the point where they are able to alter destiny, either theirs or the world\u2019s or both.<\/p>\n

Inglourious Basterds<\/em>, Django Unchained, <\/em>and Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em> all present images of history not as it was, but as it should have been. Such counterfactual histories run counter to the norms of speculative fictions that often present us with dystopian worlds we were lucky to avoid. (Think Philip K. Dick\u2019s The Man in the High Castle<\/em>, Robert Harris\u2019 Fatherland<\/em>, or Kevin Willmott\u2019s \u201cmockumentary\u201d C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America<\/em>.) All of these stories depend upon our knowledge of the first draft of history. Yet Tarantino gives us second drafts that right particular historical wrongs in either small or large measure. In doing so, Tarantino gives us versions of history that are closer in spirit to his favorite movies. All three films in the \u201ccounterfactual\u201d trilogy feature tidy resolutions. Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, however, is even more self-conscious about the way Tarantino\u2019s second draft of history takes the form of a \u201cmovie movie\u201d climax. The realer-than-real version is the one we ought to prefer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Paging Mr. Melcher, Mr. Terry Melcher\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If Tarantino\u2019s conflation of fact and fiction evokes certain traits of the multiple-draft narrative, his vivid recreation of Hollywood circa 1969 illustrates another type of story popularized in American independent films and various art cinemas: the network narrative.<\/p>\n

Tarantino has broached this form before in Inglourious Basterds<\/em>. There he moves back and forth between three mostly independent storylines: 1) the Basterds\u2019 guerrilla campaign against German soldiers, 2) Archie Hicox and Bridget von Hammersmarck\u2019s initiation of Operation Kino, and 3) Shosanna\u2019s plan to avenge her family\u2019s deaths during the premiere of Nation\u2019s Pride<\/em>. SS officer Colonel Hans Landa threads through all three storylines. He orders the killing of Shosanna\u2019s family in the opening scene. Later he shares apple streudel with Shosanna in a Paris caf\u00e9. Landa also investigates the scene where Hicox has been killed. In the climax, he interrogates Bridget in a scene that contains a grim allusion to Cinderella\u2019s lost slipper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, Landa negotiates a deal with Aldo Raine\u2019s superiors that guarantees his immunity from prosecution for war crimes.<\/p>\n

Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>is obviously much less plot-driven than Inglourious Basterds<\/em>. Yet, as noted above, it shares a similarity in the way it interweaves the stories of three characters: Rick, Cliff, and Sharon.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s frequently said that Hollywood is a company town. By situating all three characters within the film and television industries, Tarantino tacitly stays faithful to that truism. The protagonists\u2019 shared profession also facilitates the kinds of attenuated links between stories commonly found in network narratives.<\/p>\n

Part of the fun of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>comes in recognizing the \u201csix degrees of separation\u201d that join all of these people, both real and fictional, in the same entertainment ecosphere. Take, for instance, one decidedly minor character: actress and singer Connie Stevens, played by Dreama Walker. At the Playboy Mansion party, Stevens listens to Steve McQueen explain the romantic triangle that has Sharon living with her current husband, Roman Polanski, and her ex-boyfriend, Jay Sebring. Stevens, though, is the ex-wife of actor James Stacy, who played Johnny Madrid in Lancer<\/em>. Stacy (played in our film by Timothy Olyphant) is Rick Dalton\u2019s scene partner for the episode of Lancer <\/em>that Dalton hopes can spur his comeback. Dalton is Sharon Tate\u2019s neighbor on Cielo Drive, the same house that Charles Manson targets as the site of the \u201cfamily\u2019s\u201d first murder. This circuit even loops back on itself. When Stacy and Dalton first meet on set, Stacy asks Rick whether it was true that he almost got a part in The Great Escape<\/em>, the same part played by McQueen.<\/p>\n

Two characters in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>serve as nodes that connect all three storylines together. The first is Cliff, Rick\u2019s stunt man and gofer. Although not a resident at Cielo Drive, he spends a lot of time in Rick\u2019s home and thus is privy to what happens in Sharon\u2019s abode. This is especially evident when Cliff repairs Rick\u2019s fallen TV antenna. The camera is aligned with him as he overhears Sharon playing a Paul Revere and the Raiders album. He also notices Charles Manson approaching the Polanski residence. Tarantino\u2019s casting of Damon Herriman as Manson is likely an allusion to the television show, Justified<\/em>. Herriman played Dewey Crowe alongside Olyphant.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Justified <\/em>was also an adaptation of Elmore Leonard\u2019s \u201cRaylan Givens\u201d books. Tarantino has long admired Leonard\u2019s work as a writer of both westerns and crime novels.<\/p>\n

Employing a redundancy that befits Hollywood storytelling, Cliff gets linked to Sharon\u2019s storyline in other ways. While working as Rick\u2019s stunt man for an episode of The Green Hornet<\/em>, he gets involved in a dust-up with Bruce Lee. Lee gave Sharon Tate some pointers on fighting as she prepared for her role in The Wrecking Crew<\/em>. And in real life, the martial arts legend was recommended for the role of Kato on television\u2019s The Green Hornet <\/em>by Sebring, Tate\u2019s former boyfriend.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Cliff\u2019s most important role in the film\u2019s network involves his dalliance with Pussycat, one of the many young women who viewed Manson as a kind of guru. Cliff picks up Pussycat as a hitchhiker and gives her a ride back to the Spahn ranch. Having worked on the ranch back when it was an active production site, Cliff grows concerned for the safety of its owner, George Spahn. Cliff notices how the Manson clan has taken over and is troubled by its weird vibe. Determined to see George for himself, Cliff forces his way into George\u2019s house over the objections of the Manson girls, especially Squeaky. George seems careworn, but Cliff finds that there is little he can do for him.<\/p>\n

When Cliff sees a pocketknife sticking out of his front tire, he confronts Clem, one of Manson\u2019s followers. The conflict becomes physical. Cliff breaks Clem\u2019s nose with one punch and then proceeds to beat him to a bloody pulp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This proves to be a dangling cause that gets resolved in the film\u2019s climax when Cliff recognizes Tex, Sadie, and Katie as people he met at the Spahn ranch.<\/p>\n

The other character who links the storylines together is one we never see: record producer Terry Melcher. Melcher is the \u201cTerry\u201d that Manson mentions when he visits Cielo Drive in the scene described above. Later, Tex reminds Sadie, Katie, and Linda that Charlie directed them to go to the place where Terry Melcher lived and kill everyone inside.<\/p>\n

Although these are the only explicit references to Melcher, he is indirectly represented in several other aspects of the film. Here it helps to know a little about Melcher\u2019s career and Manson lore. Even if Melcher\u2019s name draws a blank, you likely know many of the bands he worked with: the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, and Paul Revere and the Raiders.<\/p>\n

All these musicians crop up in one way or another in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>. Melcher\u2019s last major credit of the 1960s was as producer of the Byrds\u2019 Ballad of Easy Rider<\/em>. When Rick berates Tex for parking his car on Cielo Drive, he yells, \u201cHey, Dennis Hopper! Move this fucking piece of shit!\u201d Rick\u2019s insult fits with his general disdain for hippies. But it also alludes to Easy Rider<\/em> by comparing Tex\u2019s look to that of Hopper\u2019s character, Billy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two of the Mamas and the Papas \u2013 Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot \u2013 both appear in the party scene at the Playboy mansion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We also hear the Mama and the Papas\u2019 big hit, \u201cCalifornia Dreaming\u201d in a cover version by Puerto Rican singer Jos\u00e9 Feliciano. And when the car driven by Tex crawls up Cielo Drive, the music issuing from the Polanski residence is the Mamas and the Papas\u2019 \u201c12:30: Young Girls are Coming to the Canyon.\u201d Even before Tex\u2019s directive to the Manson girls, Tarantino has given us a subtle reminder that Melcher was Charlie\u2019s intended, if indirect, target.<\/p>\n

Finally, Sharon plays Paul Revere and the Raiders\u2019 \u201cGood Thing\u201d and \u201cHungry\u201d on a hi-fi in her bedroom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The choice of music is especially fitting since the band\u2019s lead singer, Mark Lindsay, lived in the same house on Cielo Drive with Melcher and his then girlfriend, Candice Bergen.<\/p>\n

Beyond these musical references, Melcher\u2019s history with Manson informs Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>in another way. Melcher recorded some demos of Manson\u2019s songs, and even discussed making a documentary about Manson\u2019s commune at the Spahn Ranch. In testimony at trial, Melcher said that any possibility of a record contract with Manson was sundered when Charlie asserted that he\u2019d never join a musicians\u2019 union. Manson\u2019s staunch refusal was rooted in his desire to avoid entanglements with the establishment. Yet union membership was a condition for any contract with Melcher\u2019s label, Columbia records. Another factor in Melcher\u2019s decision was his assessment of Manson\u2019s talent. Charlie couldn\u2019t sing.<\/p>\n

Although Melcher publicly stated that he only considered Manson\u2019s musicianship, he privately expressed concerns about Charlie\u2019s mental stability. These were heightened when he visited the Spahn Ranch and witnessed Manson in a physical altercation with a drunken stunt man. Tarantino more or less recreates this episode in his film, substituting Cliff for the unnamed stunt man and the hapless Clem for Charles Manson.<\/p>\n

More importantly, Melcher is the son of screen legend Doris Day and stepson of agent\/manager\/producer Martin Melcher. In Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, he becomes the ideal, if absent, symbol of the combined worlds of music, television, and film that Tarantino so lovingly details.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How the West was lost<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Los Angeles circa 1969 is presented as the epicenter of the American entertainment industries. It\u2019s a place where a hairdresser like Jay Sebring rubs shoulders with action stars, TV cowboys, ing\u00e9nues, film directors, and pop stars –and make $1000 a day to boot! The constant stream of hits from KHJ radio is as ubiquitous as the many movie posters, billboards, and theater marquees that feature Hollywood\u2019s latest and greatest.<\/p>\n

Tarantino\u2019s press kit for Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>makes reference to Joan Didion\u2019s famous observation in \u201cThe White Album\u201d that \u201cthe Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community.\u201d Most critics take Didion\u2019s reference to the Sixties as shorthand for the end of the \u201cpeace and love generation.\u201d Yet Tarantino\u2019s slightly revisionist take suggests it\u2019s not only the youthquake that died, but also a certain strain of Hollywood filmmaking that passed with it.<\/p>\n

Although I don\u2019t doubt their historical accuracy, the litany of titles that appear throughout Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>feels as curated as any of Tarantino\u2019s music soundtracks. Some, like 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em>, are films that entered the canon of great sixties cinema. Others, like The Night They Raided Minsky\u2019s<\/em>, are early films by directors who\u2019d later achieve greatness. (In this case, William Friedkin, who won an Oscar in 1972 for The French Connection<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

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But many, like Lady in Cement, Tora, Tora, Tora!, Krakatoa: East of Java<\/em>, Mackenna\u2019s Gold<\/em>, C.C.& Company,<\/em> and even The Wrecking Crew<\/em>, are largely forgettable movies.<\/p>\n

Tarantino clearly has affection for all of the drive-in theaters and Hollywood picture palaces where these titles played. But the titles themselves are evidence of the industry\u2019s struggle to adapt to new tastes and a rapidly changing media landscape. Old-school show biz types, like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, continued their success as singers and television personalities. But their careers as actors had functionally ended by 1969. And the efforts to keep them relevant often seemed either strikingly anachronistic or just plain weird.<\/p>\n

In the opening scene of Lady in Cement<\/em>, Frank Sinatra fights off a small school of sharks while he is examining the body of a nude woman who, like Luca Brazzi, sleeps with the fishes. And yes, the scene is as ludicrous as it sounds. If this is what became of Hollywood\u2019s once great tradition, it is hard not to think we should just let it pass.<\/p>\n

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Yet, the fear of obsolescence also explains the oversize role that Tarantino gives to the Western as part of this changing landscape. True Grit <\/em>and The Wild Bunch <\/em>were among the summer of 1969\u2019s biggest hits. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid <\/em>would eventually become the year\u2019s top-grossing film. All three Westerns feature cowboy heroes that are either aging, outmoded, or both. They reminded contemporary viewers that horse riders would soon yield to horseless carriages, the lone bounty hunter would soon be supplanted by paramilitary detective agencies, and the humble six-shooter can\u2019t match the lethal power of a Mexican army machine gun.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, though, the popularity of the Western in 1969 represents the genre\u2019s last gasp. Studios continued to make Westerns during the 1970s, but only three \u2013 Jeremiah Johnson<\/em>, The Outlaw Josey Wales, <\/em>and The Electric Horseman<\/em> \u2013 would surpass $10 million in rentals in the entire decade.<\/p>\n

On television, such long-running series as Gunsmoke, Bonanza,<\/em> and The Virginian <\/em>had their last round-ups. The networks tried their hands at new Westerns, like Alias Smith and Jones<\/em> (below), Hec Ramsey<\/em>, Dirty Sally<\/em>, and Lancer<\/em>, but they were all short-lived. At the start of the 1980s, the genre was completely moribund. Subsequent efforts to recapture the Western\u2019s former glory were mostly the equivalent of flogging a dead pony.<\/p>\n

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As a total cinephile, Tarantino is entirely aware of this aspect of the genre\u2019s history. This is signaled quite explicitly in the decrepit condition of the Spahn Movie Ranch. Yet Tarantino also uses Rick\u2019s career arc to signify its downward trajectory.<\/p>\n

No character in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>is as strongly associated with the Western as Rick. His home is filled with collectibles like his Hopalong Cassidy coffee mugs. His walls are decorated with posters for The Golden Stallion <\/em>and A Time for Killing<\/em>. On set, he reads pulp oaters like Ride a Wild Bronc<\/em> to relax between takes.<\/p>\n

By using Rick to dramatize the twin declines of both Old Hollywood and its \u201cbread and butter\u201d genre, the narrative arc of Tarantino\u2019s drugstore cowboy is one suffused with nostalgic melancholy. The key moment in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>occurs when Rick breaks down telling the story of Easy Breezy to Trudi Fraser, his Lancer <\/em>co-star. He describes Easy \u201ccoming to terms with what it\u2019s like to feel slightly more useless each day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The various threads of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>\u2019s network finally knot together in the Manson family\u2019s attack on Cielo Drive. At the moment of truth, it is telling that Rick reaches not for a firearm, but for the prop flamethrower he wielded in The 14 Fists of McCluskey<\/em>. By recalling the moment when Rick shouts, \u201cAnyone here order fried sauerkraut?\u201d, Tarantino reminds us that violent spectacle and snappy quips will eventually replace the Western\u2019s ritualistic showdowns.<\/p>\n

Still, it is a musical allusion to the Western that gives Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>its final grace note. Cliff and Rick have thwarted the Manson family\u2019s attack. The ambulance takes Cliff to the hospital. Rick offers an explanation of what just happened to his neighbors. Jay recognizes Rick as television\u2019s Jake Cahill. Via the intercom, Sharon invites him to come up for a drink. As Rick walks to the house, we hear the start of Maurice Jarre\u2019s \u201cLily Langtry\u201d [sic] from his score for The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. <\/em><\/p>\n

John Huston\u2019s film begins with an expository title shown below that highlights the western\u2019s tendency toward self-mythology. It is especially apt for Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>\u2019s counterfactual history.<\/p>\n

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Jarre\u2019s cue, though, appears in a scene where the renowned actress Lillie Langtry finally visits Judge Bean\u2019s Texas town. Langtry is given a tour of the Bean\u2019s house, now converted into a museum that also acts as a shrine to her. Bean worshipped Langtry, but tragically dies before he gets to meet her. Tarantino inverts both Huston\u2019s sad ending and its dramatization of missed opportunity. By altering the course of history, the cowboy in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>gets to be the real-life hero rather than the TV heavy. Rick also gets to meet the actress he\u2019s admired from afar. Rick and Sharon are still both married to other people. But their chance meeting in the film\u2019s epilogue feels more than anything like a dream fulfilled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A star is unborn<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In the previous section, I dwelt on the role of the Western in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood <\/em>because of its symbolic significance in capturing a particular historical moment. But Tarantino borrows quite freely from another narrative prototype: the show-biz tale. In fact, while walking out of Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em>, I wondered aloud if it was Tarantino\u2019s twisted take on A Star is Born<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Like A Star is Born<\/em>, Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>centers on a male performer whose career has started to decline and a female newcomer whose star is on the rise. Moreover, Rick\u2019s drinking problems create an obstacle to his comeback in much the same way that alcohol contributes to the downfall of the male protagonists in all four versions of A Star is Born<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tarantino, though, subtly alters this template in two ways. First, he depicts his two stars as neighbors rather than as a romantic couple. Secondly, he cleverly depicts Rick\u2019s career arc as an inverse mirror of Sharon\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Tate was an Army brat who grew up in Europe. Her earliest work was as an extra in Italian films. She moved to Hollywood in 1962 and got her break playing Jethro Bodine\u2019s girlfriend on The Beverly Hillbillies<\/em>. In the mid-sixties, Tate made the move to films, appearing in Eye of the Devil<\/em> and The Fearless Vampire Killers.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It was during production of the latter that Tate met her future husband, Roman Polanski. Tate\u2019s role in Valley of the Dolls<\/em> further enhanced her status as an \u201cup and comer.\u201d In 1968, Tate earned a Golden Globe nomination in the category of \u201cMost Promising Newcomer — Female.\u201d<\/p>\n

In direct contrast, Rick\u2019s career begins in Hollywood and ends in Italy. Rick enjoys early success with Bounty Law<\/em> and The 14 Fists of McCluskey<\/em>. But soon finds himself reduced to guest star roles on television. Against his better judgment, Rick agrees to star in four Italian quickies. Two of these are spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Corbucci, a Tarantino fave who created the popular \u201cDjango\u201d character. Rick returns to Hollywood but his future is uncertain. He could be the next Clint Eastwood, star of A Fistful of Dollars <\/em>and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly<\/em>. Or he could be the next Richard Harrison, star of $100,000 Dollars for Ringo<\/em> and Secret Agent Fireball<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If this were all there was to the comparison, it would hardly be worth mentioning. But Tarantino hints at other parallels through a much more obscure and convoluted cinematic reference. An auteur as shrewd as Tarantino would undoubtedly remember that the Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cOut of Time\u201d \u2013used in Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood <\/em>under shots of Rick\u2019s return from Rome \u2013 was previously featured in the opening sequence of Hal Ashby\u2019s Coming Home<\/em>.<\/p>\n