Friends who like old Hollywood films decided to pay Amazon Prime about $15. to buy this one and admit they did so because the film got such good reviews. An hour into it they were disgusted and said they're never going to bother watching the rest and are mourning their expenditure. When I asked why, he said the acting was forced. He hated the scenes with the little girl and the dog. In particular, he felt it was too jammed with cultural references and wished just once someone could drive without the radio blaring. She said without specifying, "We are not interested."
But hey, they spent $15. So I asked if I could watch the film at their place and did.
To me the thematic of this film is violence, violence - over kill- in Hollywood fantasies juxtapositioned against the real overkill of the Manson murders in the Hollywood Hills. Of course our tension builds as we see the hostile situation going on at the ranch where the cult lives, which was once a ranch where Westerns were filmed. We know the era of cowboys and gunslingers depicted in film is near over by 1968 and so will be work for actors known for them.
(We haven't seen a modern cowboy film since Brokeback Mountain.)
From our current hip viewpoint the obvious racism that was taken in stride in that cowboy film era is cringeworthy. I'm so glad the film maker was true to that era and didn't rewrite film or Hollywood history. It gives us a reward, a sense of how far we've come.
These characters drink and smoke and aren't in AA or concerned they'll get cancer. (Remember that freedom?) They are macho. Maybe there aren't too many men like that left.
At the same time, the film successfully has pulled off something few ever do. We know the cowboy acting scenes have a fictive, fake feel yet we forget the Manson scenes are. We get to know Sharon Tate and her friends on an ordinary day.
The violence in the cowboy scenes is gratuitous. The violence in stopping the Manson killers, necessary.
Wes used to tell me how the Manson murders ended the peace and love hippie era in Hollywood, something, like the cowboy actor and stunt man in this film, he was never part of. People who never owned guns bought them and people started locking up. Back in the day Americans were still big on cowboys and how the West was won. Television Westerns and movie Westerns - John Wayne - Dale Rogers and Roy Rogers, Gene Autry - these were the heroes of children and adult viewers alike. Many a boy wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. These stories fueled pretend play in backyards.
There are still a few of those cowboy and cowgirl actors around. Trick riders on fast horses and the stuntmen too. They aren't all at Universal Studios. Many own apartment buildings.
As the Western genre has to be my least favorite, I admit my generally negative attitude early on in my viewing of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. The cowboy actor (acted by Leonardo Di Caption) isn't appealing even as recreations of dialogues and the sets - saloons - shoot outs seem classic. Then I realized yes, there was something different about television acting then and the recreation was accurate.
The drastically different lifestyles of the cowboy actor whose got a house in the Hollywood Hills versus the stunt man living in a trailer near an oil pump that works (probably Van Nuys) : I have a reference for that. Many Hollywood stars stayed rich because they bought land in the San Fernando Valley - ranches - and sold off that land - real estate.
Of course in this reimagining, the Manson murderers are stopped before they can kill and when that happens, because you as an audience - or me - know what did happen and you hate those characters - so you - I - are laughing - yes entertained - when they get theirs. Meaning, once again violence is entertaining. It's fun to see an enemy over killed. The same guns, blow torches and fists that are fake on sets kill in "real" life.
So there you are in 2021 cheering on the good guys, though they are violent, which isn't very nice of politically correct you, in that way taking part in the violence. Just as children once cheered on their cowboy film favorites on the TV set after school. Bonanza reruns.
Art is participatory.
Quentin Tarantino
made me participate.
Thumbs up.
C Christine Trzyna 2021
