Alternate History
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, 2019.
IT TAKES the entire running time of to figure out what Quentin Tarantino is up to in it, partly because it unfolds at a leisurely pace that seems to be at odds with its subject matter, and partly because it turns out to be so sweet—hardly an adjective one is used to applying to a movie by this writer-director. We know going into the film that the narrative includes the Charles Manson “family,” and the intertitles identifying the sequences by date affirm that it’s leading up to August 8, 1969, the fateful night when members of Manson’s crew invaded Roman Polanski’s house on Cielo Drive and slaughtered his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, and four of their friends. But Tarantino gets to this notorious true-life crime story through a fictitious storyline focused on an alcoholic has-been actor named Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), once the star of a popular TV western series called and now reduced to playing the heavy on guest-star spots, and his best buddy, one-time stunt man and now driver and general handyman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Rick made the mistake of leaving to pursue a career in the movies that flamed out quickly at a time when there was still a distinction between movie and television actors. He’s aware that his career is on the downswing and feels that all he has left to hold onto is a set of superficial “star” gestures. When the director (Nicholas Hammond) of an episode of a western called urges him to abandon the remnants of his persona and play the sadistic villain role for real, meanwhile instructing the costume designer to craft a scruffy rebel look for the character, Rick is terrified: he
