Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

Ugh, Manson...not the scene where Jackie Mason showed up.

I don't think it's unintentional that we were given a mini-treatise about how the violent culture of movies and tv makes us violent, maaan, immediately followed by a scene where a stuntman, dog, and actor dispatch several creepy home intruders with martial arts, visceral biting, and a flamethrower

Anyway, I don't think we're destined to see a lot of movies together. My friend, out loud, when Mason showed up unnamed: "That's Charles Manson."

Was he blurting it out bcz he was startled*, or was it a "that's Chappie" explanation**?

* (and you thought it was gauche to blurt in a cinema)
** (and you were disappointed at his implied assessment of you)

The movie never directly states that it is Manson, does it? Presumably the credits did, but I wasn't watching closely enough. It's definitely implied as a chekov's gun situation.

https://blog.discogs.com/en/quentin-tarantino-is-as-proud-of-his-soundtracks-as-he-is-of-his-films/

I started working on the script for this a long time ago. So I [went into my record room] then. I had a whole little soundtrack — I wasn’t even finished with the script — that I thought would be terrific for the movie. And I was working from the assumption that that would be how I would do it.

But then I didn’t know I wanted to use the KHJ Radio as this kind of period narrator, as this instrument to play all this stuff. I got about 17 to 14 hours of KHJ recordings … and I started listening to it and it was amazing! I remember this from when I was 6 or 7, but to hear it all over again kind of blew my mind. It was great. I had to listen to it all just so I could chronicle it. Like: This is a Pioneer Chicken commercial, and then an RC Cola commercial, and this DJ outro, or whatever. I started getting into the groove of what KHJ was doing between 1968 and 1969. Also, [KHJ Radio] was really fun. There was a reason why it was so popular! It was really fun to listen to, even now.

And then I realized: I don’t think I should play any song in this movie (if it’s coming from the radio, anyway) that’s not from these tapes. So I can’t just take a song I like, and then throw a KHJ DJ in front of it. No. If it’s coming from the radio, and supposedly coming from KHJ, then I want it actually from KHJ, taken from those recordings, from this source.

(xpost) I can't say exactly what was on his mind, why he felt the need to announce it was Manson--it seemed more like a reflex--but I'm pretty close to absolute when it comes to no talking in movies. (He did the same four or five other times: "Is that the Manson family?", "Bruce Dern," etc.)

got it - glad it was your second time viewing, at least! but it sounds like you could have affirmed his own enjoyment with some quick uh-huhs.

no, iirc the movie never identifies him beyond Charlie, or explains who he is, and the younger viewer is left to make their own connections (or not) between this Charlie and the absent one at the ranch. I really enjoyed that aspect, that there's no mythologising or weight placed on him by the text whatsoever, and that all the reasons to feel dread around the Family members come from their own depicted actions.

Tarantino OTM: re the KHJ broadcasts. The ReelRadio airchecks are great, it's that much more satisfying to hear a great hit when I've been sitting through Vicki Carr or another Gary Lewis and the Playboys retread, rather than a "just the hits" oldies station. It was a big thrill to see them in the movie — my irritating pedant side gets annoyed when a character in a period show listens to a track in a car that is clearly an LP version and not the alternate single mix...

xp

Makes me wonder how comprehensible this movie is if you are not familiar with the details of the Manson murders.

No answer, just a question. Does Tarantino view the Manson women as two distinct groups--the murderous ones like Atkins, and the dippy space cadets like Margaret Qualley's character--or is it more fluid than that? When Qualley hops on the car as Pitt leaves the ranch and screams "You're the ____________" (I can't remember the exact words), this murderous rage seems to momentarily take over.

You don't need to know anything about the Manson murders. The movie tells you the story it is telling.

You wouldn't be confused without knowing the backstory, agreed--it tells its story--but surely you'd miss out on a very large part of what makes the film interesting. The context means almost everything here, I'd say.

There are thousands of different bits of context that different viewers are going to bring to different facets of this film. All of them change the viewer’s perception, none of them are essential.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "essential?" Because while the movie I'm sure plays on its own terms, if you don't know the real life story this movie does *not* tell, you are missing out. Hell, I'm not sure my older daughter knows what Woodstock was, let alone Altamont, let alone the Manson murders.

(Look at the number of details & references in the car article linked upthread - ppl who know things about cars are going to read lots of that while watching. But they’d still need to know the exact details of Tex’s car IRL to receive the specific cue that events are still clinging directly to reality at the opening of the sequence. And Manson / car historians who do get that reference are probably not the types to calculate that Vincent’s brother will buy Rick’s car fourth-hand from an LA lot two decades later. Me, all I could tell was that the inside of Cliff’s car was a bit dirtier than Rick’s.)

xpost

You’re not missing out. You’re having the opportunity to read the text differently on your first encounter.

As threatened, i wrote a bit of a deep dive into the music of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and why I love it so much.

https://tourdefrump.blogspot.com/2019/08/once-upon-time-in-hollywood-how-do-i.html

I liked reading that VG

:D

thanks!

hoping i can be not-sick enough to see this this weekend

The music kinda disappointingly washed past me on first viewing*, apart from being frustrated that the one song I know and love got filleted from intro to finale, but I loved that post Veg - if I see it again I'll be taking that joy, and the knowledge that QT used actual airchecks instead of needledrops as source, into my listening.


* I wasn't sure if I liked the movie much on walking out on Saturday; after talking about it here the last few days, I suspect it's great.

I knew I liked it better than his last two, but I've definitely come around to it, for several reasons. And yeah, talking through it here helped.

Very nice post Veg! Your enthusiasm is infectious.

Well done, VG. Agree that Tommy James would have been perfect, especially, I'd say, "Crimson and Clover." Checked the date, and it was a '68 release that hit #1 in Feb. '69, which would coincide precisely with the first half of the film; I'm sure it was still all over the radio in the summer, though. I can imagine it cuing up, Scorsese-like, the first time Rick lays eyes on Sharon Tate (or, more sinister, the first time Cliff spots Margaret Qualley roadside...I have to refer to her as Margaret Qualley, I feel too silly calling her by her character's name).

Along the lines of the Terry Melcher/Paul Revere & the Raiders connection, a perfect song to use would've been "Don't Make Waves" by the Byrds, which was both a Terry Melcher production and the title song of a Sharon Tate film

"Hey Little Girl" might have been my least favourite song in the film. 1) It's literal to a degree that's clunky--we already get what the song spells out; 2) It reaches back to 1959. I know Tarantino was meticulous about consulting playlists--stations had solid-gold weekends back then, so I'm not saying it wouldn't have shown up on the radio in 1969. But it still felt anachronistic (I don't know what the next earliest thing was--"Summertime" would be my guess, and that was '66); 3) Personally, I don't think it's that great a song. I've got a Dee Clark compilation, and my favourite thing on there by far is a doo-wop song from when he was in the Kool Gents: "When I Call on You."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4getIwhd0I

KHJ was playing top 40 from multiple years, not just current, which i think was a bit part of its appeal?

Good interview here where QT talks about deciding to use the aircheck tapes:
https://blog.discogs.com/en/quentin-tarantino-is-as-proud-of-his-soundtracks-as-he-is-of-his-films/

Giggity...

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/08/02/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-actor-confirms-potential-4-hour-cut-for-netfl

Someone on the Facebook Expert Witness group just linked to online archives for a bunch of music publications, including Billboard, so if you scroll down to page 70 here, you can see the Top 100 for the Feb. 8, 1969 issue:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1969/Billboard-1969-02-08.pdf

#1: "Crimson and Clover"
Songs that turn up in the film: I can only see "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man"--I likely missed something
Songs from the Top 100 I would prefer to songs in the film: many...

Maybe all those songs will be in the 4-hour cut.

FWIW, the Cocker version of "The Letter" was recorded & released in '70.

Same deal, August 9, 1969 issue:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1969/Billboard%201969-08-09.pdf

#1: "In the Year 2525" (ugh--but Tommy James #2...)
#13: "Quentin's Theme"
Songs that turn up in the film: same caveat about maybe missing something--I'm skimming--but I don't see anything

So: VG will give me grief for this, but if your stated mission is to capture actual radio playlists from that moment, only including one song among the 200 that were actually on those two charts is an odd way to go about it. Was KHJ that radically different from other Top 40 stations in the country? Maybe it was, I don't know--I was listening to Toronto's 1050 CHUM in the backseat of my parents car at the time.

XP The Dion version of "Purple Haze" (#63 that week) would have been the most QT needledrop ever.

"No answer, just a question. Does Tarantino view the Manson women as two distinct groups--the murderous ones like Atkins, and the dippy space cadets like Margaret Qualley's character--or is it more fluid than that?"

I'm not sure. Taken as a group they are very mysterious as to motivation and where their heads are at; the only one who seems to break out of the spell is Uma Thurmond's daughter in the car at the end. I'm by no means a compulsive Manson-ologist but everything I've read over the years hasn't helped me understand them much better either; there are definitely some, like the woman who testified against them and wrote a book a few years ago, who seemed to be in that latter category, and a few who were in the former quality, and it's very hard to tell what the state of mind of any of them is like these days. Squeaky Fromme appears to be just as fucking weird as an old lady as she was as a youngster.

They should have a family reunion!

"in the former quality" wtf . in the former category.

So: VG will give me grief for this, but if your stated mission is to capture actual radio playlists from that moment, only including one song among the 200 that were actually on those two charts is an odd way to go about it.

...if your stated mission is to play excerpts of actual off-air tapes of that local radio station at that moment - and you did so! - how would playing needledrops of songs which the radio station was not playing have been a better way to go about it?

Was KHJ that radically different from other Top 40 stations in the country? Maybe it was, I don't know

Tarantino argues that thesis in the interview, which has been posted by two people itt already, but here's a third: https://blog.discogs.com/en/quentin-tarantino-is-as-proud-of-his-soundtracks-as-he-is-of-his-films/

Yeah part of the upshot of the article is that KHJ didnt just do billboard top 40, they did stuff that was popular in the local market/s, so songs that didnt go over nationally may get a lot of airplay on KHJ because ppl are calling in asking for it or it’s selling well locally etc

And he personally leaned towards the songs he heard from the tapes that werent *just* the big national hits

But I have to believe that the tapes he was working from also included a very healthy representation of those Billboard hits, along with the more local stuff--the Billboard charts were, after all, compiled from stations like KHJ, and (I'm guessing) the more powerful the station, the more influence on Billboard's charts. (Plus sales, plus payola, etc.--I know.) It just seems odd to me that "I'm going to really capture what that moment felt like" virtually bypasses the most popular songs in the country.

I think he split the difference between detached anthropologist and the kind of subjectivity that guides something like the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. He's faithfully working from tapes, but--with occasional departures like "Mrs. Robinson" (in some ways the weirdest thing on the soundtrack, in that it's so famous and so identified with another movie)--he's sticking to esoterica. (Just finished typing...VG arrives at the same point.)

you kind of have to get QT and his deal

QT will never go for the national hit unless there’s a really good reason cinematically
he’s a contrarian at heart, and says all the time, “everyone liked the Beatles, i liked Dave Clark Five”
someone talkked about Sat Nite Fever strack and he said he preferred the Thank God Its Friday soundtrack

plus and if he goes for the national hits then his soundtrack becomes just another 60’s strack

the uniqueness adds a lot to the movie imo

Uniqueness, yes. Maximum effectiveness...I'd say no, not if you're forcing yourself to bypass "Crimson and Clover" and "Everyday People" for a good-not-great Los Bravos song. My own preference is a mix of the popular and the obscure that opts for the best song at the right moment.

I'm nitpicking, nitpicking, nitpicking...I like the film.

Personally I dont miss the big hits. Abd it just makes me think well it’s not a 24/7 thing, maybe they play the hits in the in-between-moments we dont see

A great thing about the aircheck is that there’s a run of like 4 songs on the official soundtrack where the day & times are in sequence “heyyy its 3:31 on Sunday”... “that was xxx it’s 3:34”

it’s so cool

Was KHJ that radically different from other Top 40 stations in the country? Maybe it was, I don't know

Dunno about radically different, but http://www.oldiesloon.com/ has an archive of various market charts. I've been listening to the top 40s of KHJ and Chicago's WLS frequently over the past three years (to mark 1966-1969) and have noticed at least a bit of variance, mostly local bands big in one market that don't appear in another.

It just seems odd to me that "I'm going to really capture what that moment felt like" virtually bypasses the most popular songs in the country.

the film is not called Once Upon A Time In The Rest Of The Country tbf

(Also must add my praise to VegemiteGrrl's blog post, exactly the kind of stuff I love to read!)

yes, VG, it was wonderful

And others', I hasten to add — I left the film not quite sure how I felt, aesthetics aside, and reading the commentary here and on the blogs posted has given me some good stuff to ponder. Will have to watch again with all that in mind.

xxpost aw thanks you guys <3

Way back in this thread I mentioned seeing the dire Hillary Duff vehicle The Haunting of Sharon Tate, and am amused to recall that it essentially had the same ending as OUATIH: after showing us the murder as it actually happened, the film doubles back into a fantasy/alternate reality where Tate et al manage to kill off the attackers, mostly as an excuse to show us the mayhem twice. Would have love to see the director's face when he watched Tarantino's film...

Cosign on Veg's essay. She reminded me of the Royal Guardsmen bit, and I was laughing all over again.

I've been listening to the top 40s of KHJ and Chicago's WLS frequently over the past three years (to mark 1966-1969) and have noticed at least a bit of variance, mostly local bands big in one market that don't appear in another.

Independent Regional Distribution was still a thing, as was, in some markets, Payola. Chicago was notorious for that, and was one of the last markets to get 'cleaned up' in the '70s.