Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

Frankly I've been getting overwhelmed thinking about this movie and specifically its depiction of Sharon Tate. I can't get over how beautiful and full of grace Robbie's performance is, how QT handled this subject better than I ever imagined. Tate is Dorothy Stratten, Robert Walker, Natalie Wood, even Carole Lombard and River Phoenix: actors that died young or so early in their career that they're either remembered for their sudden deaths or not remembered at all. I feel this extends to any overwhelming and crushing trauma or loss - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a fairy tale about a fairy tale machine. I think there's a lot going on here and every day that goes by it opens up more and more for me.

I enjoyed the picture, over-long though it is, but the ending didn't work for me; as noted upthread, QT is recycling the wish-fulfillment of the IB ending in a much more trivial way

Why I preferred it to IB.

I don't know that much about Bruce Lee, did he compete in martial arts? Just imagining there's a difference between movie martial arts and what I imagine is a less aesthetically pleasing competition version

(Don't really know what the competition scene was like pre MMA which is a different beast)

Tarantino has Lee lead off the fight with ... a flying side kick, wow! And then, when urged by Cliff, he does another flying side kick so the white non-martial-artist can toss him onto a car ... fun!

maybe this was QT's subtle callback to Winslow Wong being a little light on his feet in Marlowe, but it had about as much to do with Bruce Lee as the Crazy 88s

martial arts in movies, martial arts as competitive sports, and traditional martial arts are three different things ... notoriously, Lee criticized the "classical mess" of traditional arts, including the Wing Chun he learned from Ip Man, but his approach to training was more traditional than he acknowledged ... he seems to have gotten in a lot of fights, especially before his parents made him move to the states, but he never competed in martial arts tournaments

Really liked all the driving scenes
Also those big floaty blue dad recliners for pools with built in cup holders

XP He would appear and do demonstrations at tournaments, which was how he hooked up with producer William Dozier and eventually be cast on The Green Hornet.

Would have liked to have seen Big T pitching the ending to his producers

Cliff is a stunt guy and war hero who can take a lot of punishment so why not write the scene to capitalize on that? It seemed a bit clunky more from a basic writing perspective rather than from a "let's just use Bruce purely as comic relief" POV, especially if he's going to the lengths of including the detail of him training Sharon Tate.

Also he didn't do very much to differentiate Cliff from Pitt's Basterd role, character or demeanor-wise. Even the accent come to think of it. Maybe that's more on Pitt, though.

DiCap’s best scene was the monologue about quitting drink

I enjoyed evil Hamlet

I think the sensitivity of the presentation of Sharon Tate is one reason I'm annoyed by the insensitivity toward Bruce Lee, who also died young ... seeing Tate and Lee working together on The Wrecking Crew evokes that parallel directly

it would have been funnier and more resonant with Rick's problems to spend a minute or two on Lee as a hustler smooth enough to develop a side gig as personal trainer to the stars when his TV show got cancelled ... Tarantino may have thought about going there, since he shows Lee giving Sebring a lesson

In a weird way I think he meant for Bruce Lee to hover as a presence as a counterpoint to Manson -- he's enmeshed as a kind of guru to all these Hollywood types -- Pitt is literally playing Kato to Leo's character, but...?

Also those big floaty blue dad recliners for pools with built in cup holders

Almost forgot: as it was happening, I thought there was going to be some electrocution in the backyard pool, what with the radio as part of the setup.

Thread title notably prescient as it turns out

Felt like Pitt’s CPU was throttled to 80% of normal operating speed. Worked fine though

When I was a teenager I sent my parents off on a date night with a recommendation of Pulp Fiction because I had overheard some classmates talking about how great it was that day in school, never having heard of Quentin Tarantino before in my life. I still remember my mom asking me "what the hell, peace man" at the breakfast table the next day.

this is killing me btw

I don't think I ever recommended a movie to my parents that they actually saw, but once when I was a kid my parents took me and my brother to a drive-in to watch a double feature of Reefer Madness and Up In Smoke.

Part of the point of the finale vis a vis Cliff & Rick is practical rather than meaningful. it plays out like their entire working relationship, ie Cliff “carrying Rick’s load”. Cliff does most of the work putting hands & dispensing with the three villains, while Rick does the showier “cleanup” of the already mostly bludgeoned Sofie.

There’s also the feeling that this will probably be the last time that Rick really “needs” Cliff in any meaningful fashion, now that he’s married and possibly sailing into a career upswing through his new connex w his famous neighbors.

life of the stuntman: physical toil vs emotional
the life of the actor: emotional toil rather than physical.

the stuntman= lonely but emotionally unburdened; the actor = never lonely but deeply burdened with self doubt

i don’t know that it’s meant to ~mean anything~ exactly but to rather contrast the kind of “work” that goes into their character and maybe how the physical toil of Cliff is far more depleting over time than Rick who rides fortune’s wheel at less cost, somehow?

i dunno where i’m going with this but i had time to kill & it was rolling around in my head

VG otm throughout this thread

I saw it a second time on Friday and have been thinking more and more about it.

Cliff and Rick are some lonely, lonely guys - each is the other's best friend. Cliff's life is super basic for obvious reasons; Rick's is too, in a different way, and some of the most powerful images in Once Upon... are him floating in his pool running lines or jamming tunes while drinking. Just this decadence, this peak reached to an extent - a pool, in the Hollywood hills! - all alone or almost, shutting out the rest of the world.

I cant remember if I said this already, but it occurred to me the second time I watched this - it feels somewhat inevitable that Rick & his wife maybe end up with Brandy? Which makes me kinda sad. Like, shes already sleeping w Francesca & they’re on edge after the attack & Brandy’s such a good guard dog & boy Francesca really loves having her around...

From the dog's POV that's a happy ending -- No more rat-flavored dog food!

Or bird. Or raccoon. lol!

Another thing i think about with Rick and Cliff, and the movie in general is that we think of Hollywood being synonymous with success, but this Hollywood, and these two guys, are the living breathing part of Hollywood which is: never quite getting There but trying. failing. stringing two projects together in the hope that the third goes. The sausage-making “work” of being in Hollwood and the costs of that.
And how maybe Rick doesnt make it without Cliff being there in the car in the morning and night. Maybe Cliff is Rick’s lighthouse.
And maybe Cliff doesnt want what Rick has per se but maybe he enjoys being adjacent to it.

And maybe the two of them *dont* get as far now that they are apart as they did when they were together.

VG, I agree with your reading of how Rick and Cliff's roles are sustained through the ending (also that you have been OTM all over this thread)

on reflection, my difficulties with the ending all seem to stem from Tarantino's lack of interest in realistic violence, illustrated here by his decision to play the killings of the Manson family members for comedic effects

the timing of Cliff's decision to smoke the acid-dipped cigarette is a nice touch; our anxiety for everyone in the house spikes when we realize he's going to be tripping his head off at the worst possible moment; like Rick, we’ve learned to depend on Cliff, and now his cool competence will be most at risk when it's most needed

this is an obvious opportunity for Tarantino to ramp up some terror; Cliff ought to be more disoriented when the family members appear and more frightened, confused, and clumsy when the violence starts; but Tarantino chooses instead to have him continue looking good and cracking wise

Cliff's throwing the dog food can is the most visceral and persuasive moment of violence in the whole film, but as soon as Brandy leaps to the rescue, one horror after another is visited on the hapless bad guys without much sense of danger to the good guys

Cliff strolls through the carnage of the next minute or so in such a relaxed way that the knife wound in his hip doesn't feel dangerous; it's more of an inconvenience, swiftly punished by protracted head-smashing; we get multiple shots of him pulverizing a woman's head against various hard surfaces, but iirc little if any of her brains and blood appear on Cliff, and we get no particular emotional reaction from him before he passes out

the other face-smashed woman's popping up, firing the handgun, running through the glass door, falling in the pool, and getting roasted are all bits out of a slasher movie, but without a slasher movie's suggestions of Michael-Myers-style invulnerability; she doesn’t seem to be much of a threat to the heroes during any of these mishaps, making her final napalming gratuitous as well as corny

once the violence kicked off, I cringed during the face-smashings, but the sense of risk to the good guys dissipated so quickly that I felt I was supposed to be appreciating the gore either as comedy horror or as justified cruelty to the cruel-in-another-timeline home invaders ... neither sentiment worked for me in the moment

the same sequence, even the use of that stupid flamethrower, could have generated more terror and horror and a stronger cathartic effect if it had been staged with Cliff, Rick, and Francesca experiencing more damage and trauma, with their survival held in doubt until the end

but maybe that would have been too suggestive of the actual Cielo Drive killings, or too much like a horror movie, or inconsistent with the tone Tarantino was trying to maintain

those were my reactions seeing it yesterday; I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some important details or if I respond to it differently seeing it again

I could hang in the back seat of Polanski’s car for awhile

idk man, MG’s are *not* roomy

some nice moments in this Esquire piece w Tarantino, Pitt & DiCaprio.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a27458589/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-leonardo-dicaprio-brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino-interview/

This was p funny:

[DiCaprio: ...But doing a film that’s set over only two, three days? It is an experiment that I don’t think I’ve ever done before. [Looks to Pitt.] Have you done it?

QT: Well . . . Titanic is only a couple days. Right?

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LD: [Goes silent. Then:] Truuuuue.

MH: I don’t remember that movie. What happened?

BP: Yeah, how does it end? [Laughs.]

LD: [Laughs. Looks at Hainey and Pitt.] I guess you’re right. [Laughs again.] I stand corrected. I guess it is.

Tarantino should totally do a Tiranic film where they kick that fuckin' iceberg's ass

but maybe that would have been too suggestive of the actual Cielo Drive killings, or too much like a horror movie, or inconsistent with the tone Tarantino was trying to maintain

I think this is why it works, the actual murders were so much more brutal and sadistic... relegating Manson himself to one pathetic scene, and reducing the murderers to completely hapless exploding punching bags for comedic effect is an oddly poignant revision in context.

XP Kinda weird that QT has never worked w/Billy Zane.

More rabbithole stuff - new interview with stuntman Gary Kent, on the long list of inspirations for Cliff & who had some run-ins w the Mansin family on Spahn Ranch in ‘69 before the murders

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/07/22/lights-camera-action-an-interview-with-legendary-stuntman-gary-kent

post the other one Veg!

?

Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

When Tarantino killed Hitler, Hitler was already dead ... but Watson and Krenwinkel are still alive! I wonder what they think about it.

xxposts to sic

oh right! i forgot abt Floyd!

he talks about Little Girl& Floyd in this odd/interesting one-off Spotify podcast he did with Rolling Stone’s David Wild, where he breaks down his music choices for the soundtrack

https://open.spotify.com/show/7yLvxyJ9xPj3er5nE7QKnC

It can be kind of a lot bc QT is kind of a lot obv, but there’s good nuggets if you can hang with it

it’s broken into “sides” so you dont have to listen all in one chunk or skip to section of songs yr interested in

actually I can't listen to any of it but thanks!

:(

there’s also a non-spotify ep of the New Beverly podcast about his cinematic influences for the movie if yr interested

it’s pretty good! link to podcast in here
https://www.slashfilm.com/quentin-tarantino-podcast/

yeah I listen to Pure Cinema semi-regularly - link for anyone else curious

once upon a boomer nostalgia porn

morbs is that you?

yes i'm the only Tarantella skeptic on earth

K Austin Collins must be me too

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/07/tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-revenge-fantasy-manson-family

So what did you think about the movie, Morbs?

I skimmed the Vanity Fair quickly--it doesn't seem to be a pan (at the very least, half-and-half).

hey Mood -- nothing post-IB and I will die that way

The Wiki for James Stacy, the actor played by Timothy Olyphant in OUATIH, is a real rollercoaster pic.twitter.com/87eYHrNaz4

— Very Stable Pagliacci (@writtenlow) August 6, 2019