Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

sounds like it *could* be a good idea, you read so much about the aura around L.A. during this period and the spookiness of these murders (and other crimes of the era) and the whole sinister vibe surrounding so much of celebrity culture (and the spookiness of the hills, which was so heavy it even permeated the L.A. parts of "Mad Men" even without anything being explicitly mentioned.) but it would take another director who's capable of pulling that off.

otoh another opportunity for Tarantino to liberally use the n-word

Have to say that Karina Longworth's deep dive into it all was the first time I ever really paid attention to the full sweep of the story. Scroll to the bottom for the first one, work your way along -- very illuminating. (And honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Tarantino heard this and that's what gave him a new spark to pursue this, etc.)

http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/?category=CharlesManson%27sHollywood

I liked the Aquarius series on NBC (w/David Duchovny), which covered that scene and LA in general, but it looks like it's been cancelled.

I seem to recall Tarantino talking about the Manson murders in a TV interview years ago. Considering his love of that era of films and stuff, I'm sure Helter Skelter the book and movie was something he probably read and saw as a kid.

How has QT avoided Charlie up until now? They were made to mate and produce offspring.

There's an image.

I couldn't find it online, but I swear that thing with Tarantino and Manson coming up might have been on an old episode of Politically Incorrect. It was some type of panel show where Manson came up as a topic.

Why the hell not? At least it isn't set pre-1965.

(Rob Zombie and Bret Easton Ellis were supposed to develop a mini-series in this vein years ago; I'd love for them to be involved somehow, and won't hold my breath for that.)

Ha, was about to come here and say this could go very bad and end up some Rob Zombie parade of grotesqueries.

yeah, the fact that he'll be working around an actual event kind of throws me, and might impact the *enjoyment* of the film. Does black humor work better when it's not colored by real events? Might be better if he used a veiled, fictional version of the event as a keystone around which to explore other shit

He could cast Sam Jackson as Manson.

(x)xpost

That's what I'm afraid of. I'm also wary in that I probably just really don't want to see a movie on this subject.

Don't trust an Elvis guy to make a Beatles movie.

I'm just glad he's not at Reservoir Dogs sequel time yet

time for the victims' families to take 'preemptive' action

Reservoir Doges

what if this is the event that sets off a Polanski/Tarantino feud

xp why did you make me google it

http://i.imgur.com/Impkc8r.png

lol

QT: No, it's gonna be great - you think Tim bled from his stomach in Dogs? Ha! This time –

DANIELA: Quentin...

QT: No, hold on. BLOOD EVERYWHERE! Total 70s drive-in. And even if Harvey said he can get me a couple of White Album songs –

DANIELA: Quentin...

QT: Wait! So like instead of all that Helter Skelter crap, I'M GONNA USE MONKEES SONGS. Right? Get it?

DANIELA: QUENTIN.

QT: Oh, fuck. Why didn't you tell me sooner?

http://i.imgur.com/0COQZqS.jpg

QT: *Do you think he heard anything I said?*

hahahaha

RP looks like the bastard child of an elf and a hobbit there

This guy is nothing more than a culture fetishist. This is gross and I hope it bottoms out.

Does black humor work better when it's not colored by real events? Might be better if he used a veiled, fictional version of the event as a keystone around which to explore other shit

lol that's a horrible idea. who wants to see a not-Manson movie. and James Cameron should have renamed Titanic to Unsinkable Ship

pretty excited for this. it will have a killer soundtrack at the very least.

Yeah, I'm sure Cory Labianca will appreciate hearing that "killer soundtrack" while flipping through the channels in a couple years.

Quentin Tarantino, go away forever.

Guess Charlie smoking Red Apples in this world will make sense then.

http://i.imgur.com/CGjl7OB.jpg

There is a great film to be made about the Manson murders (just like there was a great film to be made about the O.J. case), but no, I doubt very much that Tarantino's the guy to make it.

I really liked the first episode of the Karina Longworth series. I don't know this story well. The film history lens she brings seems apt.

Yeah it works very well, she's great for contemporary context.

I love You Must Remember This but don't get why everyone thinks the Manson season is the best one, she does a good job but it's such an overexplored subject? But I'm also just not a true crime guy.

i can't put my finger on which movie villain or sci-fi character tarantino reminds me of here:

http://cdn4.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/scale_crop_768_433/2017/07/quentin_tarantino_-_getty_-_h_2017.jpg

Dude from Phantasm seems to be the most frequent reference.

Tarantino basically looks like the vampire version of himself from from dusk till dawn these days

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-21q65Zr2qSs/Tq7usF5wGJI/AAAAAAAACT4/5AmDwPDb1t8/s1600/From+Dusk+Till+Dawn+1+10.jpg

He reminds me of Bad Cooper tbh

Thinking David Mitchell's Evil Genius character

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CTmLU9VOJlM/0.jpg

There's a great movie to be made about the Manson family that focuses on the psychological path of the women. Tarantino's not the guy to make it.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KKLqK4avrRM/UQQi1YXP2tI/AAAAAAAAIJU/RGUv1uRFsRI/s1600/tumblr_mekw0vEht01qdxpbvo1_500.jpg

http://iowa.barstoolsports.com/files/2014/09/Screen-Shot-2014-09-11-at-9.50.24-AM.png

There's a great movie to be made about the Manson family that focuses on the psychological path of the women.
― полезные дурак (Sanpaku)

That'd be one way to do it. Another would be to take the approach of Jeff Guinn's excellent biography (or simply adapt Guinn's book) and meticulously place Manson and his followers in the general breakdown of the moment--this cipher who wanders into a place and a time that's a perfect storm waiting to happen. It would have to be serious, lengthy (I'll again mention the O.J. film), and completely immersed in the material, not about the filmmaker. Tarantino has (had?) strengths, but the first and third there are not among them. He'll have Susan Atkins and Leslie Van Houten debating whether Green Acres or The Beverly Hillbillies is better.

I want to believe that Tarantino was finally inspired to pull the trigger after reading Mike Love's autobiography.

I love You Must Remember This but don't get why everyone thinks the Manson season is the best one, she does a good job but it's such an overexplored subject? But I'm also just not a true crime guy.

Never made that claim myself! Pretty much all the seasons are remarkable.

There's something about a Manson movie as filtered through Dennis Wilson's increasingly-panicked accounts to an increasingly-incredulous Mike Love that I find darkly hilarious.

they should adopt from "On His Own Words":

http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347289621l/651024.jpg

there was a really good documentary with interviews with the women and they were sitting on top of desks holding machine guns during the interview. i tried finding it but there are so many Manson movies.

Couldn't Tarantino be the subject of Charles Manson's next project instead?

— ＮＯＴ ＲＥＣＯＮＣＩＬＥＤ (@NickPinkerton) July 12, 2017

LOLLLLLLL

Or there's this, from the LAist comment section:

Cochise • 11 hours ago
Presumably Sharon Tate beats Manson's brains out with a baseball bat in the Tarantino version.

that was my first thought

Oliver Stone should have tried this in the 90s. get some of that Doors vibe in there

Hehe true.

I’ve never seen all of Hardcore. Bailed somewhere around midpoint, which sounds like not a bad choice. Enjoyed the first half though! The opening credits are particularly great.

Tarantino coming from a pretty privileged filmmaking place and I honestly want to tell him Oh STFU about the “just tell them No” take though.

But I do see where he's coming from. If you are a writer/director that has a story to tell (Tarantino posits "Hardcore" as, along with "Taxi Driver," Schrader exploring/exorcising his love of "The Searchers"), it's kind of a paradox to have a story you want to tell so badly that you are willing to tell a *different* story. I guess the question would be, what price are you willing to pay to stick to your guns? Probably from Tarantino's perspective, after "Taxi Driver" and "Rolling Thunder" delivered the fearless goods, "Hardcore" is a cop-out, though for sure, he comes from a different era; I wonder how often or even if he has ever had to tell anyone no.

Well you might have a story to tell but also bills to pay? And you might fool yourself that you'll be able to wrangle things so that your story gets told nonetheless (as has happened many a time within he studio system) until it becomes too late and your washing your hands off the project might guarantee you won't be allowed to tell any more stories at all.

I'm not sure how y'all will greet this question, but I'll ask anyway: do you think Tarantino wrote the novelization or did he use a ghost writer?

I don't think a ghost writer would have left all those typos in.

lol fair!

I think he wrote the novelization himself.

I remain bemused by readers angry that the novelization wasn’t as novelistic (or as leashed to the structure of the movie as anticipated), but then, I’m someone who has heard the man on many podcasts. OF COURSE the book is what it is

(And I don’t say that pejoratively!)

yeah, for sure his recognizable voice comes through in the book I read.

I caught up with a few movies from his book.

Rolling Thunder: John Flynn directs this from a Paul Schrader script. It's not particularly good, but pretty intense, especially the leads (Devane and Tommy Lee Jones). In classic '70s fashion, ends with a soft rock song over a freeze frame, which is among the traits it shares with "First Blood" a few years later. Shades of "Taxi Driver" in here, too.

The Outfit: Another John Flynn joint. Slightly better made, but I dunno, mostly feels like Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker goofing around in a dull crime tale that doesn't feel particularly thrilling. I could imagine the same story being told better with a zippier sense of direction.

Dirty Harry: Definitely good discussion fodder, but not that great of a film (iconic bits and pieces aside). Coasts on Clint and the weird charisma of the baddie, though perhaps better remembered/regarded for the trends it set in motion than for what it actually achieved. There's a scene in here with the AG lecturing Harry about Miranda and stuff, which is I think meant to infuriate audiences but in fact reminded me of the pedantic doctor speech at the end of "Psycho."

Malibu High: This movie is pretty bonkers, at least on paper, and might have made for a good satire had any of its satirical elements a) been intentional (which I doubt) and b) handled with any degree of skill. It's filmed and acted like an educational film that was made over a weekend. Half the scenes feature ample traffic noise. But there is something interesting about it: a bit of score used for the world's most boring foot chase was repurposed for "The People's Court"!

Gonna watch "Deliverance" tomorrow. It's another one I only know by way of reputation and individual bits.

I just confused Rolling Thunder with Blue Thunder and could not compute.

"Blue Thunder" is John Badham, right? I used to watch that movie a lot on cable as a kid (at a friend's house). And the TV show, too! Which, until watching this trailer, I had no idea co-starred Dana Carvey!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROZpwD7kQys

Hell I saw the movie way back when and forgot Daniel Stern was in it!

I saw it as some kind of bonus screening for a film class a week before it premiered, which is why I was so sure of the release date.

OK, now "Deliverance," that's a movie. I guess I kinda agree with Ebert's contemporaneous review, in that there's not really as much going on as the movie perhaps thinks it has going on, but like fellow violent fantasy "Dirty Harry," there's still enough to talk and think about. Also like "Dirty Harry," I see echoes of it in tons of stuff that came after, right up to the present, both good and bad, and cross-genre (though especially horror). The big difference is that unlike that aforementioned list, including "Dirty Harry," this one is extremely well made by a director that really knows what he's doing and a DP that really knows how to make it look great, though I suppose "Dirty Harry" gets nearly as much out of its urban setting as this one gets out of rural Appalachia. And more importantly, no annoyingly omnipresent folly work. Boorman is smart enough to frequently let the relative silence speak volumes.

assuming folly=foley

Ha, yeah. The other more inept movies had more folly work.

Rolling Thunder is particularly good imo. Weirdly sensitive and soulful piece of work for what should have been a basic piece of revenge exploitation. Fantastic performances in it too. Some talk about it in a Paul Schrader thread here recently.

https://deadline.com/2023/05/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-star-rick-dalton-dead-quentin-tarantino-declares-1235373860/

Rick Dalton, 1933-2023

Is he alright?

no, he’s dead

For how long?

As someone who liked this film a lot the idea that we need to be filled in on Rick dalton lore feels depressingly wrongheaded

Both QT books look unreadable — he’s a bad writer — but I agree that it’s silly to expect different even if I’m not familiar with his podcast work (just the fact that his career finds its rightful place there is perfect, it’s his destiny on the radio)

I was surprised to enjoy almost all of Cinema Speculations and not surprised to find Once Upon a Time in Hollywood intolerable after two chapters

I agree he is often a poor writer--particularly when he's trying extra hard to play Quentin Tarantino--but Cinema Speculations is very readable because just as often he has interesting things to say.

"dirty harry isnt well made, the director doesn't know what he's doing" is a shockingly terrible take and if it's not a knowing attempt at challops should really see repercussions like you shouldnt maybe be allowed watch things and state things afterwards about them

His worst take is that he doesn't rate Hitchcock but likes movies that are Hitchcockian

tbc im not talking about a tarantino take there

As someone who liked this film a lot the idea that we need to be filled in on Rick dalton lore feels depressingly wrongheaded

the kayfabe on the first episode is so good that it feels like the entire series was a long game just to get them practised up to do this

i listened to a bit of it (as i check in on the podcast here and there) and couldn't hang at all. whole enterprise is corny.

I haven't listened to it yet, but I think it's exactly the nerdy deep dive I'm excited to hear (then again, I was also the kid dreaming up entire fake label discographies and band histories).

As a creative exercise, it seems likely to be a warm-up for the next movie more than QT thinking it was time to respond to incessant public clamour for the Rick Dalton Chronicles

I’m glad Rick Dalton died. That one movie was more than enough.

It appears that Leslie Van Houten may finally be paroled. She's 73 years old.

“closer” insofar far as being *recommended* for parole…but it’ll prob go to supreme court & long court battles blahdy blah so she is still a long way from being irl paroled

Watched Hollywood again the other day for something I was doing--fourth time? I won't change or even bother checking anything I posted above, but I do find Tarantino's deep attachment to pre-Manson Hollywood oddly moving. I say oddly because I have no attachment to that specific moment (Matt Helm movies, TV westerns, etc.) whatsoever--to the time period, yes, but not to that corner of it. But the film does move me, even the wildly self-indulgent conceit of the ending--loved how Sebring and Tate are improbable Rick Dalton fans at the end.

“Hey, are *you* Rick Dalton?”

And DiCaprio plays the scene beautifully. I've been knocking him a lot recently for his Scorsese work, but I think he's really good in this.

Fully agree, his acting is amazing throughout the film, and that final shot is one of the most haunting and beautiful things Tarantino has done.

I really do think the what-if scenario, which purports to be some kind of shallow wish fulfillment, is actually a way to really underscore the absolute abhorrence of the real life tragedy, and the magnitude of the loss.

I kind of felt the same way about the righteous fury at the end of inglourious basterds, though i think OUATIH is definitely the better film as far as really making it something above and beyond.

The only thing I'd still change is that Manson himself gets the flamethrower instead of whichever of the two women got it. I forget what the rationales for that were earlier in the thread, but I still don't get that at all.

it’s definitely one of my favorite movies he’s ever done, maybe because he is coming from a more sentimental place & it resonates w me

robbie is such a superstar in it. i dont think it works if shes not as incredible in it as she is.

i dont think theres another character or performance of that type across his entire catalogue.

yeah she’s so vibrant and joyful, definitely key to the movie & the emotional power of the ending

She does such a beautiful job of making Tate a real person, even if its only an approximation - her performance is a lovely tribute to her memory