Latest / All The Right Movies / Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) | Ep. 55 - Part 1

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Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) | Ep. 55 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

0:04
All the old movies. I want to tell.
0:08
You. It's official, old buddy.
0:10
What it has been. What are you talking?
0:12
About. Man, you're Rick Dalton.
0:15
Don't you forget it. Here I come.
0:19
Smooth lead. You're damn right.
0:21
On July 26th, in a town of make believe, things are about to get
0:26
real. Charlie's going to dig you.
0:30
Damn it. Once Upon a time in Hollywood.
0:36
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was released in 2019 as Quentin
0:39
Tarantino's ninth movie. The story of aging Western star
0:43
Rick Dalton and his stuntman Cliff Booth, the film is an
0:46
exploration of friendship and fame set to a backdrop of a
0:49
changing Hollywood and one of its darkest chapters.
0:52
My name is John and the evil sexy Hamlets with me are Westie.
0:56
Don't. Cry in front of the Mexicans.
0:58
And Matt? Perpetrators.
1:00
They were hippie. Assholes.
1:02
It's Los Angeles 1969, and ATRM are heading up Cielo Drive to
1:07
talk movie Cowboys and the Mansons.
1:09
But first, anybody order fried Sauerkraut?
1:32
Hello and welcome to All the Right Movies, Hippies and Has
1:36
Beans on Acid, Dipped Rollies and a podcast on classic and hit
1:40
films. That sums it up.
1:42
Beautiful. Yeah, I'm not even referencing
1:43
the film there. That's just a coincidence.
1:45
It is. This episode though, it is going
1:47
to be a trip. Oh, absolutely.
1:49
A huge. 1. Yeah.
1:50
It's DiCaprio and Pitch together at last as we explore the
1:53
Tarantino Tinseltown loving that is Once Upon a Time in
1:57
Hollywood. You dig that?
2:00
Oh, I dig it, Yeah. Very much so.
2:02
Well, before we cruise down Hollywood Blvd., should we talk
2:04
about our own slice of showbiz on Patreon?
2:07
Yeah, let's go for it. Yeah, well, if you're a regular
2:10
listener to our ATRM Classic podcast, you can not support
2:13
what we do by becoming an ATRM patron.
2:16
Patrons get exclusive access to our bonus podcast double
2:19
feature, where we talk about movies that may not otherwise
2:22
get the ATRM treatment, and the Watch List, where we talk and
2:26
review more modern releases. And you'll get access to our
2:29
whole podcast archive full of bonus episodes and archive the
2:32
ATRM Classic episodes. More content in there now than a
2:36
double bill at the van. Nice drive in?
2:38
Absolutely. Yeah.
2:39
Lot of fun, lot of fun, lot of killing.
2:41
So to find out more and sign up, please visit patreon.com/all the
2:45
Right Movies. Or if you prefer, you can
2:48
subscribe on YouTube for all those benefits, or on Apple
2:51
Podcasts and Spotify for our archive.
2:54
Yeah, there you go. It couldn't be easier now, could
2:55
it? Exactly.
2:57
It's a bad deal you get from Marvin Schwartz.
2:58
That's what she of. Course it is Schwartz.
3:02
I think I said that right. Yeah.
3:04
Back to the here and now though, or rather early in 1969, and
3:09
it's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
3:11
Your pick, Westie. My pick.
3:12
So why did you put this one up? Because I think it really needs
3:16
to be talked about. It's a very divisive film and I
3:18
didn't think it was a divisive film and I think it's very
3:20
expansive. It's very self indulgent, but I
3:23
think it's self indulgent done right.
3:25
It looks beautiful. So I would just do it because of
3:28
that. To be fair, there's so much in
3:30
it to talk about. There's so many things that it
3:32
explores, there's so much scope, there's so much scale.
3:35
It's a very personal film. I think for Tarantino, he
3:38
doesn't really care if you like it or not, and I think that's
3:40
really important and it's got so much in it, it almost puts me
3:44
off watching it. Daunting.
3:47
Yeah, it's really daunting. Like a massive Chinese meal,
3:50
Yeah. There's no way I can stop
3:52
halfway through this film. It's on and it's got to be on
3:54
for like the full runtime, which I really love about it.
3:57
It's just so selfish you and it's so self aware and you know,
4:01
it's a great picture. And I think that's what
4:02
Tarantino wants this to be called.
4:04
He doesn't want it to be called a movie.
4:05
He doesn't want it to be called a film.
4:07
He wants this to be called a picture.
4:09
And it's fantastic. So yeah, let's dive into it.
4:12
Yeah, I remember when this was announced.
4:13
At the time, I knew it was Tarantino.
4:15
Obviously I knew what it was called, that it was set in 60s
4:18
Hollywood and that I had Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead.
4:20
And I was like, well, this sounds like the best film ever.
4:23
Yeah. Then it came out that it was
4:25
about the Manson family and the Ted Labianca murders.
4:28
And I kind of thought, Oh no, to be honest.
4:31
So did I? Yes, I.
4:32
Had visions of, like, I shot Marvin in the face, that kind of
4:35
tone. And I thought, cutie, he's going
4:37
to end his own career. He's finally gone too far.
4:40
Yeah. And, and I saw it opening
4:42
weekend. Obviously, it's still Tarantino.
4:44
There was nothing to worry about in the end.
4:46
But all the way through, I had this sense of dread because we
4:49
know what's coming, or rather, we think we know what's coming.
4:52
I'll probably be saying that quite a lot on this episode.
4:54
We think we know what's coming. Yeah, same.
4:56
As well, do you remember this was announcing you had that
4:58
promo photo of Pitt and DiCaprio just in the outfit?
5:01
Like, I'm watching that. I don't even care.
5:03
I'm watching that. Exactly, it's All Star and as
5:06
with any Tarantino films, so much to dig into DiCaprio and
5:10
piss for the first time. Margot Robbie, Sharon Tate,
5:13
Pacino in there. Ridiculous.
5:15
I have a fantastic. And that period in LAA time of
5:19
change industry wise with New Hollywood coming along
5:21
culturally with the counterculture, anti war
5:24
movements and the Mansons. Obviously we'll be talking all
5:27
those things as well as analysing what we like, or maybe
5:29
we don't like so much. Maybe from a filmmaking
5:32
perspective, telling the story of how it was all made and a
5:35
tale or two about the real life events.
5:36
Nothing gruesome though, don't worry.
5:38
Yeah, but it's going to be massive, surely.
5:41
It's a massive film. Really daunting.
5:45
And Mass, I know what you're like, so don't cry for the
5:48
Mexicans. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
5:51
for you. Well, I mean, any Tarantino
5:54
film, it's worth talking about simply because I don't think
5:56
there's any middle ground with him.
5:58
Always films. It's very rare you get someone
5:59
go Tarantino. Yeah, that was all right.
6:02
Like Wesley says, this one is so divisive, it puts people to
6:05
polar extremes. Maybe my big Tarantino opinion,
6:09
though, is that I've always preferred the latter part of his
6:11
career. Like, I know rest of our dogs,
6:14
Pulp Fiction, totally get by the ravine.
6:16
I do really like them, but they've never quite hit the mark
6:19
in the same way for me. But you get to something like
6:21
this. And I think there's so much
6:23
going on here to unpack, so much that is a departure from his
6:27
earlier films. And that's what I really respond
6:29
to. It's always been up there for me
6:31
because it feels like this is a film he's been building towards
6:34
his whole career. I think it's very important for
6:36
him. I think the tone works for you,
6:38
but it's more of a traditional cinematic tone, isn't it?
6:40
Yes. So Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
6:42
was produced by Columbia Pictures, Boner Film Group and
6:45
Heyday Films, distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing and
6:49
released on July the 26th, 2019. Filmed across Los Angeles,
6:53
Hollywood and various locations in California, it was written
6:56
and directed by Quentin Tarantino and stars Leonardo
6:59
DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, and Margo
7:02
Robbie as Sharon Tate. Yeah, and a whole load of people
7:06
who were nobodies at the time. Yeah, but not for long.
7:08
Yeah. It's mental.
7:09
It's huge, yeah. We'll get into that.
7:12
Yeah. All right then, time to head to
7:13
the valley, shall we? Let's do it.
7:15
In 1969, the Hollywood dream is bursting as we talk the first
7:19
act of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
7:22
The way. We go.
7:42
Saturday, February 8th, 1969. Los Angeles was a time of
7:45
change, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood drops us right in the
7:49
middle of it. The moment we get to know our
7:51
three main characters in Rick, Cliff and Sharon are coming.
7:55
But first, the opening. Yeah, makes sense.
7:59
So we could help not in the movies, but on black and white
8:01
TV. Fading small screen star Rick
8:04
Dalton is interviewed about Bounty Law, where he stars as JK
8:07
Hill with his stuntman Cliff Booth.
8:09
Then we're with Rick as he heads to the Muscle and Frank Grail
8:12
for a meeting with Hollywood agent Marvin Schwartz.
8:15
Not Schwartz, no, played by Al Pacino.
8:18
We have a meeting with a very handsome cowboy man, and I don't
8:21
just mean you much. Thanks.
8:23
How was the opening, do we think?
8:25
Is that your son? It's a very playful opening,
8:31
which I really like. DiCaprio absolutely looks the
8:34
business in those opening Bounty Law moments, almost winking at
8:37
the camera. And I love the recreation of
8:39
those 60s types of interviews. Like it's a bit still that it's
8:42
a bit awkward. There's no need for the guy to
8:45
be sitting in the chair turning around to look into the camera
8:47
because it doesn't look natural at all.
8:49
But that's how the 60s kind of interviews were.
8:52
And I just love this instant sense of the two main characters
8:54
here. Rick, he looks tense.
8:57
He's nervously smoking. You can tell he's uptight about
8:59
this. But Cliff, just casual as you
9:01
like, completely comfortable here.
9:03
And when he starts laughing at Rick's in, he has fallen off a
9:06
horse in the past. To me, that almost feels like an
9:09
outtake, like that's Brad Pitt laughing.
9:11
It's not Cliff laughing. So it's a classic Tarantino
9:14
opening and any film that opens with A Wilhelm Scream in the
9:17
open a couple of minutes that has my attention.
9:20
Absolutely. And we're straight in with the
9:22
four three aspect ratio of a bounty law, black and white.
9:25
Yeah. Always think I kind of feel like
9:26
we're channel surfing and then stumble across this, which maybe
9:29
is the idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:31
I think it's entertaining and pretty expertly sets up two key
9:33
aspects of the film, the setting and the core character
9:36
relationship. I think the bounty law clips are
9:39
really good. That feel really authentic to
9:41
me. That is a nice Wilhelm scream in
9:43
there. Lovely Dick Van Dyke reference
9:45
as well. Yeah, great.
9:47
And the interview portion works because it shows us the dynamic
9:50
between Rick and Cliff right off the bat.
9:52
The first question is about Cliff, but directed at Rick.
9:55
Yeah. Rick's the one who wants to
9:56
talk, but Cliff's the one worth talking about.
9:59
Yeah. And then we'll go straight into
10:00
that opening credits montage. Treat her right by Roy Head
10:03
playing. Yeah.
10:04
Sharon Tay dancing on the Pan Am flight.
10:06
Tarantino's love for the period just leaps off the screen
10:09
immediately. Totally.
10:10
But never compromises the reality.
10:12
No. And that's something that
10:12
carries on for the whole film, basically.
10:14
Yeah. I think it's nice bit of
10:15
storytelling and clever, establishes the era and the
10:18
characters in just a few minutes.
10:20
I mean, Tarantino firing on all cylinders out the gate, yeah.
10:23
When's he not? He loves a big opening.
10:25
Because he does. Talking about Ortman's before
10:29
the film starts, the Columbia Picture Studio logo we see is 1
10:32
from 1969. When the film was set.
10:34
It wasn't recreated, it was from 1969.
10:36
So the like the scratched and faded look is for real.
10:39
All right, I love it when studios do that.
10:41
Yeah, so do I. And Screen Gems, who were the TV
10:44
arm of Columbia at the time, they get a couple of the name
10:46
checks as well. Yeah, there's so much detail in
10:49
this film. We'll talk about a lot of it.
10:50
It's crazy. It's mind boggling.
10:52
It's ridiculous. If I remember it all I've got,
10:55
my notes are the most substantial I've ever made and
10:58
there's loads more that kind of fit in.
11:00
It's ridiculous. And there are a couple of
11:03
classic Tarantino pop culture references in the opening at
11:05
Ricks, because when Tarantino was scouting for locations, he
11:09
visited the home of Lee Van Cleef in LA.
11:11
Now Van Cleef had died in 1989, but his widow show Tarantino
11:15
around and he said it was like a 60s time capsule and inspired
11:18
Rick's home in the film. So in the garage, Van Cleef had
11:21
a huge painting of his own face, which is why Rick Dalton has a
11:24
huge picture of his own face on his driveway.
11:28
That is funny. Huge painting of his own face
11:30
just. Problem with like breeze blocks
11:33
though, isn't it? They're really temporary.
11:37
I believe Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly wasn't he
11:39
Obviously. I mean spaghetti westerns. 1 of
11:41
Tarantino's biggest influences always have been, really, and
11:43
this film's no different. I've got one in mine garage,
11:46
there's no one's ever seen it. I'm coming round after.
11:51
This round it's ridiculous. And what we also see here is
11:56
Rick has a framed copy of Mad magazine with himself on the
11:59
front cover. Now Tarantino went to Mad and
12:01
asked them to create a cover in the style of Jack Davis, who was
12:04
one of their main artists in the 60s.
12:07
Yeah, and then mad the released a special Tarantino inspired
12:09
issue with Rick Dalton on the cover.
12:11
Right, But that's some serious attention to detail though.
12:14
Don't like the specific art style?
12:16
Only Tarantino was asking for that.
12:17
Yeah. In interview as well, Tarantino
12:19
said that he designed that like with a guy with a finger rub his
12:21
nose and it was the last ever physical cover of MAD ever
12:24
designed. Oh wow.
12:25
By Tarantino. Yeah.
12:26
Wow, wow. Awesome.
12:28
So straight after that, we're in there.
12:29
Pacino just turns over. It's wonderful.
12:31
Gina, Gina, Gina, facing the misty light.
12:36
Absolutely. Love it.
12:37
It's. A bit creepy, but wonderful.
12:39
He pulled it off. No one else could have.
12:41
Yeah, it's just for me. This is the sequence where you
12:43
realize Tarantino is in as a part of him.
12:46
And every single character in this whole film, it's like he's
12:49
talking to himself. Just little elements of it.
12:52
And I just love the uncomfortableness from DiCaprio,
12:55
how he's just stood as his way through it a little bit.
12:57
And he's just like getting the name wrong.
12:58
And then he's like, it's a good, it's a good picture.
13:01
And he said, like, he's really uncomfortable for some reason in
13:03
the way that Pacino talks about his screening room.
13:06
And he's just like, his wife's gone to bed.
13:07
And we love Westerns. And we're just sitting.
13:09
It's like, that's what Tarantino does.
13:12
He's got his screening room and he's like, and then I live
13:14
Havana. I bought a cognac and I watch 15
13:18
fists of McCluskey. What a picture.
13:20
Loads of fun. All the Kelly and let's not
13:22
split as you're right, 14 fists of McCluskey.
13:24
He sets fire to like 8 Nazis with a flamethrower and it's 7
13:28
minutes, 40 seconds into this film that was see that he's like
13:32
he's totally not stepping back from anything whatsoever.
13:35
He's totally setting it up. This lays out the whole film.
13:39
It tells you that Rick's a fading artist.
13:41
He's not going to make it. He's got to go to Italy or he's
13:43
going to fail. He's going to be this.
13:44
He's going to be terrible. He's going to be the bad guy.
13:46
He's going to be the comedy foil.
13:47
He's losing everything. It's an absolutely wonderful way
13:51
to start it because he's just taking the audience on a little
13:53
joyride. But you're learning so much.
13:55
It's like having a really good teacher at school and you learn
13:58
through playing and you don't realize you've learned
14:00
everything. It's like that.
14:01
You've learned the plot, but you didn't.
14:02
You don't quite know how. You don't quite remember how
14:05
nobody's intimidated by everybody.
14:07
Everyone's just on the same level playing field and it's
14:09
wonderful to see. I love it.
14:11
Pacino is Marvin. Down goes you, down goes your
14:15
career. It's like he's just wandering
14:19
from heat. He's.
14:22
Absolutely nuts Pacino, almost like he doesn't know his lines
14:27
that well. And he's.
14:28
Brilliant. Yeah, but it is the same as
14:30
heat. But like, Tarantino's put this
14:32
lid on him and just like, stop, some erupt a little bit, but
14:34
he's great. He's like born to act, but you
14:37
know. Yeah, he's wonderful.
14:38
Narratively, in terms of Rick, it is a key scene After we've
14:41
just seen like the cool, calm and collected Rick and bounty
14:43
law, we now see kind of the real Rick, slightly awkward, he does
14:47
stutter a bit. He gets Marvin Schwarz name
14:49
wrong and gets the reality check about his career and where it's
14:51
headed. And it's a bit of a trope in
14:53
Hollywood set films, the fading star getting a shot of
14:55
redemption. But I mean not with Italian
14:58
westerns normally. Not normally, not then anywhere.
15:01
And two, that thing that kind of gets set up here as well and I'm
15:03
a fan of firstly, I like the cutaway kind of storytelling.
15:06
Tarantino uses something you see in animations quite a lot.
15:09
He doesn't throw out the film. But the first ones here when we
15:11
cut to Rick arrested for drink driving and Kurt Russells
15:14
narrations like that's a big fucking lie.
15:19
And how stunning are the cause? Unbelievable.
15:21
Yeah. Just really.
15:22
We talk more about the more as we go, but geez, like the
15:25
visuals for the film kind of in microcosm.
15:27
Huge, beautiful, really authentic looking and dripping
15:30
with nostalgia and. Everything is clean.
15:32
Yeah. You just want to be there.
15:33
It's like a painting. There's nothing wrong with this
15:35
sequence at all. There's nothing wrong with this
15:37
setting or this scenes. Nothing negative.
15:39
It's just a beautiful, beautiful place.
15:41
It's a stunning looking place, absolutely, yeah.
15:43
And Tarantino said when he was writing the script, he was
15:46
picturing Al Pacino as Marvin, so always wanted him and he
15:49
accepted straight away. Of course he did.
15:51
And Tarantino said once he started shooting, he didn't want
15:53
to stop because Pacino and DiCaprio were just so good
15:56
together. And you can see that's electric.
15:58
I'd love to have been on that set.
15:59
Yeah, it would be great. Unbelievable.
16:01
It is great seeing them on the screen together.
16:03
I mean for Pacino towards the end of his career, small role
16:06
working with Tarantino but he knows it's been written for him
16:09
and no brainer to do it surely. Easy.
16:11
I don't even read it exactly. Yeah.
16:15
What I love about this scene and what this film absolutely nails
16:18
is all the films within the film look great, brilliant.
16:21
I definitely want to see the 14 FISA McCluskey.
16:25
I want to watch Bounty Law like every night I do 6:00.
16:29
Looks amazing. I don't know.
16:31
I don't know for that. Tarantino was inspired by a
16:34
Roger Corman war film called The Secret Invasion, and Tarantino
16:37
obviously later said he worked it all out in his head anyway.
16:40
So it was directed by Paul Wendcost and starred Van
16:43
Johnson, Roth, Taylor, Salmony or Invern Alesi alongside Rick.
16:49
Yeah. Tarantino clearly had a whale of
16:50
a time writing and filming all these genre pictures.
16:53
Yeah, great. Setting a load of nutties on
16:55
fire straight away and obviously sets up the finale really well.
16:59
Yeah, it does, yeah. Check I was flamethrower. 7
17:04
minutes in and you get the ending.
17:05
It's unbelievable. So the flamethrower wasn't the
17:08
CGI effect, it was real. As with everything Tarantino
17:11
does. To be fair, tall in camera,
17:12
DiCaprio was taught how to use it and the stunt as was set on
17:16
fire for real. The stunt coordinators was Zoe
17:18
Bell, who's from Death Proof and Kill Bill and Robert Alonzo, and
17:22
they had to convince DiCaprio it was safe and the stunt actors
17:24
were OK with it. Yeah, it does look crazy.
17:27
I've seen them all. Flaming fireballs.
17:30
And he doesn't look DiCaprio. I think he's having a great time
17:32
by the end of it. Yeah, I don't blame him.
17:34
That's acting job you want, isn't it?
17:36
Certain fire stuff. Especially not to.
17:39
Exactly. Yeah.
17:40
And that scene where Rick's being taught to use a
17:41
flamethrower and he says anything we can do about that
17:44
heat and the guy's like, Rick, it's a flamethrower.
17:46
Yeah. DiCaprio said that line for real
17:48
during training and Tarantino thought it was funny and put it
17:51
into the script. Yeah.
17:51
Brilliant. Yeah.
17:52
And. Another line that wasn't in the
17:54
original script was Cliff saying to Rick, you're Rick fucking
17:57
Dalton, don't you forget it. Because Brad Pitt told Tarantino
18:01
about when he was a young actor in the early 90s and a guy who
18:03
he knew at the time used to say to him, you're Brad fucking
18:06
Pitt, don't forget it. And he said he gave him a boost.
18:08
So I was added to the film. Nice.
18:10
Yeah, I might start doing that to myself.
18:14
Doesn't sound quite as good. I think you've been crazy over
18:17
here. You're doing it so you can't
18:19
fucking bargain. But.
18:21
It. Becomes quite quite an important
18:24
line later as well. I think after he nails the
18:26
monologue that we'll talk about, Rick sees to himself.
18:28
Rick fucking Dalton feels quite powerful when he does it.
18:31
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's great.
18:33
Yeah. And that's the opening to the
18:35
film. We've met Rick and Cliff and
18:37
Marvin, obviously. Should we meet Sharon Tate as
18:40
well? Let's do it I.
18:41
Think we should? The setup complete, we follow
18:45
Rick and Cliff into their daily lives.
18:48
We see what they get up to when they're not together and then
18:50
see how the other half live when we meet Rick's neighbor, actress
18:53
Sharon Tate, and follow her to a party at Hugh Hefner's place.
18:57
Yeah. The Playboy Mansion or a trailer
19:00
on the grounds of a drive in. Which is better Matt do?
19:02
You know what? It's the drive in for me because
19:04
this is the only time I'll ever compare myself to Brad Pitt.
19:07
So I'm going to make the most of it because this feels like my
19:10
life. I've finished work, I stick the
19:12
TV on and I feed the dog and that's it.
19:14
That's. My doing.
19:17
Mac the cheese in the pan, yeah. That's it.
19:19
That's my existence. I think this is just a wonderful
19:21
little scene because on the face of it, it doesn't look like a
19:24
particularly pleasant experience.
19:26
It's pretty scruffy, but Cliff doesn't care.
19:29
He's so comfortable in his own skin and in his own life.
19:31
He's got all he needs. And then you contrast that to
19:34
Rick, who is living in a mansion, but he's just unable to
19:37
enjoy all the trappings of it and all the wealth that he has.
19:40
And you have to talk about Brandy here, Cliff's dog.
19:44
I mean, she is a very good girl indeed, this dog.
19:47
And Brad Pitt is so good, he can even generate chemistry with the
19:51
dog. It's really funny when he's
19:53
telling her that he's going to throw food out if she keeps
19:55
whining. He doesn't want to, but he'll do
19:57
it. That's really funny.
19:58
And then when you cut back to her, licking her chops and
20:01
wagging her tail and excitement. I love that.
20:03
This is top five cinematic dogs here.
20:05
Brandy's amazing and some here with the film for me, and it
20:08
obviously sets Brandy up for the end, but this whole scene, it
20:11
just sums a part of the film's charm for me, which is just
20:14
spending time hanging out with these characters, all of these
20:16
little insights into the lives. Yeah, it's great.
20:19
It's excellent as well that he lives behind the drive in movie
20:21
theatre. So he lives behind the scenes.
20:23
Yeah, yeah, Lovely. I.
20:24
Think that's wonderful? Yeah, the contrast between Rick
20:27
and Cliff's lives, I think it's drawn out really well.
20:29
Rick's sitting with a tape recorder, which would have been
20:31
staying at the art at the time. Yeah.
20:32
To learn his lines for Lancer. He's trying to keep his career
20:35
afloat while literally floating in his pool.
20:36
Yeah, which is nice. Whereas clipping the trailer.
20:39
Yeah. Pasta straight from the pond.
20:41
And it's not the Ritz, but he seems perfectly content.
20:44
Yes, he's so happy. Yeah, yeah, Brandy's in there.
20:47
How much food does he give? Brandy Bulls tooth, 2 cans.
20:50
And there's some great visual storytelling, a great touches
20:55
that Rick's posters in his house are all pictures from films he's
20:58
been in. Yeah.
20:59
So he doesn't love movies or his history.
21:01
He's just kind of getting what he can.
21:02
Yeah. And Cliff arrives at Rick's in
21:04
the Cadillac and then leaves in the beat of Volkswagen, which is
21:07
in the nice detail. It's a great detail, yeah.
21:08
Yeah, and he's like Niki Lauda down Hollywood Blvd.
21:12
It's unbelievable. Yeah.
21:14
Great character storytelling. Load of a visual from Tarantino,
21:17
Yeah. The Van Noise Drive in was a
21:19
real movie theater in the 1960s but was demolished in the late
21:22
90s. Tarantino had recreated it for
21:24
the film, and what we see is a combination of a life-size set
21:28
and miniatures. Well, screen shot it will follow
21:30
Cliff into the drive in and then the camera moves up and over the
21:33
marquee. I always.
21:35
Think that. Shot ends when you just get the
21:37
projector, like going into the camera.
21:38
Yeah, he keeps going. I keep forgetting about it.
21:40
It's like that. Uses that darkness.
21:42
Yeah, that was the. Miniature.
21:43
That would go over, obviously. It's brilliant.
21:45
Yeah, yeah. And in contrast to.
21:47
Rick, watch pictures of himself everywhere.
21:48
Cliff's got a huge picture on his wall of Anne Francis from
21:51
Forbidden Planet. Yeah, I think Tarantino is a
21:53
fan. I've heard him mention it a few
21:55
times in India. Right, Right.
21:57
Right. So as we've mentioned.
21:58
Cliff drives two cars in the film, and there's the story
22:00
behind both. The car he drives Rick around in
22:03
is a 1966 Cadillac Coupe Deville, and that actually
22:07
belonged to Michael Matson, and it's actually the same car Mr.
22:10
Blonde drives and Reservoir Dogs.
22:11
Reservoir Dogs it is. Isn't it?
22:13
Yeah. Great.
22:14
Yeah. No cop tied up in the boot this
22:15
time hopefully. Well, whenever I check do it.
22:19
There we go. It's too, and he gets a spare.
22:20
Out it's barn ranch, although he's going to eat cock just fall
22:22
at the back. And Michael Madison's in bounty
22:25
law as well, isn't he? How's the cameo?
22:27
Yes, he is, yeah. Yeah, I think the reason he's in
22:29
there is because he always said the Tarantino's I'll die in all
22:31
of your films because he dies in hatefully as well.
22:33
He said, well, I'll get you in where you don't die then.
22:35
That's the only reason, yeah. And then Cliff's.
22:38
Own car that's a blue 1964 Volkswagen Common Gear
22:42
convertible, and that was the car Tarantino's stepfather used
22:45
to drive when he was a kid in the late 60s.
22:47
I prefer. That one, you know it's
22:49
beautiful. Yeah, I it's.
22:50
Lovely, yeah. Well, Sorrentino say that the
22:53
shots in Cliffs car looking up at him from the passenger seat.
22:55
We're doing that way because that was how QT used to see his
22:58
own stepdad, right? Wow.
22:59
Which is speeding. Probably, yeah, it's very.
23:02
Personal this film, I think it is, yeah.
23:04
It's great. Oh yeah, it must.
23:06
Be personal. Yeah, then.
23:07
After that, we'll get the other side of the coin and we get to
23:10
go to the Playboy Mansion. Now this is just pure Tarantino
23:15
vibes for me. It's just so lavish.
23:18
But at the same time, we're just focusing on these three
23:21
characters and Margot Robbies moves.
23:24
I'm so pleased we haven't got behind the scenes footage of
23:26
this like have on Pulp Fiction. You know where he's dancing.
23:30
But I'm sure. There'll be something somewhere
23:32
where he's buying the camera and he's just doing the same things
23:35
I do this 100. Percent.
23:37
Like with these? Shoes off, if you could tell,
23:39
teams moving through and it's just exactly what's in his head.
23:43
And until it says the Playboy Mansion in the Playboy font,
23:47
which is wonderful. Don't make a big.
23:49
Deal out of it being the Playboy Mansion necessarily, that is
23:52
making a big deal out of it being so over the top.
23:55
But you do get some great cameos here.
23:57
I say cameos. I mean, I'd love to say it's
23:59
Steve McQueen, but you get Lewis playing McQueen, which I think
24:02
is a kind of a parody of McQueen.
24:04
I don't think he's trying to be exactly the same as him, and I
24:07
don't think that's what we're looking for all the way the
24:09
film. I think it is a Once Upon a
24:10
time. It is like a comic book version
24:13
of these people. Link Lewis does really well.
24:15
But again, is this scene necessary?
24:18
Of course it is. Is it drawn out and over the top
24:21
and lavish for no reason? Of course it is.
24:23
But does it have plot points? Of course it does.
24:25
And you learn about these three characters through other people.
24:28
And he married her and then moved to him and then that.
24:32
And he's like, oh, she likes, you know, small guys who have
24:35
got these. Yeah.
24:36
I never stood a chance. I love that delivery.
24:39
That's pure. McQueen, if he's going to nail
24:41
any of it's just when he smokes and obviously he's backlit, the
24:43
smoke comes up and he's like, yeah, I think that's absolutely
24:46
fantastic. But that crane shot, when it
24:48
comes in and it's just moving through everything, it's just
24:51
like. Unbelievable how much?
24:53
Ambition do you need? Because like this one scene in
24:56
any of the film would just be like, that's enough.
24:58
That's the middle. That's the party scene.
25:00
Let's get the crane in there. But he puts a crane in there
25:02
over a trailer to feed a dog. The same at the Playboy Mansion.
25:07
Absolutely love it. I love the ambition this film
25:09
and it really pays off it. Does some party?
25:12
Steve McQueen, the Mamas and the Papas, Connie Stevens and Jay
25:15
Sebring are already there. And then Sharon Chain and Roman
25:17
Polanski turn up. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you have
25:20
not. Didn't buy that Playboy Mansion
25:21
until 1971, which Tarantino would have known.
25:23
So it's there for atmospheric reasons, I think.
25:26
Right? But.
25:27
Sharon. Is like an instant delight.
25:29
Yes, she is life and soul the party.
25:31
But this scene hits differently on re watches because the first
25:33
time seeing this I thought was quite sad.
25:35
Seeing Sharon dancing, having a great time.
25:37
Yeah, thinking we know what's coming now knowing what is to
25:39
come. It's just a great party.
25:41
It's just a joy, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
25:42
And it does look. Incredible.
25:43
That crane shot is insane by the pool.
25:46
Yeah, the fashions of the 60s and the costume design is just
25:50
an absolute treat. Ariana Phillips was the costume
25:52
designer. Her work is superb all the way
25:55
through. Oh yeah, everyone.
25:56
Even the extra somebody out of focus in the background still
25:58
looks amazing, yeah. Fantastic.
26:00
I mean, talent. He was clearly in love with the
26:02
period and knows the period. I find it all pretty
26:05
intoxicating because I love that period as well.
26:06
Yeah, I'm the same, yeah. He's just in love with cinema.
26:09
He's just in love with that idealism of it, and this is it.
26:12
It's totally idealized and it's beautiful.
26:13
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
26:14
Absolutely it is. Yeah, and talking about the
26:16
costume. Design When we say Sherrod and
26:18
Roman Polanski on the way to the party, she's wearing a snakeskin
26:21
coat. And it was based on an identical
26:23
cool of the real Sharon wore the premiere of Rosemary's Baby, one
26:26
of Polanski's most famous films. Snakes getting caught, Yes.
26:29
Yeah. Another great crane shot when
26:31
the camera moves from Rick in the pool over the roof.
26:33
Yeah. And Polanski leaving the house.
26:35
Incredible. Yeah.
26:36
I guess all these crane shots are to illustrate the point that
26:39
in Hollywood everyone is small fry.
26:41
Why? Nobody matters, really, Because
26:42
it's such a big place. Possibly, maybe.
26:45
Or it's. Kind of like the dreamlike sense
26:47
of it, the Once Upon a timeness of it, the kind of looking float
26:50
between all of these sequences. And we've got access to all of
26:52
Hollywood. Yeah, very.
26:54
Fairy tale field, isn't it? Yeah, exactly.
26:56
And Damian. Lewis said Tarantino contacted
26:58
him about being in the film and told him.
27:00
I've always thought, man, you'd be a great Steve McQueen.
27:03
And the reason McQueen is there is because a lot of Rick Daltons
27:06
create is based on Mcqueens. And apparently, the night that
27:09
the real Sharon Tate was killed, Steve McQueen had been invited
27:12
long. But it changed his mind, right?
27:15
Yeah. J Sebing was a celebrity
27:17
hairdresser, He was Mcqueens hairdresser and he knew.
27:19
We invited him to Sharon Tates. That's a Neil Hirsch.
27:22
In the film, isn't it? Yeah, that's right.
27:23
Yeah. And McQueen was going to go
27:25
until he said he got an offer from a beautiful blonde woman.
27:28
Obviously, Obviously. Obviously.
27:30
But yeah, Steve McQueen. Was on the Mansions hit list,
27:32
apparently with Frank Sinatra and Liz Taylor.
27:35
Wow. Speaking of the Mansons.
27:37
It's around this time when we see them for the first time,
27:39
when the dumpster diving for food and Pussycat, played by
27:42
Margaret Coley, who no one knew then but everyone does now.
27:44
Yeah, sees Cliff and gives the peace sign.
27:47
The song they're singing is called I'll Never Say Never to
27:49
Always. It was written by Charles
27:51
Manson, of all people, who saw himself as a bit of a
27:53
singer-songwriter I saw an interview with.
27:55
Mary Ramos, Tarantino's go to music supervisor and she said
27:58
that the made sure the royalties for using that song went to a
28:01
trust set up for the victims of the Mansons before the licensed
28:03
it. Oh wow, that's nice.
28:06
So that's a set up for our fairy tale Playboy parties, a
28:09
Hollywood in transition and the fading and rising stars caught
28:12
in the middle. Time to talk about the guy
28:15
behind it all, do you think? Let's do it?
28:17
Absolutely. The director.
28:25
The director. Chair, for Once Upon a Time in
28:27
Hollywood, was occupied by the one and only Quentin Tarantino.
28:31
He'd already been a household name for 25 years by this point,
28:35
and this was his ninth feature film, coming directly after two
28:37
Westerns in Django Unchained and The Hateful 8.
28:40
Yeah. A shift in.
28:42
Genre Matt slightly, just a bit, but still a Tarantino film or
28:46
through through. Tarantino, I think he's made
28:49
just such a great hangout movie and the plot takes such a
28:52
backseat at times because he just wants us to hang out with
28:55
the characters and he wants to luxuriate in this very specific
28:59
time period. There's like no hurry to this
29:02
film whatsoever. He just wants us to absorb it
29:06
all. And it's got such a great
29:07
atmosphere too. And it's one of those films
29:09
where you can almost inhale it off the screen.
29:12
You can all smell that summer air and I think that's a risky
29:16
strategy, making a film with such a relaxed vibe to it,
29:18
because you run the risk of being called self indulgent with
29:20
it. And obviously he does get that
29:22
criticism with this one in particular I think.
29:24
And that's fine, I get that criticism, but it just really
29:27
works for me because I do feel very much transported back to
29:30
the late 60s. Not just the costumes and the
29:32
soundtrack choices, but the feel of it, which is very hard to do
29:35
without coming across like a parody of something.
29:38
I think this never feels like a parody.
29:40
And yet, amongst that harmonious, like Summer of Love
29:43
vibe to it, there's still that tension whenever he cuts to any
29:46
of the Manson Family. It just adds a little shiver,
29:48
like, oh, yeah, this is in the background.
29:51
And as we've said, the top, the amount of times you think, oh, I
29:54
know what's coming now. Yeah.
29:56
But to make those two contrast and tones work, I think it
29:59
requires a lot of maturity. And I think this is what I
30:01
really enjoy about his later films.
30:03
There's a maturity to them. It's not enough for him to just
30:07
write, like, cool dialogue and characters anymore.
30:09
And I think this film really sums that up.
30:12
I agree. I think one of my favorite
30:14
things about Tarantino is his identity as a filmmaker.
30:16
You can spot his films way off always and there's a lot of
30:19
stuff he advertising with that. The attention to detail
30:21
referencing popular culture is second to none.
30:24
Cliff in his trailer shouldn't be interesting, but he owned his
30:27
cupboard and you know Tarantino's hand picked every
30:29
tin of food in there he has. Yet.
30:32
The. Soundtracks, classic Tarantino.
30:34
The visuals are as well. We'll talk about those in a bit.
30:36
But what I think is a bit more unique here is I think this
30:39
might be Tarantino's most personal film.
30:41
Like we've said, yeah, he was born in Tennessee, Tarantino,
30:44
but grew up in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s.
30:46
So he knows this place and time inside out, and it shows.
30:50
The recreation of LA is like, meticulous, from the cause to
30:54
the clothes to the music, the buildings, all of it.
30:57
It's nostalgic, but never feels like a museum piece.
31:01
It feels vibrant, it feels alive without avoiding the shady parts
31:04
of Hollywood, the underbellies there as well.
31:07
And Tarantino fuses those two extremes together, I think
31:09
really well. It comes from every aspect of
31:11
the film making. I'm going to talk about all of
31:13
it, but I feel totally transported to the 60s watching
31:16
this. I think one of the great things
31:17
movies can do is provide escapism, and if we can take you
31:20
to another time and place and feel like you're there, that's a
31:23
special thing, I think. And Once Upon a Time in
31:26
Hollywood does that to me. The only thing is I kind of want
31:28
more. I want to see more of the world.
31:30
We'll get the parties and the sets and the cars, but I want
31:33
all of it. I want to see the pictures and
31:34
the writers rooms and the studio heads and the crazy directors.
31:37
Tarantino's take on all that with the real people as
31:40
characters. I'd have loved it.
31:42
But I do respect the approach and how he's made the film he
31:44
wanted to make, as he always does.
31:46
And yeah, you're right, some people do see this as self
31:48
indulgent. And yeah, I mean, isn't most art
31:51
kind of self indulgent? It has to be.
31:53
Yeah, you're making a point. Or sending a message that means
31:56
something to you. I see.
31:57
It's personal, and I'm all here for it.
31:59
And I think this is a film that only Tarantino could have made.
32:02
Yeah. The only thing is, I can't
32:03
believe he didn't put himself in it.
32:04
I know he loves the cameo. Usually, yeah.
32:07
Didn't do the voice. Over him isn't.
32:09
I know. Yeah, I mean, I'm.
32:10
Exactly the same as you guys. But I think that what I get from
32:13
this is that he doesn't take it to the 60s.
32:15
He brings it to you, he presents it and he's kind of gone.
32:18
You can come in if you want to. So just sit back and enjoy it.
32:21
And it is a cinema film. It is such a cinema film.
32:25
I wish I could watch this kind of monthly.
32:27
It's on again this month, right? I'll go again because like the
32:30
New Beverly plays that like on a midnight on a Saturday.
32:32
Like I think every month or every two months.
32:34
Amazing. Oh.
32:35
How good? Would that be his 35?
32:37
MIL print his personal print. Yeah.
32:39
It would just be such a wonderful joy just to be able to
32:42
do that. I think that's what he's made it
32:43
for because he brings the old LA to you and you get a leave there
32:47
and walk away, as Sharon Tate did when she left her screening,
32:51
kind of you walking on air. You know, if you watch a really
32:52
good film, you leave the cinema and you feel like you're part of
32:54
that world. There's no better feeling for me
32:56
than that. And I think that's what he does.
32:59
And every single element of this is Tarantino.
33:02
Every single element of this is so carefully put through his
33:05
sieve of like creativity. But he does that especially well
33:09
with the dialogue. And to deliver that dialogue,
33:11
the cast that he's built here is just stupidly good.
33:15
It's. Ridiculous.
33:16
I for talent is beyond compare, not only for new talent, which
33:22
we'll talk about, I mean Austin Butler, Margaret Crawley, but
33:24
he's bringing back Luke Perry and you see that in the credit
33:28
and you're thinking, what's he going to do with Luke Perry?
33:30
What's he going to do with Timothy Olyphant?
33:33
Yeah, what's he going to do with?
33:34
These guys, but it's just, it's joy to be often.
33:37
There's never been, but he's wonderful and I totally buy him
33:41
in that role. He totally works.
33:43
Luke Berry coming back, the guy who was in the war with the
33:46
England. Yeah, of course he was.
33:48
Look at him. It's it works perfectly.
33:50
His eye for detail and his sense of self worth.
33:53
A thing comes across in this. It's not self indulgence, it's
33:56
self worth. And he knows what he loves and
33:58
he believes in what he loves. And he puts that in front of you
34:00
and says if you don't like that, I don't care.
34:02
And that's the best thing I get out of this film.
34:04
He makes what he. Wants to make, doesn't he?
34:05
Of course he does. Yeah.
34:07
And gets the best out of fucking everybody.
34:11
He does. So Tarantino.
34:12
Was planning to make the film with the Weinstein Company
34:15
because all of those films since Pulp Fiction had been produced
34:18
by companies owned by Harvey Weinstein.
34:20
But since the outcry that led to the Me Too movement, Tarantino
34:23
severed ties with Weinstein. Yeah, well, of course you did.
34:27
There's a Tarantino interview with Charlie Rose around Pulp
34:29
Fiction time where he's, like, the hottest film maker in
34:31
Hollywood. And he says any film he makes is
34:33
always influenced by his life personally at the time.
34:36
So at the time of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he was on the
34:39
fringes of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
34:41
And I wonder how much of Tarantino's writing of what
34:43
happened to Sharon Tier, just him wishing he could go back and
34:46
do some things differently. Maybe.
34:47
Maybe. Yeah.
34:49
Possibly, yeah. Possibly.
34:50
So Tarantino. 'S next film was up for grabs
34:53
and pretty much every studio wanted it.
34:55
Tarantino took it to David Hayman, who want Hay Day films,
34:58
and they pictured round with Sony getting the right stuff to
35:00
agree into any $100 million budget.
35:04
Yeah. Blockbuster numbers, then.
35:05
Yeah, I know David Hayman produced every Harry Potter
35:08
film, so I wonder if that's why Tarantino approached him.
35:11
He knows how to work a huge budget, right?
35:13
Yeah. Yeah, maybe.
35:14
And also Tarantino got total and final cut on everything from
35:18
script to Hayman to final edit and you got. 25% of the first
35:22
dollar back end as well, which is a huge amount.
35:25
Yes, it is 1/4 and then. Apparently, after 20 years, all
35:33
the rights to the film will pass back to Tarantino.
35:36
Mental How many directors ever could basically just tell the
35:39
studio this is the deal, this is what you're signing?
35:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not many, yeah.
35:44
Tarantino wanted. The film to look 100% authentic,
35:46
so hired Barbara Ling as the production designer.
35:49
He'd not worked with her before, but she also grew up in LA in
35:51
the 60s and knew the setting. She worked on some 60s set films
35:55
before, like The Doors, and she brought in Nancy here, who she
35:59
called the greatest set dresser in Hollywood.
36:02
I can't argue with any of that. It all looks incredible.
36:05
This is what you spend 100 million on?
36:07
Yes, absolutely. You just recreated four blocks
36:10
worth 100%. Yeah.
36:11
It was also a production designer on Batman and Robin,
36:14
Barbara Ling. Not sure if that was a factor in
36:16
torrenting your decision. Is that why it's not in?
36:18
Me notes just missed that bit out the doors.
36:21
That's fine. But the production design work,
36:25
it is just like, wow, as good as it gets.
36:28
Yeah, production. Design of Batman Robbins
36:29
actually brilliant. It's everything else is wrong.
36:32
Once Upon a time in. Hollywood, but yeah, on that as
36:34
well. And lots of the places.
36:40
That Tarantino wanted to feature in the film had been torn down,
36:43
so Barbara Lane had to recreate a lot of it.
36:46
So we've mentioned the Van Noise Drive in, but also Tarantino had
36:49
wanted to feature Pandora's Box because that was a famous club
36:52
on the Sunset Strip, which had been demolished, and Ling had it
36:56
recreated in a restaurant called Joseph's Cafe.
36:59
It was. A famous hippie hangout in the
37:01
60s. I think Pandora's Box.
37:02
It was actually gone by 1969. I think 6667, it got demolished,
37:07
right? So a bit of anachronistic at the
37:08
Playboy Mansion, right? Yeah.
37:11
And then? Near the start of the film, we
37:12
see a huge mural of James Dean stone and giant.
37:16
And that wasn't a recreation, but it was based on the fact
37:18
that building walls in 60s LA were often decorated with murals
37:22
from classic movies. Yeah, we're.
37:24
Seeing that scene we talked about with the Manson girls,
37:26
they walk right past that mural. Yeah.
37:28
Great shot of that. Yeah, fantastic.
37:30
Yeah, and in. Recreating 1960s Hollywood Blvd.
37:33
Ling spoke to all the vendors who owned the premises and
37:36
arranged with them to change the facades back to how they'd
37:38
looked 50 years earlier. She said that after filming,
37:41
most of them actually chose to keep them as they were because
37:43
they preferred them that way. Nice.
37:45
Yeah. A free Barbara Lee makeover for
37:48
your shop? That's a bad deal, Is it?
37:49
Yeah. Replacing the neon, yes.
37:51
Thanks very much. And then to shoot the bounty.
37:55
Law feature we talked about. Ling had a whole western set
37:58
created. It was painted to look at it's
38:00
best when shot in black and white, because that's what the
38:02
old TV shows he used to do back in the day.
38:04
Yeah, it's got all the grey. Tones, doesn't it?
38:06
Like all the dogs in the background?
38:07
I love that. Yeah, it's brilliant.
38:09
I think Tarantino said one of his proudest moments in his
38:11
career was how authentic bounty law looks.
38:14
It does look, really. Good.
38:15
Looks fantastic, really does. Have you seen?
38:17
Behind the scenes footage of Hollywood Blvd. during filming.
38:20
Yeah, it's mind blowing. The lengths that went to clothes
38:23
shops fitting that were fashions from the time.
38:25
Coffee shops decorated outside and inside, even though we don't
38:28
see inside benches with ads on for TV shows playing that night.
38:32
There's news stands full of like, magazines from the time.
38:34
Hundreds of extras walking around with the clothes and the
38:36
haircuts of the time. Like everywhere you turn.
38:38
It's 1969 and Tarantino was loving it, obviously.
38:42
In the middle of the street, he said he.
38:44
Sucks. He's walking down.
38:46
Hollywood Blvd. Smoking Hans Land does huge pipe
38:49
Amazing. I mean, why wouldn't you, to be
38:53
fair? The only thing?
38:54
That's not authentic to the 60s. It's amazing.
38:59
And staying on that. And keeping things authentic and
39:01
classic. There was a no phones rules for
39:03
Timothy Olyphant, who plays James Stacy, who was spoke about
39:06
who starred in Lancer and said Tarantino had strict rules on
39:09
the set. Mobile phones were banned and
39:10
anybody caught using one would be immediately fired, he said.
39:14
At one point you're in filming, the crew members phone went off
39:17
and they just took off running in the other direction, didn't
39:19
come back. Imagine getting chased down
39:22
Sunset Strip by Tarantino smoking handle and that pipe.
39:27
Crazy. Imagine.
39:28
Upsetting somebody who's got this big of a vision, though,
39:30
just because your phone went off like it's never gonna happen, is
39:33
it? That's got to be heartbreak.
39:34
And that I'd run away as well. Yeah, but he's all over a set.
39:37
Tarantino, wasn't he? Have you seen when he has his
39:39
crew chant? We love making movies.
39:41
Yeah, after. The end of every shot, I think,
39:43
or the start of every. That's on the behind the scenes.
39:45
Stuff. Yeah.
39:46
It's like us. Before every episode we chant.
39:47
We love making podcasts, don't we?
39:49
Yeah, we do. Yeah, absolutely.
39:51
Ray, you're chanting well before we end on.
39:56
QT it's time for our first ATRM Patreon question.
40:00
So as well as all the great benefits we highlighted at the
40:02
start, another perk of becoming an ATRM patron is we will answer
40:06
your questions on the show. Time for the first of those now,
40:09
and it comes from Berg Swenson. Hello, Berg.
40:12
Hello, Berg. So Burke says hello gents.
40:16
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood became my favorite QT film after
40:19
a single watch, which was when expected after so many great
40:22
hits. Beyond an amazing cast and
40:24
storyline, what struck me was how authentic the production
40:26
design was. What other films do you feel
40:29
have done an exceptional job of creating authentic settings?
40:32
Then Burke says thanks as always for all you do.
40:35
Oh, blessing. Thanks, Matt.
40:36
Thank you, Burke. Thanks for the question.
40:38
Yeah, yeah. Yes, you're welcome.
40:39
Burke But what do you think, Matt?
40:42
I was really inspired by this film to go down to similar veins
40:45
or American Graffiti came to mind.
40:47
I don't often give George Lucas a lot of credit on this, but I
40:50
do think his recreation of that time period is Immaculate and
40:53
the soundtrack's amazing. Brilliant.
40:55
Yeah. Similar vein, I'll say Licorice
40:56
Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson, the way he recreates the 70s just
41:00
toward he takes into that period and then kind of the opposite of
41:04
that really, in terms of torrent.
41:06
But I'd also say Inside Llewyn Davis just that 1961 five of
41:10
Greenwich Village. I mean, that film feels so cold.
41:13
It's set in February I think and it's grey that.
41:16
Feels grey. But it looks.
41:18
Amazing. At the same time, I think it
41:19
nails the aesthetic of that brilliantly, yeah.
41:22
Yeah. They said, well, let's bring the
41:23
mind for me into that DiCaprio film.
41:25
The Aviator has great attention to period details set in the
41:28
30s, forties, 50s. I wouldn't call this authentic,
41:31
but the Lord of the Rings trilogy it's.
41:33
Authentic Middle Earth. It's exactly the same as I
41:36
imagined it. Like a just huge.
41:38
Set stunning work to create Middle Earth.
41:39
Not a real place, but it kind of feels like it is when you watch
41:42
it, yeah. I also say.
41:44
Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, which is a visual
41:46
feast with it's perfect crafted yeah huge colourful sets really
41:50
is and one always comes to mind for me for great production
41:52
design. It's probably 2001 Space
41:54
Odyssey, Yeah, the dawn of man through the three million year
41:57
cut to the future all still looks incredible and with light
42:00
years ahead of its time in 1968. So I'd probably go for that.
42:04
Yeah, I mean very. Much The one that blew me away,
42:07
that I didn't realize until much, much later was Full Metal
42:09
Jacket. Oh, yeah, That's in London.
42:11
All of it. Yeah.
42:12
Crazy. Yes.
42:13
What? Vietnam, the gas plants, yeah.
42:15
Yeah, that totally, totally. Blew me mind.
42:16
Like all of it. Zodiac, I think really sticks
42:19
with me to set that period I think down to that is amazing.
42:22
And the way that the mix of CGI with the production design as
42:24
well, I think it's really, really good.
42:26
Really good. But the one that's always going
42:27
to win for me is Blade Runner. I've never seen anything like
42:30
that. And just walking through them
42:31
streets and you just think that's just incredible.
42:33
Yeah, world. Building and that's the whole
42:36
thing. Is just mind blown, I haven't
42:38
seen anything like it since. Well, Tarantino was nominated
42:41
for Best Director of the Oscars that year for Once Upon a Time
42:43
in Hollywood, and the film was nominated for Best Picture.
42:46
Do you? Know.
42:47
Who and what won that year? I think.
42:50
It was so it was Parasite, wasn't it?
42:53
And Bong Joon Hall one director? Yes, Correct.
42:56
On both counts, Matt. Yeah, Parasite, the first
42:58
non-english language film to win the top prize of the Oscars.
43:01
Yes, it was. Yep.
43:02
Yeah. As for Tarantino?
43:03
Though, and his work on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood still
43:06
crazy and impressive after all these years, These years.
43:09
Lovely. Yeah, very much so the.
43:14
Cast Quentin Tarantino. Was already a Hollywood legend
43:20
by the time he made Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and he
43:23
assembled a cast to match. We're going to be talking about
43:26
Brad Pitt as mysterious dumb man Cliff Booth and Margot Robbie as
43:29
rising Hollywood starlet Sharon Tate.
43:32
We're going to start with the falling star, though.
43:34
Yeah, Yeah. Absolutely.
43:36
So. Leonardo DiCaprio is Rick
43:38
Dalton, an actor struggling to stay relevant in a changing
43:41
Hollywood. The story follows Rick as he
43:43
navigates the ups and downs of his career, leans on loyal
43:46
friend and stunt double Cliff Booth, and ultimately finds
43:49
himself face to face with the family on August the 8th, 1969.
43:53
Yeah, he is Rick fucking Dalton Westie.
43:56
He sure is. And I won't forget it.
43:58
How was LDC? That's all lead.
44:01
That's fantastic. I mean.
44:02
Somebody has to lead this, right?
44:03
And who's going to, at this point, 2019?
44:05
And I think DiCaprio has been in a lot of ensemble pieces, but
44:09
this is just slightly above everybody else, I think, and he
44:14
nails it. This is just, for me, one of the
44:16
best performances, not just one of the best DiCaprio
44:18
performances. I think this is miles better
44:20
than The Revenant. I'll put that out there that he
44:21
won the Oscar for great. I really do think this is far
44:24
more layered, far more nuanced, the stut as he puts in the depth
44:27
he puts into this character, the sense of like complete
44:31
hopelessness that he puts into this at some points, the
44:34
bromance he's got with Pitt. Their connection is just so
44:37
important and it really, really works.
44:39
But what gets me every single time is the middle of this film
44:42
where you're watching DiCaprio be a bad actor.
44:45
So you're watching a good actor be a bad actor, then be a great
44:48
actor, then just be DiCaprio acting as a good actor.
44:52
He hits them 3 levels seamlessly, but you never once
44:55
think, oh that's Leonardo DiCaprio, you think that's Rick
44:58
Dalton. I think he just totally owns the
45:01
character. He becomes the character.
45:03
You want a lead man in this film, you want to be him, but
45:06
you want to be Cliff. You do not want to be Rick at
45:08
all. Then he wants you to want to be
45:10
him. Throughout the whole film, he
45:12
actually wants to be himself, which is why the posters are on
45:15
the wall, which is why he tries so hard and he's a failure to
45:18
himself. Therefore he's a failure to us.
45:20
But at the end, he's the one who kind of brings everything
45:22
together. Such a great performance, such a
45:25
great character, and I don't think I've seen DiCaprio better
45:27
than this, to be honest. Yeah, I kind of agree.
45:30
I remember when the film came out, everyone was talking about
45:32
how great Brad Pitt is. Yeah, I don't disagree.
45:34
And we'll talk about him. Yeah.
45:35
Yeah. But the more I watch this, the
45:37
more I think DiCaprio is just incredible.
45:40
I think he's a great flawed character.
45:41
Firstly, Rick based on Steve McQueen like I mentioned, but
45:44
seems to represent a whole generation of actors who
45:46
probably found themselves out in the cold and a bit irrelevant
45:49
with the emergence of New Hollywood in the late 60s.
45:51
Yeah, he's massively insecure. He's pretty selfish, not always
45:55
endearing traits, but I think we do like Rick, Yeah.
45:59
I. Certainly do without feeling
46:01
too. Sorry for him, Yeah.
46:02
I don't quite know why either. I kind of put my finger on it,
46:04
but I think it's it's Dicaprio's performance.
46:06
He doesn't pull at the heartstrings.
46:07
He just, it's just very honest. It's in the quality of.
46:11
The writing, but it does also come from DiCaprio.
46:13
I think the new ones he brings to a role is one of his biggest
46:15
strengths as an actor. He does that here.
46:17
You bring so much pathos, so much depth to Rick and it is
46:20
really layered. Much is because of the details
46:22
in there, but because that's the character.
46:25
Rick's an actor. So DiCaprio has to play Rick not
46:27
just as a person, but when he's acting.
46:29
Yeah. And by the nature of the story,
46:31
like you said, Westie, the quality of Rick's acting is up
46:33
and down like a yo-yo. Yeah.
46:36
And. DiCaprio portraying that
46:37
sometimes within the same scene. I mean, he looks every inch the
46:41
Hollywood legend he's kind of become for me, definitely.
46:43
I think we're kind of expect excellence from him and when we
46:45
get it, we maybe take it for granted a bit.
46:47
I definitely did first time I watched this film.
46:49
And I mean, he's almost always top notch, but this is up there
46:53
with Dicaprio's best. Yeah, same.
46:55
Very much agree. This is my favorite kind of to
46:57
cap your performance. You know, he can do the very
47:00
intense stuff like the Revenant very well, but then he does
47:03
comic roles like this and I think that's where he really
47:06
excels. And that's absolutely true of
47:08
the character here. Like a lot of this performance
47:10
comes out from to cap your hit in the comic beats like when
47:13
he's talking about easy breezy to Trudy and he just starts
47:16
breaking down into your. So that'll be you in 15 years.
47:19
That's. Really funny.
47:21
And the other thing I really like about DiCaprio is that
47:24
apart from like a couple of early roles in this create like
47:26
Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, he always plays against his looks.
47:31
Like he's really handsome guy, obviously, but he makes Rick
47:33
Dalton here an absolute physical wreck.
47:35
Like he coughs and split as his way through this film.
47:38
I think it's really funny when he's in that makeup trailer,
47:41
first thing he does face in the bowl of ice water, because he's
47:44
not. Knackered from the night.
47:45
Before the smoking and coughing and smoking, all the.
47:49
Time just spluttering everywhere.
47:51
He's all into pieces really and we're twitching a little bit,
47:54
but what's really fascinated me is the little stomach that he
47:57
brings to the character, because that stomach is only there when
48:00
he's Rick in person. When he's acting, that stomach
48:03
disappears, which I think is such an interesting little
48:05
nuance that he brings to it. So it's a very funny
48:08
performance. He fills it with this
48:10
ramshackle, broken down charm, a lot of vulnerability.
48:13
He takes his ego completely out of this.
48:16
It means it absolutely is one of my favourite to cap Your rules
48:18
as well. I think he's just fantastic in
48:20
this. Yeah, that's that.
48:21
Is only the only sober as well, if you've noticed.
48:23
Yeah, very nice. Yeah.
48:24
Yeah, it's very much. Like a eagle thing, Yeah.
48:27
Well, Tarantino hardware was DiCaprio before in Django
48:30
Unchained and only ever wanted DiCaprio to play Rick Dalton.
48:33
Apparently DiCaprio took a 25% pay cut to sign up, but you
48:37
would one. Yeah, no pay cuts for.
48:38
QT 25% of the back end gets 25% for next.
48:41
Year, yeah. Massive pay cut for you, pay off
48:44
for me. Watching.
48:47
Flyers getting printed to put in windows.
48:49
Nobody's going to look at the Flyers.
48:50
That's my 25% there. And that's what I've said.
48:54
Tarantino took a lot of inspiration from Steve McQueen
48:57
in writing Rick because one of the roles that set McQueen on
49:00
the way to Hollywood stardom was ATV Western in the 50s called
49:03
Wanted, Dead or Alive. That was about a bounty hunter,
49:06
and that became Dalton in Bounty Law.
49:08
And Tarantino said that when he was writing Rick's back story,
49:12
he wrote the first few chapters of a biography by Rick Dalton.
49:14
Of course he did and he called that the man who would be
49:17
McQueen and he said to cup your reading.
49:19
That was one of the things that convinced him to take the part
49:23
the. Man, who would be McQueen?
49:24
What title that is? And the opening?
49:27
Shot of the film is Rick as JK Hill ripping down a poster that
49:31
says wanted dead or alive. Yeah, surely intentional.
49:34
Definitely. Could Rick have been?
49:35
McQueen though, how would you have been in The Great Escape,
49:38
do you think, Matt? I mean, I love the clip of him
49:41
in there. It is absolutely seamless.
49:43
And it's interesting because Rick has so much anxiety about
49:46
himself as a person. But when you see him in those
49:48
film within film moments, he looks great.
49:51
And you think, you know what? I would watch him in The Great
49:53
Escape. Imagine him in the tower and his
49:55
Fern on his second. Is there anything we can do
49:56
about that here? It's a fire Rick.
50:02
I like the way he swaggers. Off after he's finished his
50:04
little speech in the Yeah. Yeah, I mean.
50:08
Staying on the great. Escape scene as well.
50:09
Robert Richardson, the DP said shooting the great escape scene
50:12
check this out. Wasn't that hard.
50:14
I disagree. Looks.
50:15
Really hard, Yeah, I disagree. Robert DiCaprio addressed in
50:19
copies of the same clothes McQueen wore and the shot
50:22
against the green screen. He said the biggest challenge
50:24
was making sure that the shot was the same height and that the
50:26
light and match perfectly. And the visual effects team,
50:30
they had to remove McQueen from the original footage and
50:32
composite to Caprio on top, which took months apparently,
50:35
and then grade the footage. Looks the same exactly it looks.
50:37
Great, doesn't it? Yeah, it looks amazing.
50:40
Do you know who the effect? Supervisor was and Once Upon a
50:42
time in Hollywood, I don't. Not fortunately.
50:45
It was John. Dykstra, 2 time Oscar winner,
50:48
supervisor on the original Star Wars.
50:50
All right, yes. So he knows a thing or two.
50:52
Yes, he does. He does tie.
50:53
Fighters in there, it would be amazing a.
50:55
Couple years later in The Empire Strikes Back, as you would
51:01
Richardson. That was quite hard actually.
51:06
And Rick is also based on Western TV stars who lost out in
51:09
the change to New Hollywood. Ralph Meeker, he was a talented
51:13
TV actor. He got left behind in this
51:14
change. And Pete Ewell, who was an
51:17
alias, Smith and Jones, but he was a bipolar alcoholic who
51:20
committed suicide, sadly. Oh, really?
51:22
And Tarantino said DiCaprio took aspects of both of them to play
51:25
Rick and said if Rick was offered deliverance, he would
51:28
have turned it down. Yeah.
51:31
I mean, I don't. Blame him.
51:33
Yeah, Ned beat his part. No thanks.
51:36
Skip that. Reynolds.
51:38
Yeah, go. On then.
51:40
To his performance. As Rick Leonardo DiCaprio was
51:43
nominated for Best actor at the Oscars but lost out to any
51:46
tigers, Joaquin. Phoenix Joker.
51:49
Joker. It was Joaquin.
51:51
Phoenix for Joker as far as we're concerned, though,
51:54
DiCaprio was Rick. Hilarious at times,
51:56
heartbreaking at others. Pretty good stuff from Leo, one
51:59
of his. Best.
52:00
Yeah, in hindsight, absolutely perfect, really.
52:05
The second male lead is Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, Rickston,
52:09
double driver and all round handyman, where with Cliff as he
52:12
fixes Rick's TV antenna, has a scrap with Bruce Lee and then
52:15
another with the Manson Family. As you do, as you do.
52:19
He's a good friend though, isn't he?
52:21
Map sure is he tries. He tries.
52:24
How's Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth? I just don't think.
52:27
He's ever had an easier gig in his life as he Brad.
52:30
Will you turn up and just be yourself to be the coolest
52:32
person around? Yeah, sure.
52:34
That's fine. I can do that.
52:35
Like he just brings that natural aura of cool that he has and
52:39
it's the interesting contrast. Rick is the movie star, but he
52:42
has no movie star Christmas. He's a bag of nerves shredded by
52:45
self doubt. Cliff is the guy in the
52:47
background. Nobody knows him, but he's got
52:50
all the confidence in the world and nothing fears him.
52:54
But he brings an edge to the performance as well.
52:56
Underneath it all, underneath all the good humour, underneath
52:58
all the Palin around with Rick, all the dependability that he
53:01
brings, there's that sense of he shouldn't push this guy.
53:04
The mystery of what happened to his wife, possibly made-up story
53:08
fighting with Bruce Lee. And even if it's not true, the
53:11
aura that Pitt brings means you believe it anywhere that it
53:14
could happen. And it means that when he erupts
53:17
at the end of the Madison family, you absolutely believe
53:19
he has it in him to face them all down.
53:21
He can face anybody down. I think it's just tailor made
53:24
for Brad Pitt. I think he's really, really
53:25
great. Very watchable, very funny, very
53:28
charming. I think I.
53:29
Think Tarantino was always hard talent for writing double acts
53:31
in his movies? Vincent, Jules, Clarence and
53:34
Alabama, Django and King Schultz all great.
53:36
Yeah, And Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth are right up there,
53:39
definitely. There's 2 friends.
53:41
Who care about each other are totally by it.
53:43
I don't doubt for a second that Cliff would defend Rick and his
53:45
wife from the Manson family. Yeah, I don't doubt that Rick
53:48
would grow was really a Cliff of roll on a set or defend him
53:50
against rumors about killing his wife.
53:52
But what's great is how that all works when they couldn't be more
53:55
different. Rick spending his life
53:57
pretending to be the guy that Cliff actually is to get people
54:00
to care about him. Yeah.
54:01
But nobody cares about Cliff, which is really interesting.
54:04
Yeah. Yeah.
54:05
And Rick seems to have a costume change every scene.
54:07
Cliff, double denim and then that champion T-shirt with the
54:10
Hawaiian shirt. That's all he wears.
54:12
Yeah. And then just white.
54:13
Denim at the end, isn't it? Yeah, and.
54:16
Unlike Rick, Cliff doesn't change one iota.
54:19
At the start Marvin calls him a good friend and Cliff says I
54:22
try. Then at the end Rick says you
54:24
are a good friend and Cliff says I try.
54:26
No growth, no ark, just Cliff. And I think that's why we.
54:31
Like him, just Cliff, it's quite nice to see somebody who was
54:33
just happy with his lot. That's kind of the whole point,
54:35
isn't it? To be content?
54:37
Yeah, I think so, yeah. And Cliff is.
54:39
Definitely that and Brad Pitt. I've said this before about him,
54:41
but I think he's a better supporting actor than he is a
54:44
lead sometimes and this kind of backs that up for me.
54:46
Great chemistry with DiCaprio. He pulls off that double denim
54:49
without breaking a swear and that kind of loose devil may
54:52
care Stoner vibe. He does that great.
54:55
Cliff's like an older version of Floyd from True Romance and my
54:58
favorite pit performance in anything.
55:01
Oh wow. It's certainly up.
55:02
There for me. I mean, he's just having lots of
55:04
fun sitting in the sidecar here, isn't?
55:07
He it seems like Robin. 'S got the lead role in Cliff is
55:09
Batman, but he's just not. He's just.
55:13
Happy to be. Bruce Wayne for a little bit,
55:14
he's just retired and there's a lot of talk as well.
55:17
Whenever we talk about this film, there's always been these
55:19
discussions of like, what if you swap them round?
55:21
So I think they probably would be able to pull it off, but I
55:24
don't think it would have the dynamic that it's got because
55:27
they really do. We need each other to reinforce
55:30
each other's characters. And I think they did that in
55:32
real life. I think they used that when they
55:34
were acting off each other. They used elements of it.
55:36
Like we've said, you know, you're Rick fucking Dalton was
55:38
oddly, we're putting that in. We need to put this in.
55:40
We need to put this in. And I think they they were just
55:43
so close outside of the film, which developed the relationship
55:47
inside the film. And I think it really works.
55:50
He's fantastic as a stuntman, very believable.
55:53
Love of the way he gets on that fucking roof.
55:55
It's great. What's the sound effects are
55:57
like? Doesn't need to take.
56:01
His top off, but I'm happy that he does.
56:03
That's wonderful. Why not?
56:05
You know it's eye candy for. Everybody, it's just fine.
56:07
Just enjoy it. Gloves on.
56:09
Lighten a cigarette with it and then you get that great
56:11
flashback. He's just, again, he's got
56:13
nothing to prove, nobody to Panda do.
56:16
He's happy in his trailer. He's happy with his dog and he
56:19
just cares about raking. He cares about Branny, and I
56:21
think that's about it. You realize at the end that the
56:23
relationship's over and the splitting up and they're just
56:25
going to have one more drink and I'm going to have one more
56:28
party, and that's the only way to say goodbye.
56:30
It's pretty heartbreaking. But then you realize in that
56:34
goodbye, there's actually a new start and that you'll see him
56:37
again tomorrow. Bring bagels.
56:38
It's all he's bothered about. And he just sells.
56:41
It, I mean, we spoke about, you know, the other films that he's
56:44
done, but he's kind of steered away from that real serious down
56:48
the line, 12 Years a Slave kind of thing and just went, look,
56:52
I'm doing this because I'm having a lot of fun now.
56:54
And I think this is the first time we've seen Brad Pitt as
56:57
Brad Pitt having fun as Brad Pitt.
56:59
You see electric on screening is fantastic.
57:01
So perfect, perfect combination with the character.
57:04
I think they're both absolutely fantastic together and I want to
57:07
see more. We never will, but I want to see
57:09
more. Yeah, I'd love to.
57:10
Well, Brad Pitt and Cutie had work together, of course, on
57:12
Inglourious Basterds. We've talked all about that.
57:15
So get stuck into it. Yeah.
57:16
Yes, we have. And he was first.
57:18
Choice to play a Cliff apparently though Pitch said no
57:21
at 1st and Tarantino discussed the part with somebody else.
57:24
Wow, do you know who that was? Not a clue.
57:26
Can't imagine who would be well get.
57:28
This it was Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise.
57:30
Wow, how? Would that have been we're
57:32
taking them 40? 5 minutes to get on that fucking
57:34
roof. To be honest, I.
57:38
Mean it would have worked if it was Tom Cruise, because Quentin
57:41
Tarantino knows what he's doing. So what does Cruise?
57:43
Yeah, they both do. We could just go.
57:45
Eh, what's John Travolta doing in Pulp Fiction?
57:48
Well, you'll see, you know, he knows what he's doing.
57:50
I'd love to see. Cruz in the Tarantino film.
57:52
I would, yeah. I would have loved to have seen.
57:54
That as like a film within a film.
57:56
Like Cruz was the stuntman on bounty law.
57:58
Yeah, yeah. That would have been awesome
58:01
because like Cliff. Broke his leg or something so he
58:03
had to have a stand in. Something like that really would
58:05
have worked. But yeah, we shall see.
58:06
Maybe next time. Well.
58:08
Changed his mind a few months later, apparently.
58:10
So we do get the Leo and Bradshaw, which turned out
58:12
pretty well didn't. That's good.
58:14
Very much, yeah. And.
58:15
Tarantino said that a few years before making the film, he'd
58:18
been making another movie, and one of his actors asked him if
58:21
he could get a part for my guy. And his guy turned out to be
58:24
somebody who was once a stunt double, but now his personal
58:27
assistant. And Tarantino knew the stories
58:30
about Steve McQueen being close with his stunt double.
58:33
But Eakins and Burt Reynolds being close with Hal Needham and
58:36
he thought if I ever make a movie about making movies, that
58:39
relationship could be a unique win.
58:41
And it was. Yeah, Buddy King's did the
58:44
famous motorcycle jump on The Great Escape, didn't he?
58:46
Did, yeah. Yeah.
58:47
And. Hal Needham on with Reynolds as
58:49
well. Was that not a documentary that
58:50
came out like called Bandit? Yeah.
58:52
And came out of 2016. You would have seen that before
58:54
this? Maybe.
58:55
Possibly. Yeah.
58:55
Well. He was on Smoking the Bandit.
58:57
Yeah, yeah. He broke 56 bones and broke his
59:00
back twice in his career. Hal Needham, apparently.
59:02
Wow. Dedication there.
59:05
So Avan, I've not even a stuntman.
59:08
Well, yeah, McQueen. 'S all over this.
59:10
And that's not the last time I mentioned Burt Reynolds either,
59:12
right? For.
59:14
His performance as Cliff, Brad Pitt was nominated for best
59:16
Supporting Actor at the Oscars and won, beating out heavy
59:20
hitters like Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino.
59:23
Wow. And for us, Brad Pitt is very
59:26
well cast as Cliff. Oh yeah, the.
59:27
Best supporting actor in every single way.
59:33
The final cast member we're discussing in depth is Margot
59:36
Robbie, who plays Sharon Tate, a rising star in Hollywood
59:40
shifting world. We follow Sharon's story as she
59:42
embraces her newfound lifestyle and fame, and thankfully turned
59:46
out to be just fine at the end. Yeah, the girl from Valley of
59:50
the Dolls W Tate. Yes.
59:51
How was Sharon Tate and Margot Robbie playing her?
59:53
Which one is she in? Valley of the Dolls.
59:58
The one the dead, dirty. Movies the dead dirty movies
1:00:00
yeah, stop by the. Posters don't know who you are.
1:00:02
I think she's just an absolute joy in this.
1:00:04
And Margot Robbie for me, is in no way a negative actress.
1:00:07
She never brings anything negative to a role which is just
1:00:10
this real positive light. She's just has this real
1:00:13
charisma and a real like sense of self worth which she brings
1:00:17
to Sharon's life. And I think it's a celebration
1:00:19
of our life, not spotlight on a death.
1:00:23
And I think that's really important for Margot Robbie to
1:00:25
portray that and not but little it in any way.
1:00:29
I think when she's watching Tate on the screen, it's just a
1:00:32
really wonderful moment. It's really emotional because it
1:00:35
maybe she did that and have that recognition, that reassurance
1:00:40
from strangers and she just walks out beaming.
1:00:43
Even just the little lines of dialogue, even when she's
1:00:45
because she's just so caring, brings people in and every time
1:00:49
somebody turns up, she's happy to see them.
1:00:50
She's just this ray of light. She's this ray of sunshine.
1:00:53
She's got such a warmth. Gives the hitchhiker.
1:00:55
A lift, yeah, And they. 'D hug each other.
1:00:58
Yeah. Good looking Big Sur.
1:00:59
And it's like, good looking your adventures.
1:01:01
And then she goes one way, the hitchhiker goes another.
1:01:03
She's just not a problem with that whatsoever.
1:01:05
Yeah. And Robbie absolutely nails
1:01:07
that. She shines without it being over
1:01:09
the top. She's not fighting for any
1:01:10
screen time. There's no pretensions here.
1:01:13
There's nothing where she's saying I'm an overcoming actress
1:01:15
and I want this and I want that and I want to be part of this
1:01:17
and would it be good of this? I don't think she brought
1:01:19
anything to Tarantino and said Michelle would do this.
1:01:22
She's just read it on the page and went, I can do that, Yeah.
1:01:25
But what she's done is she. Brings more to it with a
1:01:28
character and with a style. Even just walking down the
1:01:31
street, she looks great. It's a joy.
1:01:33
It's just perfectly done. The character is perfectly
1:01:36
portrayed and every single scene just has this consistent bar and
1:01:39
it's consistently high with limited screen time.
1:01:42
She absolutely shines and she's incredibly memorable as the
1:01:44
character. Yeah, a bit.
1:01:46
Similar to how I undervalued DiCaprio the first time I saw
1:01:49
this film. I think I did the same with
1:01:50
Margot Robbie. Yeah.
1:01:51
Mainly because thinking I knew what was coming, she wasn't in a
1:01:54
quite as much as I expected. Yeah.
1:01:56
Did you distance? Yourself from her when you were
1:01:57
first watching it called. Yeah, like I don't really want
1:01:59
to get involved with her because this is going to be a
1:02:01
heartbreak. Yeah, I think you're probably.
1:02:02
Right. Yeah, I think I probably did.
1:02:03
Now. I think she's really good.
1:02:05
Yeah. I mean, Sharon doesn't have a
1:02:06
huge role in terms of driving the plot.
1:02:07
She is secondary to the main narrative going on her own Rick,
1:02:10
then Cliff. What I like, though, in both the
1:02:12
writing and the acting, is that it's very respectful to the real
1:02:16
Sharon Tate and that it does present here positively in
1:02:19
pretty much everywhere. Yeah, I think where Rick
1:02:21
represents the jaded, kind of tired part of Hollywood, what
1:02:24
the industry does to people, that it's worst, Sharon
1:02:27
represents what it does at it's best.
1:02:28
She's like the dream factory personified.
1:02:31
I think Tarantino uses her to represent what's good about
1:02:33
Hollywood, but it's also saying specifically about Sharon Tate.
1:02:37
Look at what we lost. Yeah.
1:02:38
I saw an interview with Robbie where she said that when she did
1:02:40
research into the real Sharon, it became obvious that she was
1:02:43
an Angel on this earth, as she called her.
1:02:46
And that comes across Sharon's like, a beacon of light for
1:02:49
everyone around her. She's like the poor stuff on the
1:02:51
thing, just light radiating from her.
1:02:55
And who better to play a rising movie star than Margot Robbie at
1:02:57
that time? But her best acting performance,
1:02:59
maybe, but it's not that kind of role.
1:03:01
It's a role for a movie star. She has to exude charisma and
1:03:04
look great without saying much. And she does.
1:03:07
And you know someone's good looking when they can put on
1:03:09
those huge jam jaw specs Sharon does in the cinema.
1:03:12
They still look good. She's the.
1:03:14
Only. Person with absolutely manky
1:03:15
feet, I would let them put up in the cinema.
1:03:17
That's the only person anyone else but God's green earth is
1:03:21
out the. Door.
1:03:22
It will be disgusting, I think. Tears is very deliberately
1:03:26
written here by Tarantino in the sense that no, she doesn't have
1:03:28
any kind of Arc, not even that much of A character, to be
1:03:31
honest. And I know that's a problem for
1:03:33
some people, and I understand it.
1:03:34
But the point is, Sharon Tate represents something more than
1:03:38
herself here. She represents all the joy in
1:03:41
the world and all the innocence of the time that sadly got
1:03:43
ripped away. So in that respect, and we all
1:03:45
know Robbie is a very gifted actress and she's capable of
1:03:48
outstanding performances. All you need for Robbie is for
1:03:51
her to exemplify that. And it's not just because of,
1:03:54
you know, the way she looks, but she has such an innocence to it
1:03:57
as well. Like so many scenes in this, She
1:04:00
literally just dances through the scenes because she's just
1:04:03
filled with Joy, Dev, Eve. And there's so many moments
1:04:05
where she's just beaming from E&E because she's so happy.
1:04:08
And that's the point. The film doesn't need an in
1:04:11
depth exploration of what Ted was like as a person.
1:04:14
It's what she represents, and Robbie represents it perfectly.
1:04:19
Yeah, it's that. Lifestyle, isn't it?
1:04:20
Without sounding derogatory, what she's got to work with here
1:04:23
is a music video performance. Yeah, that's it.
1:04:26
You're in a music video, basically, and you've got to do
1:04:28
all of this with a couple of lines of dialogue, but you make
1:04:30
it seem. Much more than that, doesn't
1:04:31
she? Course she does.
1:04:32
She does. She's great.
1:04:33
She's really great in this amazing performance.
1:04:35
And Tarantino said that when he was writing the script, he was
1:04:37
only thinking of Sharon Tate and not about which actress might
1:04:41
play specifically. But just about the time you
1:04:43
finished the script, he received a letter from Margot Robbie
1:04:46
telling him she's a huge fan and would love to work with them one
1:04:49
day. He said it was kismet, Yeah.
1:04:52
Well, I thought that Margot Robbie heard he was casting a
1:04:54
film starring a young blonde beauty and thought fancy my
1:04:57
chances. He had to be honest.
1:04:59
I'll give this a bash. Why though?
1:05:02
And out of respect for the tiered family, Tarantino
1:05:04
contacted Sharon's younger sister, Deborah, to let her know
1:05:07
he was making a film with Sharon as a main character.
1:05:10
And Deborah said, understandably, she didn't like
1:05:12
the idea at the time. Until she met with Tarantino and
1:05:15
spent time with Robbie and she realized Sharon was in good
1:05:18
hands and she even lawned them some of Sharon's jewelry and
1:05:21
Robbie Warwick when filming the play by mansion scene.
1:05:24
Wow. Tarantino didn't contact Roman
1:05:26
Plantsley directly, understandably, but allowed a
1:05:29
representative of his to read the script to let him know he
1:05:32
had nothing to worry about, right?
1:05:34
Yeah, Deborah here. Was only 16 when Sharon was
1:05:36
killed, right? And she was on the set for a lot
1:05:38
of filming, apparently. I mean, 50 years and she'd seen
1:05:41
her sister. I can't even imagine how that
1:05:43
must have felt. Yeah, but yeah, I don't blame
1:05:45
Guarantino for not contacting Polanski directly though.
1:05:47
Right kind of worms. I would have just said.
1:05:52
Like it one of the skywriter or something, Nothing to worry
1:05:55
about. You have no dialogue.
1:05:58
Don't worry. You throw a ball for a.
1:06:00
Dog at some point, that's it. Margot Robbie.
1:06:04
Was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars
1:06:06
that year, but it wasn't for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
1:06:09
It was for Bombshell, if you recall that.
1:06:12
Oh yeah, right. Oh yeah, yeah.
1:06:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah though as Sharon.
1:06:15
T8 We think Margo Robbie puts in a very good supporting turn and
1:06:18
captures the spirit of something Hollywood lost maybe definitely
1:06:21
does more than. Necessary really absolutely
1:06:24
shines, so that is the. Holy Trinity of our main cast.
1:06:27
We've talked about Al Pacino already, and we'll be talking
1:06:29
more about the huge supporting cast as well.
1:06:31
But in our leads, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot
1:06:35
Robbie, 3 performances that complement each other and the
1:06:38
film very well. That's really.
1:06:40
Well, yeah, all the right. Movies will be back shortly.
1:06:50
Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode.
1:06:52
Sponsors. Thanks for listening to.
1:06:57
Our sponsors. Now back to the show.
1:07:03
The middle heading into the middle.
1:07:07
Active Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and things are
1:07:09
starting to take shape. We're going to be looking at the
1:07:12
scenes and ricks and Dicks on the center of TV Western Lancer.
1:07:16
But first, it's more from Cliff and Sharon.
1:07:19
Yeah, Yes, it is. So having.
1:07:20
Established our main characters and their struggles.
1:07:22
We get two big scenes almost back-to-back.
1:07:25
Yeah. We join Sharon as she visits the
1:07:26
cinema to watch her new film The Wrecking Crew.
1:07:29
But not before Cliff has a memorable running on the set of
1:07:31
the Green Hornet with a martial arts movie legend.
1:07:35
Yeah, Westie, which would you prefer?
1:07:36
A trip to the Brewing Theatre or a fight with Bruce Lee Theatre
1:07:39
please. I'm not clipping.
1:07:44
How would you get on with them? I mean it's.
1:07:46
Wonderful, isn't it? What a great scene this is.
1:07:49
What did you do to my fucking cat?
1:07:54
That's great. Brilliant.
1:07:55
We'll get there. That's all I think about when I
1:07:57
think of this whole secret. So.
1:07:59
For me. I totally forget that this is
1:08:01
one shot for the most part. Yeah.
1:08:03
Yeah, it's one continuous shot up until he gets thrown into the
1:08:06
car. Yeah.
1:08:07
Which is good because Pit disappears and obviously the
1:08:09
real stuntman comes in to grab Mike Moore and throw him off the
1:08:12
screen. But up until that point, I mean,
1:08:15
there's a lot of pressure on everybody and it's unnecessary
1:08:18
pressure because it doesn't need to be one shot.
1:08:20
It doesn't need to. Between it doesn't.
1:08:22
Need all this. It doesn't need this
1:08:24
extravagance, but you just don't realise how extravagant this
1:08:26
shot is and I think it's a really impressive performance
1:08:29
from Mike Mono. There's a bit of controversy
1:08:31
around it. The real take away from me
1:08:33
watching this again is the dialogue back and forth is
1:08:35
fucking hilarious. It's called manslaughter.
1:08:38
Anyone kills anyone? That's.
1:08:40
Fucking brilliant. And Kurt Russell and Zoe Bell
1:08:42
are absolutely wonderful in this.
1:08:44
It's just just great. They will fucking deal with it,
1:08:46
Randy. It's fucking excellent.
1:08:48
And he's like, whoa. And what I've got to think about
1:08:52
this is like the controversy surrounded it is like, right,
1:08:54
OK, fair enough. But it's a flashback, yeah.
1:08:57
It. Exists in Cliff's memory of it.
1:08:59
So Cliff doesn't like Bruce Lee, so he's going to exaggerate how
1:09:03
much of a Dick he thinks he is and the fact that the whole
1:09:06
film's a fairy tale anyway, this is a flashback of a fairy tale.
1:09:10
So to try and take this seriously and go, he's totally
1:09:13
misrepresenting this since memory misrepresenting that it's
1:09:15
not, it's just a stuntman. I'm going to fight with Bruce
1:09:18
Lee, but in his head he's a bit of a Dick, so he's embellished
1:09:21
it. And I think you look at the way
1:09:23
Lee's portrayed in Sharon's flashback when he's teaching her
1:09:26
very differently. Yeah, Yeah.
1:09:27
That how that's. Crosscut and he's wonderful in
1:09:29
that very, very differently done.
1:09:31
I mean, Cutie's talked about this.
1:09:32
It's like he just goes look, my fucking hell.
1:09:34
That's the whole point. But this scene for me is an
1:09:37
absolute standout. I think it's pit is wonderful.
1:09:40
Everybody matches him. That's pure direction from
1:09:43
Tarantino. Everyone in the background is
1:09:45
not wasted. The smoke when they need do, the
1:09:47
look when they need do the react when they need do.
1:09:49
It's just a wonderful scene. I mean, considering what
1:09:52
happened in the climax, it's pretty surprising.
1:09:54
This is going to be probably the most controversial scene
1:09:57
portrait. I do get that because he is
1:10:00
portrayed as a bit of a loudmouth who can't back his
1:10:02
words up. But the quality of the
1:10:03
filmmaking, it's kind of beyond question, I think.
1:10:06
I think Mike Moore, who plays Bruce Lee is really good.
1:10:08
He's really good. He's clearly got the moves.
1:10:10
His line deliveries good where he's like, my hands are
1:10:13
registered as lethal weapons is quite funny.
1:10:15
Yeah. And the 1st 2 minutes being one
1:10:17
shot is really good. The whip pans between Cliff and
1:10:19
Bruce's are talking to each other.
1:10:21
We get close-ups, mid shot, slow zooms, all in one shot.
1:10:24
And I agree, Wesley, this is probably the best I've seen Zoe
1:10:26
Bell as Janet when she comes in ranting and raving a Cliff.
1:10:30
Get your shit and get fuck fuck. Get off the lot it.
1:10:36
Is a divisive. Scene I know the points to said
1:10:38
Cliff up was a great fighter for later on I also wish Bruce Lee
1:10:41
came across a little bit better and if he had this would have
1:10:44
been definitely up there as one of the best scenes in the film
1:10:46
yeah so we've talked about. Mike Moore.
1:10:48
And he was a Taekwondo, a black belt, an actor.
1:10:50
And he'd actually auditioned to play Bruce Lee several times
1:10:53
before for other productions, but it always been rejected.
1:10:57
Tarantino auditioned him several times and said he was impressed
1:10:59
with how much more knew about Bruce Lee.
1:11:02
So he ended up getting the part Nice.
1:11:04
He played. Ryu in a web series version of
1:11:07
Street Fighter as well. Mike Moore, right?
1:11:10
Should have got a fireball in there on Cliff.
1:11:14
Wins third, Chad. Yeah, after the.
1:11:16
Film came out. Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon
1:11:18
Lee criticized how her dad was portrayed in the film.
1:11:20
She said Bruce would have avoided fights in real life, and
1:11:23
the film makes Amount to be an arrogant asshole who was full of
1:11:25
hot air and perpetuated the Hollywood image of her dad as a
1:11:29
stereotype. Yeah, I mean, from her point of
1:11:32
view, I do see what she means. Yeah, although Tarantino
1:11:34
released a novelization a couple of years after the film came
1:11:37
out, and apparently in that, Bruce comes across a lot better,
1:11:40
right? It's made clear that Cliff can
1:11:42
fight, but it's no match for Bruce Lee.
1:11:44
Okay. That's probably the.
1:11:45
Version out of prefer to see in the film, I think.
1:11:47
To be honest, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:11:50
Well, what do? We think of Cliffs with a memory
1:11:52
on the board. Did Cliff kill his wife?
1:11:54
I. Love that ambiguity of it
1:11:56
because I might be wrong. I'm obviously no expert, but the
1:11:59
harpoon gun that he's coming, it doesn't look loaded, right?
1:12:02
So I don't know what. The suggestion is there, and
1:12:04
then you hear the sound of the way of hitting the board.
1:12:07
So it's left up to our imagination what did happen.
1:12:09
But on that, Tarantino did write a whole chapter of a book,
1:12:13
obviously, because he did. Because he did called.
1:12:15
Misadventure. That experience, what happened
1:12:17
on the board, and he gave it a Brad Pitt to read.
1:12:20
But he said he'll never tell anybody else the truth.
1:12:23
Yeah, I think I prefer it left mysterious.
1:12:24
Yeah, miles better. Yeah, another thing without
1:12:26
harpoon as well, if it just cut from that and then cut a yellow
1:12:29
barrel. That would have been great for
1:12:37
me, that scene. On the board, it's already kind
1:12:39
of reminiscent of the whole Natalie board tragedy.
1:12:42
Yeah. And then Cliff's wife says her
1:12:43
sister is called Natalie, which I suspect isn't a coincidence.
1:12:47
Apparently it was the actress just came up with Natalie just
1:12:50
randomly. Oh, did she really?
1:12:51
Wow. Yeah, Tarantino said that.
1:12:53
And he said it just she just said Natalie.
1:12:55
Don't quite know why she said it.
1:12:56
Oh wow. I thought it was a game drop.
1:12:58
No, it wasn't. Apparently.
1:12:59
All right. Cool.
1:13:00
So the other scene. Before going on here, which is
1:13:03
Sharon Cohen in the cinema, it's such a sweet scene.
1:13:06
Yeah. Like, it's hard to believe it
1:13:07
comes in a Tarantino film. It's that nice.
1:13:10
I love the fact she's not being a Dick about trying to get a
1:13:12
freebie here. She's not pulling the hole.
1:13:14
Don't you know who I am? I can tell you she's been really
1:13:17
nice about it. And I think that's one of the
1:13:19
most important elements of the film that Sharon is, as Robbie
1:13:23
kind of said, she's practically a St.
1:13:25
And when you watch her watching herself just beaming and so
1:13:28
proud of what she's done being up on screen and how delighted
1:13:31
she is to hear the audience laughing at her slapstick, it's
1:13:34
such a charming moment for her. But what I think is really
1:13:37
important is that's the real Sharon Tate where you're
1:13:39
watching up there. Yeah.
1:13:41
Genuinely love the fact that Tarantino respected her memory
1:13:43
enough to not have Robbie recreate the Wrecking Crew
1:13:47
because they could have done like they did with The Great
1:13:48
Escape, but they didn't play it the real thing instead.
1:13:50
So decades after those horrific events, Sharon take and still
1:13:54
have a moment to shine. I actually find it quite move in
1:13:57
that decision and it doesn't bother me one bit that it's
1:14:00
clearly not more go Robbie up there.
1:14:02
It's just far more important than Sharon did, gets more than
1:14:05
her legacy is just, you know, a victim of a murder, and she gets
1:14:08
a moment to shine here. I think that's really important
1:14:11
in one of the most respectful things Tantino could have done
1:14:13
in the whole film, I think people.
1:14:14
Forget she was an actress because of what happened.
1:14:17
I think people do. Yeah, he's reinforcing.
1:14:18
That like, you know, she was a talent and yeah, the innocence
1:14:21
from Robbie in this whole sequence is fantastic.
1:14:23
Like a child. Can I please get in?
1:14:25
Is it OK? Yeah, it's.
1:14:26
Like a little short kind of from nowhere.
1:14:29
And it is the most joyous part of the film.
1:14:31
We said earlier that Sharon kind of represents Hollywood at its
1:14:33
best. And this is that moment,
1:14:35
beautifully shot when we're watching Sharon watching
1:14:37
herself. And it is quite sweet when she
1:14:39
wants to get in for free just because she's in the film, just
1:14:41
because she wants to be trapped. Like she's famous.
1:14:43
That's what it's about. And she just like a Bond girl,
1:14:46
like when she starts mimicking the martial arts moves as well
1:14:48
that she's learning. Yeah, it's great.
1:14:51
And you're right, Matt is. A classy torch.
1:14:52
How they don't replace Sharon Tay with Margot Robbie in the
1:14:54
Wrecking crew. I mean, we lost the whole
1:14:56
Hollywood career. We don't need her raise from
1:14:58
what would you actually have as well exactly?
1:15:00
Not quite as classy a touch feet out on the chair.
1:15:04
Obviously. Tarantino's favorite.
1:15:06
Really dirty Yep. Converse.
1:15:08
Is sick honey? Although this might not be as
1:15:10
odd as it seems, Deborah Tate said that the real Sharon would
1:15:13
go everywhere she could, barefoot.
1:15:14
Like even to restaurants and going out places like that.
1:15:17
So this apparently is a pretty accurate portrayal.
1:15:19
Because our feet were dirty. That's the inspiration.
1:15:22
For the whole film. Exactly.
1:15:24
Yeah, about time you couldn't believe his look.
1:15:26
You heard that He's. Like, right, okay, so there's a
1:15:28
stuntman and an actor. Tarantino said the inspiration
1:15:34
for the scene came from something that had happened to
1:15:36
him years earlier at the same place, the Fox Brewing Theatre.
1:15:40
After True Romance came out, Tarantino was on a date in the
1:15:43
went to the cinema. He told the manager he'd written
1:15:45
the film, but the manager didn't believe him.
1:15:47
I mean, why would you? His death thought started
1:15:49
backing him up and some other people recognized him and asked
1:15:52
for their pictures with him. Right?
1:15:53
Nice. Yeah, probably.
1:15:55
The man just said, who are all these people coming round?
1:15:57
And Tarantino's date was like, they're all his fans.
1:16:00
I'll say you're more than a date, isn't it?
1:16:02
That's amazing that, I mean, Reservoir Dogs would have been
1:16:06
out then as well, so a cinema manager in LA should probably
1:16:09
have known who he was, yeah. Yeah, probably.
1:16:11
Yeah, yeah, to be fair, wouldn't have been a problem.
1:16:13
With Born Cinema with you guys, would it?
1:16:15
No, we let anyone. In anyway too much effort to.
1:16:18
Argue that's get in man fine. There's another scene.
1:16:21
Around this time where Sharon goes to a bookstore and buys
1:16:24
Thomas Hardy's Test of the Durbivals as a gift for Roman
1:16:26
Polanski in real life, Sharon Tate bought Polanski the book
1:16:30
and told him it would make a great movie and she wanted to
1:16:32
star in it. In 1979, he directed Tess
1:16:35
dedicated to Sharon. Yeah, that was apparently the
1:16:38
last time Polanski saw her alive, when she gave him that
1:16:41
book. Oh, really?
1:16:42
Wow, so. A couple of big Hollywood scenes
1:16:44
there, showing different sides of Tinseltown martial arts in
1:16:47
one feet out in the other. So both very Tarantino.
1:16:52
Hand in hand. Both things.
1:16:55
With Cliff having a. Shown with his physical prowess
1:16:57
and showering her love of life, we're back to Rick and the set
1:17:00
of TV Western Lancer cast as a villainous cowboy.
1:17:04
Caleb Descartes 2. Rick goes through the whole
1:17:07
gamut and was struggling with his lines, having a trailer
1:17:09
meltdown, being told what's what by an 8 year old, then
1:17:13
delivering a performance for the ages.
1:17:15
Amazing. He has quite the time.
1:17:16
West Ape he does. How's this all go for you?
1:17:19
Descartes 2. The one I'll go straight for
1:17:24
when he forgets his lines. I love the way that it's just
1:17:28
set and you've got the camera set and you've got position 1
1:17:31
and you know where you're going with it.
1:17:32
And when he messes it up, it's just at the right time.
1:17:36
It's exactly where you don't expect it to happen.
1:17:39
And I'm pretty sure that was down DiCaprio.
1:17:41
But the me favorite thing from this is how honey he is, how he
1:17:44
over plays it, how he's the heavy, how he's just, you know,
1:17:48
he forgets the line and then repeats the line back and then
1:17:51
he said player can't pick it hard out.
1:17:57
So. Frustrating with himself, it's
1:17:59
just the way he's just leans on the table.
1:18:00
He's just trying to win pause on the scene.
1:18:03
But my absolute favorite from this I think came from Robert
1:18:05
Richardson, whether just the reset the track and the track
1:18:09
comes around past Elephant and stops and they can't really he
1:18:13
loses it and they're like right, OK, yeah, let's go again
1:18:15
position 1 and it comes back and added that squeak in post
1:18:18
because the tracks not supposed to go that way kind.
1:18:21
Of squeaks on the. Way back, which is hilarious.
1:18:24
Nice. I think it was the editor who
1:18:25
suggested let's just put a little squeak on the track.
1:18:27
It's like a sigh from the machinery.
1:18:29
It's like the sigh from the camera.
1:18:31
Go on. If I go to start again,
1:18:33
wonderful performance here. As we've said, this is DiCaprio
1:18:36
acting badly, but really well. It's just endlessly watchable
1:18:42
this sequence. It's great, great.
1:18:44
And how good does? Lancer look, it was great.
1:18:47
It's great. Yes, that's right.
1:18:49
You talking? About West here, the saloon
1:18:50
table where the camera moves around the back of Johnny
1:18:52
Madrid, the shore. Caleb, what a shot that is.
1:18:54
Yeah, it's great. And DiCaprio is.
1:18:56
Incredible where he's like, I ain't going to hurt her.
1:18:59
I just want her to play the film.
1:19:01
How good that delivery? Great, but then Rick forgets.
1:19:04
His line and DiCaprio has to snap back the stuttering, Rick
1:19:06
asking for help and then back to Rick being Caleb, but not as
1:19:09
good because he's kind of lost his confidence, starts
1:19:11
overacting his ass off. He's whooping like Rick Flair
1:19:14
and then right in his face. It's hilarious.
1:19:17
He does all that so well. DiCaprio, you almost don't
1:19:20
notice how good he is. Yeah.
1:19:21
And then following this, you get the scene of Rick Few.
1:19:24
You sit himself in the trailer, which I think is just such a
1:19:27
funny scene. The edits are great, jumping
1:19:29
about and I just think is the bit of art imitating life here.
1:19:33
Has DiCaprio seen someone do that or done it himself?
1:19:36
Possibly. Imagine.
1:19:37
It's very plausible. And let's face it, we've all
1:19:39
been there to some degree. We've all drank, ate whiskey
1:19:42
sours, done something stupid and then been raging at ourselves
1:19:45
the next morning. It's the way he.
1:19:46
Talks to himself? Yeah.
1:19:48
How many? Times did he?
1:19:49
You couldn't just stop at four? Yeah, I'm fucking, you're a
1:19:52
fucking, you're a fucking miserable drunk.
1:19:54
So brilliant. Yeah, we always.
1:19:55
Have a break in the middle of our episodes, don't we?
1:19:57
Yeah, Westie always mutes his mic and turns his camera off,
1:20:00
and I always imagine this is what's going on on the other
1:20:02
side. But you gotta let yourself down.
1:20:05
For all those God damn people. I look at myself.
1:20:10
In the mirror, I'm like, if you don't nail that ranking, I'm
1:20:12
gonna blow your fucking head off in the pool.
1:20:15
But DiCaprio is. Fantastic again when he's like,
1:20:18
make himself a promise he going to quit drinking, then straight
1:20:20
in with the snifter. So funny.
1:20:23
But not just the acting. The editor Fred Ruskin deserves.
1:20:25
I mentioned the jump cuts are like dynamite.
1:20:27
Yeah. Definitely elevated what I've
1:20:29
seen. Yeah, and this.
1:20:31
Whole idea of Rick forgetting his lines.
1:20:33
It wasn't in the original script, DiCaprio suggested to
1:20:36
Tarantino, and he initially wasn't sure because he'd written
1:20:39
a Lancer to be a film within a film, but he did agree and
1:20:42
because there was nothing written, this is all improvised
1:20:44
by DiCaprio. Some.
1:20:45
Improv that. It's a great improv, yeah.
1:20:47
I think there's some taxi. Driver there as well when he's
1:20:49
told himself in the mirror, you don't get these lines right, I'm
1:20:52
going to blow your fucking brace.
1:20:55
So funny. In the pool.
1:20:58
He has to mention. The pool, even to himself.
1:21:00
Yeah, yeah. So look what I've got.
1:21:02
But even the. Forgetting the lines, that was
1:21:04
old DiCaprio as well. It was all his idea and he said
1:21:06
right, do it where you forget it and do it where you don't.
1:21:09
And the one where you forgot it they kept in.
1:21:10
Lovely. It works.
1:21:11
Great. Yeah.
1:21:13
And so I think this means when Rick finally nails the scene,
1:21:16
it's a genuine moment to try and form.
1:21:18
And we've mentioned it, but the way DiCaprio can just go
1:21:21
between, I'm a bad actor in this scene, I'm a good actor.
1:21:24
No, I'm Rick, not being an actor at all.
1:21:26
And the way he jumps between the butt nailing it, he brings so
1:21:30
much genuine menace to this bit. It's very much like his Django
1:21:32
and chain character. That's the kind of intensity he
1:21:34
brings. It is, yeah.
1:21:35
But the scene still feels a little bit like ATV performance
1:21:39
at the same time, and it really blurs the line between am I
1:21:42
watching an episode of ATV show being made or an actual episode
1:21:45
of ATV show. I mean, I think Decapito's
1:21:48
performance, I think we've all been seeing it first few and it
1:21:50
seems quite superficial, but it's not the so much nuance
1:21:54
going on here. And you're genuinely delighted
1:21:56
from that. It's gone well, like because
1:21:58
you're laughing at him earlier, but he's not a joke of a
1:22:00
character. You want him to succeed.
1:22:02
So when he nails it and truly compliments him to the point he
1:22:05
starts crying the best sentence has ever seen, you just feel so
1:22:09
victorious for him. Definitely do.
1:22:11
I mean, DiCaprio was knocking out great performances left,
1:22:14
right and center. Now it's crazy.
1:22:16
Surely the briefly I, from Tarantino to DiCaprio must have
1:22:18
been playing this how you would if you were playing Caleb,
1:22:21
because he's brilliant. Yeah.
1:22:23
When he's like, OK, messenger boy, deliver my message.
1:22:26
Yeah, great. If anything, he's too good.
1:22:28
Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:28
Surely. When that episode of Lunch I
1:22:29
went out, Dalton blew the rest of the cast off the screen.
1:22:33
But. You've all.
1:22:34
Seen them episodes where it's like, how good was he in that?
1:22:36
Yeah. Where did that come from?
1:22:38
Yeah, when someone. Comes in for a minute, I show or
1:22:39
something like this, yeah. Definitely.
1:22:41
And Trudy? Fraser, we'll have to talk about
1:22:43
the scene with her and Rick, surely.
1:22:45
Yeah, yeah. But.
1:22:46
That's just wonderful when he's just kind of sitting next to
1:22:48
you. She's got this big biography of
1:22:50
Walt Disney. It doesn't eat lunch before a
1:22:55
scene. Yeah, it's absolutely great.
1:22:58
And he's just thinks. She's far more professional than
1:23:01
I ever was or I ever will be, and he's completely.
1:23:04
Out of his. Depth.
1:23:05
And he's just like, do you mind if I sit next to you and read my
1:23:07
book? The stories.
1:23:10
Talking about, you know, the guy who can't used to break their
1:23:13
horses, now we can't do it anymore.
1:23:14
And basically his story that he's reading hard, he's halfway
1:23:17
through it. We're halfway through the film.
1:23:20
It's very kind of reminiscent of what we're already going
1:23:22
through. But she is absolutely wonderful.
1:23:24
She's great. Totally.
1:23:26
Totally steals it. Great, great scene that you just
1:23:28
think he's just going to sit next to this young girl and
1:23:31
she's just going to be, oh, it's Rick Dalton and oh, my God, I
1:23:33
can't believe it. Then she stays in character and
1:23:35
he doesn't. She knows the guy's name and he
1:23:37
doesn't. And they correct them about even
1:23:39
knowing anything. And he's thinking, I'm really
1:23:41
going to have to read the script again here.
1:23:42
But yeah, a really, really funny moment.
1:23:45
And it sets up everything that comes after it.
1:23:47
I think it's fantastic. How?
1:23:49
Good, Julia, but as is Trudy. Julia, but as?
1:23:51
Yeah. She's so good, she's brilliant.
1:23:54
She's so funny, sensational. Stuff for married a child
1:23:57
actress, Yeah, she's lecturing. Look at how to be an actor.
1:23:59
And he's just sitting there looking really confused.
1:24:03
What are you? 12 I'm eight.
1:24:05
Call it a pumpkin. Puss, it's like the next few.
1:24:07
Years. Keep an eye on the Oscars
1:24:08
because I think there'll be something coming, possibly.
1:24:10
Yeah. And.
1:24:11
Tarantino said that when he writes, he often asked the TV on
1:24:14
for some background noise, and when he was writing this scene
1:24:17
between Rick and Trudy, the sitcom was playing called
1:24:19
American Housewife featuring Julia Butters.
1:24:22
And in the episode which was happened to be playing, she
1:24:25
delivered a monologue that Tarantino loved, so he got her
1:24:27
in to audition for the role on the back of that.
1:24:30
And she was apparently partly based on Jodie Foster as well,
1:24:33
as she was in some kind of smoke as a child actress.
1:24:36
OK, not a bad person to take off, is it?
1:24:38
Technically not. And it cuts the.
1:24:40
Taxi driver, yeah. He knows what he's doing.
1:24:44
Doesn't he? He does, always.
1:24:45
Did. Yeah.
1:24:46
So, Trudy. Fraser was created by Tarantino,
1:24:49
but Lancer was a real TV show. It was on between 1968 and 1970,
1:24:54
so fit the setting of the film. As we've said, Timothy Olyphant,
1:24:57
he plays James Stacy, who was Johnny Madrid Lancer.
1:25:00
Luke Perry plays Wayne Maunder, who was Scott Lancer, and this
1:25:03
is actually Perry's last role before he passed away.
1:25:06
And Nicholas Hammond plays Sam Wanamaker, who directed the
1:25:09
pilot of the show in real life. Wow.
1:25:11
Nicholas Hammond. Do you know how else he played?
1:25:14
No. So get this, In the 70s version
1:25:17
of The Amazing Spider Man, he was Spider Man.
1:25:20
Wow. Really.
1:25:21
Wow. OK.
1:25:21
I vaguely remember that. I love that I've been watching.
1:25:24
That recently, actually I'm not done just.
1:25:25
Yet. Oh, wow.
1:25:26
OK. And he was one of the von Trapp
1:25:29
kids in The Sound of Music. Friedrich von Trapp, Then here
1:25:36
he's like Hell's Angel. Yeah.
1:25:39
He's nuts. He's great, yes.
1:25:43
And we're through the middle section of Once Upon a Time in
1:25:46
Hollywood. A movie star fight, a movie star
1:25:48
watching her own film and a movie star meltdown.
1:25:51
Yeah, and pretty difficult to pick out the one that's the most
1:25:54
Hollywood it is. Pretty difficult, all on the
1:25:57
same level. Yeah, and a scene there that.
1:25:58
Created one of the best memes in recent history, I think.
1:26:01
Yeah. The crew.
1:26:08
Quentin Tarantino had a vision for Once Upon a Time in
1:26:11
Hollywood, crafting a love letter to 1960s Los Angeles, but
1:26:15
he didn't do it alone. Robert Richardson as.
1:26:18
Director of Photography played a huge role in that visual style,
1:26:21
and the musical choices throughout were crucial as well.
1:26:24
We'll talk about all of that, but we're going to begin back
1:26:27
with QT and the screenplay. Lovely.
1:26:30
So behind the descriptive Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was
1:26:32
Quentin Tarantino himself, his 12th feature screen writing
1:26:36
credits that's made-up of the 9 he directed, plus True Romance,
1:26:40
Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn.
1:26:43
Yes. Once Upon a time.
1:26:44
In Hollywood Door, Westie. Yeah.
1:26:45
How was Tarantino the writer? I mean how is?
1:26:48
Tarantino, the writer, I mean, it's just a visionary, isn't he?
1:26:51
From the page to the screen. And I think reading this would
1:26:53
have been a very, very exciting prospect and a very exciting
1:26:56
thing for people to do. I know Kurt Russell was quoted
1:26:58
as saying like, 5 pages and he was doing it.
1:27:00
Yeah. Obviously he did the same when
1:27:02
he was a kid, you know, because he was through the whole system.
1:27:04
Yeah. Yeah, he did, yeah.
1:27:05
To me it feels. Like, it would have been very
1:27:06
exciting to read and it would have been quite a substantial
1:27:09
screenplay. There would have been a lot in
1:27:11
there that ways. Yeah.
1:27:13
That's not in the finished film. To me, this is the most of
1:27:16
Tarantino's films where it feels like a huge collection of
1:27:20
things. This feels like the sequences
1:27:22
are like short films within themselves.
1:27:24
Like you said about, you know, Sharon going to watch yourself
1:27:27
in the ranking crew, that could be a short film if you cut it
1:27:30
out. Are these sequences too long?
1:27:32
Did he overwrite them? Is he looking for something over
1:27:35
the top to get the point across? Could this have been shortened?
1:27:38
Do we need the Playboy Mansion just to set up the dynamic
1:27:41
between the three? I don't know if we do, but he
1:27:44
does. And I think that's the point.
1:27:46
There's not enough screenwriters out there who'll put it down on
1:27:48
the page and say this is how I want it to look, this is how I
1:27:51
want it to be, this is finished. This is for the reader, not the
1:27:54
viewer. And he's always said that.
1:27:56
He says when he writes a screenplay, you write it for the
1:27:58
reader first, then he takes it and creates something for the
1:28:01
viewer off the back of that. And to me, this really makes
1:28:05
sense and he's having fun in the writing because you can tell
1:28:08
this is all written down and he's put the exposition and he's
1:28:11
put the narrative and he's put the plots in, in the middle of
1:28:14
these huge stories, these huge sequences, these huge elaborate
1:28:19
moments. So for me, it's it's a perfect
1:28:21
script. You can't make this, I think, to
1:28:23
be about an hour and a half. You could tell it's exactly the
1:28:25
same story with exactly the same beats.
1:28:28
But it's the way he embellishes that and adds fat to it.
1:28:31
It's a real buffet of a film. And he would have got that
1:28:34
absolutely nailed on the page. The film is just a snapshot of
1:28:40
what's in his brain, and I think the script would have been a
1:28:43
slightly bigger snapshot of that.
1:28:45
Believe it or not. I think he's reigned it in a
1:28:47
little bit when it came to the film, but not the screenplay.
1:28:49
I think it's wonderful. It's just a wonderful, wonderful
1:28:52
realization of the time, a wonderful love letter cinema.
1:28:55
I think it's great well as. The directing, and there's a lot
1:28:58
in the writing, I think that is kind of quintessential
1:29:00
Tarantino. Lots of pop culture references,
1:29:03
Lords of Thing, as in a dialogue, characters just kind
1:29:05
of hanging out. He loves all that.
1:29:08
And as is always the case with Tarantino films, I'm never
1:29:11
bored. No, I love the concept, the idea
1:29:13
of creating a fairy tale setting, the closest thing we
1:29:16
have to a fairy tale land in Hollywood.
1:29:19
And the end of the film comes as a surprise first time round.
1:29:22
But he tells us what he's doing from the start.
1:29:24
It's called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Obviously you're
1:29:27
Sergio Leone not as well, but you're telling us this is a
1:29:30
fairy tale. The first time I saw the film, I
1:29:32
was probably a little bit disappointed with how light on
1:29:35
plot that is because you don't normally get that with
1:29:37
Tarantino. And now I would love to see more
1:29:40
of that world like I mentioned. But taking it for what it is, I
1:29:43
think the writing is fantastic. I mean, this isn't a
1:29:46
conventional 3 out story. He's writing it as almost like a
1:29:49
time capsule to take us to that period.
1:29:52
And I think that's why he takes these D to us, to the set of
1:29:54
Lancer or the Spawn Ranch that we'll talk about.
1:29:57
He's immersing us like, in the world, and what makes it
1:30:00
interesting is that it's a world that was changing at the time.
1:30:03
Hippie movements, the counterculture, the decline of
1:30:05
Western's New Hollywood, It's all there in the background and
1:30:08
kind of personified in the foreground in Rick, who's
1:30:11
terrified of becoming irrelevant.
1:30:13
There's loads of vulnerability in Rick, something we hadn't
1:30:16
seen much of, if at all, in Tarantino's characters before
1:30:19
this. It feels quite a bit more mature
1:30:21
than that stuff, I think, from that point of view, emotionally,
1:30:24
yeah. Yeah.
1:30:25
I mean, it's not the most tightly constructed plot you'll
1:30:27
ever see, but maybe that's the point.
1:30:29
The Hollywood's famous for writing propulsive narratives.
1:30:32
But the truth of the real Hollywood is that it's a place
1:30:34
with people the same as anywhere else.
1:30:36
I mean, having been there his whole life, Tarantino
1:30:38
understands that as well as anyone.
1:30:40
I'm not saying this is his best piece of writing, but it might
1:30:42
be the one that shows the most growth as a writer without
1:30:45
losing sight of what made him singular in the 1st place.
1:30:48
Yeah, I think it's quite a special thing, the writing here.
1:30:50
And it definitely gets better on re watches for me.
1:30:52
Yeah, I think this. Is the one that turned up from a
1:30:54
screenwriter to an author. You can see why he thought.
1:30:57
About doing it as a book. Yeah, yeah.
1:30:59
Well. One of the interesting things
1:31:00
about Tarantino, I think, is that underneath all the violence
1:31:03
and bad language he puts in his films, he's almost put heart in
1:31:06
it. At the same time, like Pulp
1:31:07
Fiction, he writes in such a way that Jules and Vincent can walk
1:31:11
off together at the end of the film.
1:31:12
Yeah, because they are favorite characters, despite the fact
1:31:15
Vincent is actually being killed.
1:31:16
Kill Bill is about reuniting with her daughter Django in
1:31:19
Changes by rescuing his enslaved wife.
1:31:21
And so this is just a love letter to this period of
1:31:24
Hollywood, like he's been saying to the people who were there but
1:31:27
never quite got the critical kudos.
1:31:29
Like Vick's a good actor, but he's just never given the right
1:31:31
material. But all he really needs is his
1:31:34
best friend alongside him. So it's a love letter to male
1:31:36
friendship as well. It's a love letter to the people
1:31:40
who were behind the scenes and never quite got their moment to
1:31:42
shine. It's a love letter to Sharon
1:31:43
Tate. And you can tell this person he
1:31:45
means something to Tarantino. We'll, we'll talk about the wish
1:31:48
fulfillment of the end and when we get there.
1:31:50
But he's not written that because, oh, that'll be cool.
1:31:54
It's the way he really wishes life had turned out.
1:31:56
Yeah, that's the romantic in him.
1:31:58
It's by far. And we're the most romantic
1:32:00
thing he's ever written. And it shows that underneath it
1:32:02
all, he's a massive softy. He's got such a soft heart for
1:32:05
this period of time and these people and what they represent,
1:32:09
it's the most. Genuine thing he's ever written,
1:32:10
I think. I think so.
1:32:11
Yeah, yeah. And it's.
1:32:12
Heartfelt, but I agree. And Tarantino.
1:32:14
Said the first thing he came up with was the ending for the film
1:32:17
and then he worked his way back from there and created the plot
1:32:20
the lead to the third act. He originally planned to write
1:32:22
it as a novel and spent five years doing that before
1:32:24
realizing he had a lot of ideas of how we thought the story
1:32:27
should look. Yeah, I.
1:32:28
Think of all his stories, to me, the only one that's about
1:32:31
Hollywood as the only one that isn't a film would have been
1:32:34
quite a gutsy choice. Yeah, it would have been.
1:32:38
That. Doesn't seem very Tarantino,
1:32:39
does it? No, no.
1:32:40
No. So his previous film was The
1:32:43
Hateful 8 and he had a problem with that because the script was
1:32:46
leaked online before he started filming, which almost led him to
1:32:49
scrap in that movie. So to avoid the same happening
1:32:51
here, he didn't send the script out.
1:32:53
Instead, he sent an e-mail to all major studios telling them
1:32:57
to send one representative to his agent's office in Beverly
1:33:00
Hills to read his Manson Family script.
1:33:02
Each person had to sign a heavy NDA, read the script in front of
1:33:06
them and they couldn't make notes.
1:33:07
Wow. Read.
1:33:09
In front of them. That's so stressful at all.
1:33:12
What do you think of it? Yeah.
1:33:14
What are? You.
1:33:16
Laughing at. I mean, I don't blame.
1:33:20
After what happened on The Hateful 8, I'd have it under
1:33:22
lock and key as well. Yeah, well, for his work as
1:33:24
writer of Once Upon a Time in a Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino was
1:33:27
nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.
1:33:30
Lost out yet again to Parasite, written by Bong Joon Ho and Han
1:33:34
Jin Won. Yeah.
1:33:35
By sounds of it, though we do like QT's writing here.
1:33:38
Oh, I love it. Yeah.
1:33:38
I love it. Moving from the.
1:33:42
Screenplay. Let's talk about the music.
1:33:44
Not for the first time with a Tarantino movie, Once Upon a
1:33:47
Time in Hollywood doesn't feature an original score.
1:33:50
It's soundtracked by many period specific pop songs.
1:33:53
Yeah, but the music For you, How effective is the soundtrack?
1:33:59
Hugely effective because what stands out of me is he uses the
1:34:02
music in a slightly different way to how he normally does,
1:34:05
because they aren't necessarily the kind of scenes in this way
1:34:08
hit you with a big choice over the top of it.
1:34:10
I think probably the stand out in that sense is when he uses
1:34:13
Out of Time to set up the third act, which the lyrics of that
1:34:17
song combined with, as we've been saying, what we think we
1:34:20
know is going to come first time out.
1:34:22
It just makes you take a bit of a deep earth like he would go.
1:34:25
But what's interesting me is how much of those other songs, they
1:34:28
are records being played by the characters or the songs on the
1:34:32
radio playing in the car. So many of the songs in this are
1:34:34
diechedic. They're heard by the characters.
1:34:36
They're not played over the top of them.
1:34:38
And I think that's part of the reason this film nails that
1:34:41
sense of time, because the songs, it doesn't feel like I'm
1:34:44
listening to a soundtrack. I feel like I'm listening to the
1:34:47
time radio station. Like a radio station.
1:34:50
It's laid into the world. It's not on top of it, it's laid
1:34:53
into it. So it may not have the kind of
1:34:56
iconic needle top Tarantino gives in Pulp Fiction or
1:35:00
Reservoir Dogs, but I think it's just cleverest use of music
1:35:03
instead. Yeah, the.
1:35:04
Music's right up my street over the End.
1:35:07
The Raiders, the Box Tops, Mitch Writer in the Detroit Wheels.
1:35:11
That's my running playlist from when I was 21.
1:35:13
They just all happened to be on this soundtrack as well.
1:35:15
Yeah, just needs the Count 5 in the sonics.
1:35:17
So I do love the music, but I think the way Tarantino uses it
1:35:21
is what's interesting. The radio was, like on a radar.
1:35:24
The song lyrics tell us what's happening on the screen in front
1:35:26
of us, often around showering. And the radio DJs, they tell us
1:35:30
what's happening around us in the wider world.
1:35:32
We get our first proper look at showering, which is on the way
1:35:34
to the Playboy Mansion with Polanski in the car.
1:35:36
Radio plays Hush. Yeah.
1:35:38
She's the best girl that I ever had.
1:35:40
Slow, more close up to showering.
1:35:41
That stuff works great. QT went for the Deep Purple
1:35:44
version of a cooler shaker. Probably for the best.
1:35:47
Probably for the. Best, yeah.
1:35:49
At that time when we. Have Bobby Candy get mentioned
1:35:50
by DJs on the radio as well. And in the third act, Out of
1:35:54
Time by the Stones. You're right, man.
1:35:55
It's almost the whole song. I love it.
1:35:58
But baby, baby, baby, you're out of time.
1:35:59
As we're looking at Sharon, thinking we know what's to come.
1:36:02
That was massive. For the first time I saw it.
1:36:04
Yeah. Amazing.
1:36:05
Jagger making me sick to my stomach.
1:36:07
Yeah, not for the first time, but bang after bang out on the
1:36:12
soundtrack and thematic relevance as well.
1:36:14
I'm not sure you can ever look past Pulp Fiction as Tarantino's
1:36:16
greatest soundtrack. Yeah, but this is probably my
1:36:19
favorite of his I. Immediately.
1:36:21
Went out and bought this, I bought the record.
1:36:23
When you put this on, it feels like you're playing a record, do
1:36:26
you know what I mean? Some albums you buy and you put
1:36:27
on, you're like, that just sounds the same.
1:36:29
It's not, there's not, there's no texture to it.
1:36:32
This you put on, you don't skip anything.
1:36:34
It's got all of the adverts in the middle of it, the
1:36:36
soundtracks, absolutely brilliant.
1:36:37
It's all part of it and you just feel like you're transported yet
1:36:40
again. He's done it in the soundtrack,
1:36:42
he's done it in the script, he's done it in the film.
1:36:44
And what I get from this, I'm not going to reel off all of the
1:36:47
amazing songs because you guys have already touched on it.
1:36:49
And I mean, it is an incredible soundtrack, probably top five.
1:36:53
Your top five got about 500 entries.
1:36:58
I love the Bounty Law soundtracks as well.
1:36:59
He's obviously got them off the CBS library.
1:37:02
The 14% McCluskey, that soundtrack's fantastic.
1:37:04
It hogs back to The Dirty Dozen kind of thing, and the glorious
1:37:07
bastards kind of vibe that all works within it.
1:37:11
But watching this and I remember it vividly.
1:37:14
Mrs. Robinson, Right? I must have heard that song
1:37:16
4,000,000 times. Simon and Garfunkel, my dad used
1:37:20
to play it in the car. I heard it in this film and it
1:37:23
sounded totally different. Wow.
1:37:25
It had a different identity. It had like a life to it, a
1:37:28
vibrancy to it, a reason to it and everything that I listen to.
1:37:33
And a Tarantino soundtrack just seems to be elevated somehow.
1:37:36
And I think he can take any song and put it on a soundtrack to
1:37:39
any of his films and completely elevate it.
1:37:41
Like, you never can tell. The Chuck Berry song, whenever I
1:37:44
hear that again, it's never as good as Pulp Fiction.
1:37:47
It's never as good as when you're watching it.
1:37:49
And that's what he does, you know?
1:37:50
And like California Dreaming, it doesn't have the Mamas and Papas
1:37:54
version. It's the Joseph the last year of
1:37:55
version. And it's like, yeah, I love
1:37:57
that. Yeah, but totally works.
1:37:59
And you listen to it and you're like, but out of context, I
1:38:00
wouldn't listen to that version. It's not that good, but it is.
1:38:04
And that's what he does. The soundtracks, that's why I
1:38:06
love them so much. And yet it is for me as well,
1:38:08
John. I think it's probably my
1:38:09
favorite Tarantino soundtrack. I think he.
1:38:11
Might be the best at using songs in films.
1:38:13
It's it's too. Close to Scorsese for me it's
1:38:16
too close Scorsese. 'S up there as well, so in 19.
1:38:19
69 The most popular radio station in Los Angeles was KHJ
1:38:23
Boss Radio in Tarantino. Listen to it himself as a child,
1:38:27
and he managed to get hold of 14 hours worth of tapes from
1:38:30
listeners who'd had recorded the station back in 1969.
1:38:34
And those were the tapes he used to select the soundtrack.
1:38:37
Yeah. And you know, when Charles
1:38:39
Manson turns up at Sharon's, Yes.
1:38:41
He says that he's looking for Terry.
1:38:43
Yes. So that's Terry Melcher, who
1:38:45
lived at 10050 Cielo Dr. before Sharon with a guy called Mark
1:38:49
Lindsay. Yeah.
1:38:50
They were the producer and lead singer of Paul Revere and the
1:38:53
Raiders. Right.
1:38:54
Which is. Presumably.
1:38:55
Why, they're on the soundtrack five times.
1:38:56
Well, they play them in the. House, don't they?
1:38:58
Yeah, they do, yeah. Paul Revere and the Raiders,
1:39:01
Yeah. Yeah.
1:39:03
Depending on what you read, Manson had a few more of what
1:39:06
happened at Yellow Drive. He was trying to sort of race
1:39:09
war by pinning the murders on the Black Panthers.
1:39:11
I was one. And according to some, one of
1:39:13
the things which sent Manson off the edge and turned him into a
1:39:16
killer was when Terry Melcher turned down the chance to sign
1:39:19
him as a musician. Yeah.
1:39:21
And Terry Melcher. Was the son of Doris Day right?
1:39:24
Wow. All that just from Does Terry
1:39:26
live here? That's Tarantino.
1:39:30
Yeah, you don't get Oscars for hand picking pop songs to score
1:39:33
your film, but if you did, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood might
1:39:36
have been in contention. Do you think?
1:39:38
I think it should have. Basically invented the category
1:39:40
for it. Better than parasite?
1:39:42
Put it that way. A long time Tarantino
1:39:47
collaborator was behind the camera on this one, with Robert
1:39:49
Richardson serving as director of photography.
1:39:52
This marked their 5th feature film together after Kill Bill,
1:39:55
Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful 8.
1:40:00
Those sun drenched LE visuals then Westie.
1:40:02
Yeah, what? Do you make of?
1:40:03
Robert Richardson's work, Yeah. I mean, is there any?
1:40:06
Flaws here, no. Not that I can see.
1:40:09
Not that I can see. And I've really looked.
1:40:12
He's just such a talent. Richardson and that he's
1:40:14
absolutely invisible and most good DPS are.
1:40:17
He has a style, but you really need to look for it mostly that
1:40:21
top really contrast, the really bright top light that bounces
1:40:26
off a table predominantly. And if you look any glorious
1:40:28
bastards, that whole opening sequence is basically lit from
1:40:30
that table light, which kind of bounces around the room.
1:40:33
And it's in here as well when Cliff and Rick are in the bar.
1:40:36
And it's just that incredible light on the table from kind of
1:40:39
no way. It's not motivated.
1:40:40
There's no practicals there, but the thing that strikes me about
1:40:43
how rich and vibrant and beautiful this film is, is that
1:40:45
Tarantino has asked them to empty your toolbox, not pull
1:40:48
anything out of it, Fucking empty it onto the table, put
1:40:52
everything in the line and use everything one after the other.
1:40:55
We've got car shots, internal external, low tracking shots,
1:40:58
overhead shots, crane shots, dollies, crash zooms, black and
1:41:02
white colour, 35 mil, 16 mil, 8 mil.
1:41:05
It's just ludicrous how much work he's got to do here.
1:41:08
And everything is seamless. Yeah, it's all seamless.
1:41:11
Then car tracking shots are better than I've seen in most
1:41:14
action signals. Fantastic.
1:41:15
Yeah, just the way the shots are.
1:41:17
Free and just the wide angles that he uses, the way he's
1:41:19
sticking to Tarantino's vision. For someone to have a vision and
1:41:22
say I have a vision that covers absolutely every shot that's
1:41:25
available with every single lens that you've got in your toolkit
1:41:29
with three different types of film and black and white.
1:41:33
I mean. I've really got nothing else to
1:41:35
say about it. I think it's just a master
1:41:37
class. It's a work of absolute genius
1:41:40
because you don't go, Who's the guy who did this?
1:41:43
Tarantino. Like you always said, if you
1:41:44
want to make a film, you don't need to know what a 16 mil lens
1:41:47
does. You just need to find someone
1:41:49
who can do it and you need to tell them how to do it.
1:41:51
He's a master of telling them how to do it.
1:41:53
And Robert Richardson is a master of listening and then
1:41:56
delivering how to do that the same as everybody else on this
1:41:58
crew. And for me, that's the thing
1:42:00
that sticks out because that's the thing that I'm a try to most
1:42:03
making visuals, saying visuals scene, beautiful cinematography,
1:42:06
Every single shot works, every single scene works, every single
1:42:09
frame is a masterpiece. It's beautiful.
1:42:12
It. Is, I think this is one of the
1:42:13
most incredible looking films. You could see.
1:42:15
Maybe Tarantino is best looking. Yeah.
1:42:17
And it's like across the board. We talked about the production
1:42:20
design, the costume design, which is next level.
1:42:22
And Robert Richardson matches it.
1:42:24
Yeah. It's the way they capture that
1:42:25
golden California look full of nostalgia.
1:42:28
It's like being inside a memory sometimes, rather than watching
1:42:30
a film. It's the way he handles like
1:42:32
you're saying, Wesley. The shifts and visual styles.
1:42:35
Beautiful wide shots of Spawn Ranch one minute and then gritty
1:42:38
16 millimetre looking footage for Bounty Law the next.
1:42:41
Yeah. The driving shots are amazing.
1:42:43
All of the recurving shots from the rig position on the back of
1:42:45
someone's car. Yeah.
1:42:46
Yeah, a few of those remind me of A Clockwork Orange, but
1:42:49
that's kind of from the front. Yeah, yeah.
1:42:51
Loads of crane. Shots, there's loads more and
1:42:53
all immerses. You're kind of in the world, A
1:42:55
world that sadly doesn't exist anymore.
1:42:57
Like those shots in the third act of the neon signs of bars
1:43:00
and cinemas coming on one by one at dusk.
1:43:03
Yeah, that's Cinerama. As well.
1:43:04
It's not there anymore. That's beautiful, that
1:43:06
brilliant. Yeah, if you.
1:43:07
Think they're kind of preserving something that's gone.
1:43:09
I mean, the obvious thing might have been to go full retro, like
1:43:12
film grain desaturation. But Richard gives us this kind
1:43:15
of vivid vibrancy. Yeah.
1:43:17
It feels both real and heightened at the same time
1:43:19
somehow, which I guess is nostalgia.
1:43:22
I mean, nostalgia usually lives inside our heads, but Robert
1:43:24
Richards and captures it on the screen as well as anything I've
1:43:27
seen. Yeah.
1:43:28
So it's pure eye candy. It's a feast as visual glory
1:43:31
telling as well that enhances the themes around like fading
1:43:34
glory and changing times. I think Richardson's work he has
1:43:37
possibly is best with Tarantino. With Tarantino, yeah.
1:43:41
Yeah, it's. Just so cinematic.
1:43:42
I don't think I've seen another film with this amount of Korean
1:43:44
shots where every single one of them is stunning.
1:43:49
Like the way it constantly pulls back to reveal the Hollywood
1:43:51
Hills and the landscape. Like they all bathe in that
1:43:54
incredible sunlight, which then Congress so well to the dead of
1:43:57
night in the final act. And how dark that is, as we've
1:44:01
been seeing the way the camera moves and those scenes where
1:44:03
Cliff is weaving its way through traffic at high speed.
1:44:06
But then the way it does move in the spawn ranch because the
1:44:09
stillness of the frame winds up the tension instead, where it
1:44:13
captures like the emptiness at the edge of the frame.
1:44:15
Every choice works. And also just again, to mention
1:44:18
the production design and the costumes because the colours
1:44:21
just pop off the screen here. It's so resplendent to do.
1:44:25
Or maybe. A Pulp Fiction that way a bit.
1:44:26
We kind of look Technicolor without being Technicolor.
1:44:28
Yeah, it's got that. Vibe to it, yeah, I think my
1:44:30
Tarantino, said Richardson. As well as I want to preserve
1:44:33
the feeling of Hollywood, but I also want to preserve how
1:44:36
important it is to capture it on film.
1:44:38
And I want people to say how beautiful a 35 mil negative can
1:44:42
look because this is my personal print, so I want the print to be
1:44:44
as good as the film. So he's even paying homage to
1:44:47
like what it's printed on, which is why it looks so good.
1:44:50
It's a love like that through. And through isn't it absolutely
1:44:52
all the way? Through yeah.
1:44:53
So on top of that, Richardson said Once Upon a Time in
1:44:55
Hollywood was one of the most complex films he shot, as we've
1:44:58
said, due to Tarantino wanting to create an authentic look.
1:45:01
The shot mainly on 35 mil film. They were going to shoot on 70
1:45:04
mil like the shot Hateful 8, but there's too many crash zooms,
1:45:06
which is an impossible 70 mil too, too difficult.
1:45:10
So that 35 mil but it still looks massive.
1:45:12
It still looks like 70. And they also shot Super 8 which
1:45:16
was popular format in 1969. And for the black and white TV
1:45:19
scenes, use 16 millimetre actor Chrome film to recreate the look
1:45:22
of the 1960s television, which is really contrasting film.
1:45:25
It looks great. Wow.
1:45:26
Yeah, he's won multiple Oscars, Robert Richardson.
1:45:28
But you said one of the highlights of his career was the
1:45:30
Muscle and Frank Grill scene where he shot Leonardo DiCaprio,
1:45:34
Al Pacino and Brad Pitt all within the same frame.
1:45:36
Yeah. Yeah.
1:45:38
Some content for your shot, isn't it?
1:45:41
He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography for his
1:45:43
work on the film about Richardson.
1:45:46
Do you remember what won that year 19?
1:45:48
17 won that year. I remember that.
1:45:49
It's Deakins. It was.
1:45:51
Your Man with Steve Roger Deakins for 1917.
1:45:53
Yeah, but again, some brilliant work from Robert Richardson here
1:45:56
for us in hindsight. He should have got the Oscar, I
1:45:59
think. Big call.
1:46:02
I think so. So Tarantino.
1:46:05
Was a visionary at the helm as always, but he had some
1:46:07
exceptional talent backing him up, mostly himself.
1:46:10
His own screenplay and carefully curated soundtrack are great,
1:46:13
and in Robert Richardson's Golden age cinematography it's a
1:46:17
1960s Hollywood loving across the board.
1:46:19
Oh yeah. Definitely the end, the 3rd and.
1:46:28
Final active Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sees Tarantino
1:46:30
shifting gears and driving us towards his alternate history
1:46:33
climax. The infamous night at Cielo Dr.
1:46:37
where everything changes is coming.
1:46:39
But first we're off to Spawn Ranch for some family time.
1:46:42
Yeah. You could call her.
1:46:44
That, yeah. So.
1:46:46
After a couple of near run insurance between Cliff and
1:46:48
Pussycat, he finally picks her up and takes her about where she
1:46:51
came from. And that's somewhere he's
1:46:52
familiar with Spawn Movie Ranch. Yeah, like so much else though,
1:46:57
things have changed. A bunch of God damn hippies have
1:47:00
taken over. Tensions are rising.
1:47:03
Where? State they are how?
1:47:04
Does spawn ranch? Go for you, there's too many.
1:47:06
Bare feet for me, everyone. Everyone.
1:47:09
Especially when it cuts that sitting room and they're all
1:47:11
watching TV and it's all just feet.
1:47:14
That's my worst nightmare. It's like a horror film again.
1:47:17
It shows the great transition from old Hollywood to new
1:47:21
Hollywood, that this place is dying, the hippies are taking
1:47:24
over, that there's no more westerns.
1:47:26
And it's really good character development for Cliff here,
1:47:29
because we didn't really get any emotional insight into who he
1:47:31
is. We know he cares about Rick, of
1:47:33
course he does, But he's actually takes his time here to
1:47:36
go and check on George, and he knows he can look after himself.
1:47:40
He knows he can kind of take these people out.
1:47:42
But still, for us, it's because we're know the Manson Family,
1:47:45
we're know what he's getting into, and he doesn't.
1:47:48
He could die here. He's a secondary current, and we
1:47:51
could lose him here easily because we're thinking this is
1:47:54
going to now tie into the ending.
1:47:56
All that was running through my head at this point.
1:47:58
But Tarantino plays this with so much tension in the frame, so
1:48:03
wide. It's very Hitchcock you when
1:48:05
he's walking up to that house, it's very psycho.
1:48:07
It's very like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or all of a sudden.
1:48:10
And then we're just talking about George's sleep through
1:48:13
there. You still don't believe her.
1:48:14
Yeah. Great from Dakota Fannin as
1:48:16
well. I think she's wonderful in this.
1:48:17
Yeah. And then there's that shot when
1:48:18
he opens the door, that lighting the way Richardson lights, that
1:48:21
is just outrageous because it looks dingy, but it's beautiful
1:48:25
at the same time. And I think it's really great
1:48:27
from Bruce Stern as he as well. It's like he comes from nowhere
1:48:30
and absolutely nails it. Really elevates the sequence
1:48:33
because he's just frustrated and he's given up and he's let them
1:48:35
take over. Cliff just kind of understand
1:48:37
why he's at what you're doing here so well.
1:48:39
I can't see anymore. And again, that's just a nod to
1:48:42
old Hollywood not being on television.
1:48:44
Nobody's seeing it. It's all gone.
1:48:45
So his eyesight's gone. Again, a great nod to it.
1:48:48
And then when he comes out and leaves, when he gets back to
1:48:51
that car and there's a knife in there.
1:48:53
Did you do this? And he's just.
1:48:56
He's awful, He's horrible. It's violent, but it's not.
1:48:59
Tarantino level of violence, yet that when he drives away to me
1:49:03
was like this bombshell for the ending, it's like, Oh my God,
1:49:06
they've avoided it now what on earth is going to happen later
1:49:08
on? Great, great definition of
1:49:10
Cliffs character, great set of attention.
1:49:12
But again, to get to that point, it's just fantastically done.
1:49:17
It is. I think it's like a master class
1:49:18
intention building. Yeah.
1:49:20
The first time I saw this in the cinema, you could hear a pin
1:49:22
drop for the whole sequence. Yeah, I think most people will
1:49:25
be out there in a flash, Rick. You wouldn't see him for dust,
1:49:28
but it works perfectly there. It's Cliff.
1:49:30
I totally buy that he'd go to the house to check George is
1:49:32
there and the tension as he's heading up there is like through
1:49:35
the roof. We are Paul Revere and the
1:49:37
Raiders again, Mr. Sun. Mr. Moon plays on the TV as
1:49:40
Cliff moves towards George's room.
1:49:42
It's perfect for that moment. At that point, we've no idea.
1:49:46
George could be fine. He could be not there at all.
1:49:48
He could be a skeleton in the bed.
1:49:50
Yeah. It's like Schrodinger's cat or
1:49:51
something. And Bruce Daniels.
1:49:53
George is always a treat, obviously where he's like, it's
1:49:56
Cliff Booth, John Will Booth. And the tension.
1:50:02
Doesn't drop until we see Cliff drive away, but somehow it's
1:50:05
still funny without bursting the bubble of tension, which is
1:50:08
really impressive from Tarantino.
1:50:09
I think it's pretty when Pussycats hands on hips like
1:50:12
he's napping. It's nap time.
1:50:16
But the highlight for me. Is definitely Cliff beating the
1:50:18
crap out of Steve Grogan, one of them families, murderers.
1:50:21
Anytime one of the Manson clan gets a kicking is a treat.
1:50:24
Yeah. And the girls are all like,
1:50:25
heartbroken as well. Yeah.
1:50:28
It captures. The total, like, bizarreness of
1:50:30
the Mansons and man used to be really tense and funny at the
1:50:33
same time. I think he's got a few, but this
1:50:35
is one of Tarantino's great sequences for me.
1:50:38
Yeah, completely. Great.
1:50:39
One of the elements I love about this film is how can change Torn
1:50:42
so quickly and particularly on this day that the events are
1:50:45
happening because you've got the comedy of Rick on Lancer, the
1:50:49
charm of Sharon in the cinema, and then Cliff on Spawn Ranch,
1:50:52
which is for me the closest Tarantino's come to make in a
1:50:55
horror film. And I've all said a way you can
1:50:57
tell a horror movie is working as if the scenes in broad
1:51:00
daylight are just as scary as the night time scenes.
1:51:03
And that is absolutely true. If there's that slow realization
1:51:06
that Cliff is very much outnumbered, he's miles from
1:51:09
anywhere. It's deadly silent and no one
1:51:12
knows where he is. Your stomach sinks when all that
1:51:15
starts, Like hit. Yeah.
1:51:16
He's in so much trouble and he doesn't realize it.
1:51:19
And then that shot of the Manson's just slowly coming out
1:51:22
of the shadows of the various buildings.
1:51:24
It's so unnerving. And I also think it's it's
1:51:26
finest moment in the film because Cliff, he never loses
1:51:29
his school and he faces everyone down because he can't put.
1:51:32
All the same, you can tell his hackles are raised and he wants
1:51:35
to get the hell out of Dodge out of.
1:51:37
Great. I think it's one of Tarantino's
1:51:38
very best scenes. And then from it's one of the
1:51:40
best, before there were famous Saints I think you'll ever see,
1:51:43
like Margaret Quali, Sidney Sweeney, Austin Butler and Mikey
1:51:46
Madison. It's crazy all in the same
1:51:48
scene. It's insane.
1:51:50
The real spawn. Ranch was owned by George Spahn,
1:51:52
who had been used by Hollywood as a Western movie set in the
1:51:55
40s and 50s, but a fire destroyed all the old film sets
1:51:59
in 1970. Tarantino said he wanted an
1:52:01
exact replica to be created, but also wanted to feel like the
1:52:04
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As we've said, Barbara Link
1:52:06
found location 20 minutes from the real ranch and her team
1:52:09
recreated did it from old photographs.
1:52:12
Yeah, so George Spahn let the Manson Family move in in 1968 in
1:52:16
exchange for doing labour and sexual favours, apparently,
1:52:19
Right? He was about 80 at the time.
1:52:21
George Spahn. Wow.
1:52:23
In terms of the films, just when you think the production design
1:52:25
couldn't get any better, we get a Spawn Ranch.
1:52:27
Yeah, it's some creation now. As we've said.
1:52:31
George Spahn is played by Bruce Dern, but the first person cast
1:52:34
was Burt Reynolds. He attended script readings but
1:52:36
passed away before filming started.
1:52:38
Tarantino said the last thing Reynolds was doing before he
1:52:40
died was learning his lines as George.
1:52:42
Wow, that would. Have been brilliant.
1:52:44
That wouldn't. It would have been amazing.
1:52:47
And Bill Paxton, he was supposed to play James Stacy from Lancer,
1:52:50
but when he passed away, Timothy Olyphant was cast, right?
1:52:53
OK. Right, I'd love to see.
1:52:54
Paxton in there as well. I've seen Paxton.
1:52:56
Yeah, and Bruce Lee's. Lying the Cliff, saying you're
1:52:59
pretty for a stuntman, but apparently came from Burt
1:53:01
Reynolds. It was his idea, right all?
1:53:03
Right. That's what they tell me.
1:53:09
So the Mansons. As we see them in the film are
1:53:11
all based on real family members, and some of the main
1:53:13
ones are Charles Manson, obviously.
1:53:15
He was played by Damon Harriman and Leonard Dunham, who plays
1:53:18
Catherine. Gypsy, Cher.
1:53:20
Yeah. Damon Harriman was cast because
1:53:22
he'd also played Manson in Mindhunter.
1:53:24
Mindhunter, yeah. David Fincher's.
1:53:26
Crime series, right? Yeah.
1:53:28
Of all the people. To be typecasters.
1:53:30
I know, that's it now. No more, no more roles for you.
1:53:36
And. Pussycat is played by Margaret
1:53:38
Quali, who we've been talking about, and based on two Manson
1:53:40
family members, Ruth Ann Moorehaus and Catherine Lute
1:53:43
Singer, and she was known as Kitty Cat.
1:53:46
Yeah, apparently. Morehouse would lure men back to
1:53:48
spawn Ranch, a bit like Pussycat does in the film, right?
1:53:51
I think she's. Really good Margaret Quali,
1:53:53
she's great. That lit by.
1:53:55
Cheaters a couple of times kind of became a trademark that.
1:53:57
Yeah, it has, yeah. And Jennifer Lawrence actually
1:54:00
auditioned to play Lynette Squeaky from but lost out to
1:54:03
Dakota Fanning. And Sidney Sweeney plays Diane
1:54:06
Snake Lake. Yeah, apparently Squeaky was
1:54:09
given that nickname because of the noise she'd make when George
1:54:12
Bond touched her, which is more than I ever wanted to know.
1:54:16
Thanks. Could have done.
1:54:17
Relieving that out, to be honest.
1:54:19
Really. Good.
1:54:20
Sorry guys. And snake.
1:54:23
Was the youngest family member. She was only 14 when she joined
1:54:25
the Mansons, right? And then?
1:54:28
Victoria Pedretti, she plays Leslie Van Houten, nicknamed
1:54:31
Lulu, and James Landry Herbert plays Stephen Clem Morgan So.
1:54:36
Apparently Macaulay Culkin auditioned for a part right?
1:54:39
Which I presume must have been Clem, right?
1:54:42
Imagine Cliff beating the hell out of Macaulay Culkin.
1:54:46
Ladies. Loads of traps.
1:54:52
There's there's in the. Family as well that we'll talk
1:54:54
about shortly, but how mad is it seeing all these people who
1:54:57
weren't well known at the time but who've gone on to be like,
1:54:59
huge stars that shot early on from Cliff POV when the bus
1:55:02
pulls away and suddenly reveals Margaret Crawley and Sydney
1:55:05
Sweeney sitting there. Yeah.
1:55:06
It's crazy. Yeah.
1:55:08
Yeah. And they all have their own kind
1:55:10
of characteristics as well to make some individuals as part of
1:55:12
the family. Yeah, yeah, it.
1:55:14
Does they've got an individuality?
1:55:15
Do them, yeah. You want to see kind?
1:55:16
Of more of it, don't you? Yeah, well, no.
1:55:18
But yeah. The squeaking No.
1:55:22
Definitely not. Well, no.
1:55:24
Tarantino and the. Custom director Victoria Thomas
1:55:26
devised a unique audition process to cast the Mansons.
1:55:29
They encouraged the actors to improvise and create art that
1:55:32
the Mansons might have made well.
1:55:34
Mikey Madison, who plays Susan Atkins, created a painting and
1:55:37
wrote a poem about Charles Manson.
1:55:39
She said she knew she had the part because when she went for
1:55:41
the callback, her painting was hanging up in Tarantino's office
1:55:44
of Massive cool move that. Isn't it?
1:55:47
Yeah, will be brutal if he. Didn't cast her after that I'm
1:55:49
keeping the painting but you can go painting was class he
1:55:53
probably. Swabbed it for.
1:55:54
Everyone's painting and everyone who went back in which ones that
1:55:57
just hang it up. She'll take the part.
1:55:59
Yeah, I think Vic. Thomas does deserve a mention
1:56:01
for this incredible casting. Yeah.
1:56:04
And Ariana Phillips, just the Mansons, based on real
1:56:06
photographs from the time. So this must be pretty much how
1:56:09
Spawn Ranch and the Mansons looked.
1:56:11
Yeah, based on the recreations, I would never.
1:56:13
Have said that that ranch was a recreation No I.
1:56:16
Wouldn't have felt so either that spawn.
1:56:18
Ranch and a real introduction to the Mansons.
1:56:21
We've not seen the last of them just yet though, have we?
1:56:24
No, unfortunately not. We've arrived.
1:56:29
The climax where the Mansons turn up?
1:56:31
Yep. Tarantino mixes things up
1:56:33
though. The family arrive on Cielo
1:56:34
Drive, but instead of targeting Sharon Tate's house, they go
1:56:37
after Rick's after recognizing him for playing JK Hill.
1:56:41
Ridiculous. They picked the wrong house on
1:56:45
the wrong night. Cliff and Brandy are waiting.
1:56:47
Yep. What were we still worried
1:56:49
about, Matt? It all turns out fine, doesn't
1:56:51
it? God.
1:56:52
Exactly. And the first time you see this,
1:56:57
the way the tension just raised its head, it's so effective
1:57:01
because it's been such a lock up until now.
1:57:03
You're just hanging out with Rittencliff.
1:57:06
And then you feel you just brought back down worth with a
1:57:08
very big bump. That realization of shit, this
1:57:11
is that night with these people and we all know what happened,
1:57:15
which therefore makes that sense of relief when you realize where
1:57:18
he's taking this now and they've got it wrong.
1:57:20
It's so effective. And you can relax because you
1:57:23
think, oh, thank God, he's not going there.
1:57:26
And what I get from this is a sense of genuine kind of anger
1:57:29
from Tarantino. He really wishes this had
1:57:32
happened. Don't we all?
1:57:33
We all do, obviously, but you can tell he almost takes it
1:57:36
personally and it is kind of uncomfortable seeing this
1:57:39
violence being dished out to them.
1:57:40
But it's also kind of funny at the same time, the fact that
1:57:44
Cliff is tripping out of his mind.
1:57:46
So does he even think any of this is real?
1:57:48
Does he know what's going on? I think that's the.
1:57:50
Point, isn't it? Yeah, exactly because it's.
1:57:52
Not contrast of the danger he's in, but how funny he thinks it
1:57:55
is. Like you are a horsey, really
1:57:57
funny. I love the pay off with Brandy.
1:58:00
You can see, you know what we've seen earlier, She's controlled
1:58:02
with just a hand movement and then the click of his tongue and
1:58:05
you just think, yes, this is great.
1:58:06
This is what what the deserved. But if I could go back in time
1:58:10
and see your film again for the first time with no prior
1:58:12
knowledge, it might be this one. Just for that scene of Rick
1:58:16
striding out of the garage with the flame Thor.
1:58:20
First time I saw this I lost it for about 5 minutes I was just
1:58:24
helpless with laughter. So the whole thing, it could be
1:58:27
ridiculous, but it works so well because underneath the OTT
1:58:30
violence and the dark comedy, there's a genuine honesty to
1:58:33
this. You think, yeah, this is how it
1:58:36
should have gone down and I really wish I could have done.
1:58:39
Yeah. The way the build up to the
1:58:41
night with the montage and Kurt Russell narrating where everyone
1:58:43
is and what time it is, that works really well.
1:58:46
That's. Brilliant, yeah.
1:58:47
Builds up this sense of. Dread because we think we know
1:58:49
what's coming. Yeah, and somehow still funny.
1:58:52
Rick's in the film called Kill Me Quick Ringo, said The gringo.
1:58:57
Ridiculous. Really funny when the mansions
1:58:59
first turn open, the cars making a racket and Rick looks out the
1:59:02
window when he's like bunch of God damn fucking yeah.
1:59:06
And. Then storms out in his tiny
1:59:08
room. Very.
1:59:09
Quantum. I love the whole.
1:59:11
Thing and there's more than I can talk about.
1:59:14
I'm a huge fan of the Mansons talking in their car at the
1:59:17
bottom of Seattle Drive. Yes, I'm a master.
1:59:19
Fan Austin Butler's text. Where he's like, he either said
1:59:22
that or I'm a liar. Yeah.
1:59:24
You calling me a liar? Yeah.
1:59:25
He's fantastic as always. And how good is Mikey Madison as
1:59:29
Susan Atkins? Believable.
1:59:31
She's a charisma. Volcano.
1:59:33
William Shatner. Yeah, no surprise she went on to
1:59:36
be an Oscar winner. Yeah, and then You Keep Me
1:59:39
Hanging On by Vanilla Fudge kicking in as the Mansons
1:59:41
approach the door for a version. That that's a needle.
1:59:44
Drop and a half yeah, and just about every that filmmaker in
1:59:47
the world would surely than a parallel editing trick like
1:59:49
Silence of the Lambs huddles thinking the mansions were at
1:59:51
Sharon's door. And it turns out with Rick's
1:59:53
cuties. Above all that though.
1:59:55
But yeah, this is what we all wish it happened.
1:59:57
Obviously when these bastards turned up.
1:59:59
I'm not intended sure why Rick turns Atkinson the fried
2:00:02
Sauerkra when he's got no idea what's going on.
2:00:05
But I'm here for it, yeah. It's just a wonderful.
2:00:09
Sequence, isn't it first time I'd seen it.
2:00:10
I was waiting for this moment to happen and then when it did
2:00:13
happen, the first thing I thought to myself was this is a
2:00:16
Quentin Tarantino movie now this is a Quentin Tarantino film
2:00:19
because nobody else could even touch this to this degree of the
2:00:24
how acceptable this violence is. Then none of us have really
2:00:27
touched about on how violent this really is.
2:00:29
Massively. It's horrendous.
2:00:31
Hitting the head off the fireplace, off the table and
2:00:33
it's just the corner of the fire and it's bang, bang, bang.
2:00:36
A tin of dog food in a face smashes our nose in a dog
2:00:41
ripping his balls off basically, and then ripped her into bits.
2:00:45
But you're there for it. Like John just said, you're
2:00:47
there for it. Somebody set on fire in a
2:00:49
swimming pool, like set on fire. You can tell it's real.
2:00:51
It's all in camera. It's horrendous.
2:00:53
And we'll stay on it and we'll see the corpse and we're quite
2:00:56
happy to see the corpse. I think that's Tarantino giving
2:01:00
the finger to any single critic and just said these movies are
2:01:03
too violent because they're going to be punching the sky at
2:01:06
the moment that this happens, watching this film, and it's
2:01:08
going to be gone. Is it too violent now?
2:01:10
Yeah. Yeah.
2:01:10
You wanted this to happen. You're happy it's this violent.
2:01:13
You're happy we can do this in cinema, aren't you?
2:01:15
And they're going well, Yeah, actually, which is really,
2:01:17
really Quentin Tarantino for me. The minute that Cliff walks away
2:01:22
with Brandy and just holds that shot and then the car comes up.
2:01:25
Oh, it's great. It's fucking so good.
2:01:27
It's just like, wow, that that's tension again.
2:01:30
And like you said, just Rick Maker margaritas.
2:01:32
I kind of get more of that. I kind of get any more of it
2:01:35
just shaking. He just wants it now.
2:01:37
And just drinking it straight out of the mixer as he's walking
2:01:40
back. Fantastic sequence, fantastic
2:01:42
ending. I can't get enough of it, but I
2:01:44
can't watch it by itself. I need them other two hours, 10
2:01:47
minutes. Yeah.
2:01:48
Yeah. To really, really make this, I
2:01:49
appreciate how good this sequence is.
2:01:51
Absolutely. Yeah.
2:01:52
So as we know. Tarantino changed his history
2:01:55
here, but there are still a lot of references to the real events
2:01:57
that transpired. Firstly, don't worry, we're not
2:02:00
that type of podcast. We're not going into any detail
2:02:02
on the brutal and horrific stuff that happened.
2:02:05
Yeah, because. It is genuinely horrific, not
2:02:07
the kind of thing you expect to hear on a movie podcast.
2:02:09
So we'll leave that. No, it's not going to.
2:02:11
Happen so. On the day, though, Sharon is
2:02:14
visited by her friend Joanne, who brings her baby.
2:02:16
This is Joanna Pettet, a British actress who was Sharons friend
2:02:19
and did visit her on that day. And she's played by Rumor Willis
2:02:23
in the film, who was daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.
2:02:25
Yeah. Nice.
2:02:27
She was in the original Casino Royale.
2:02:28
Joanne Pettet, also apparently Deborah Tate, who we talked
2:02:31
about, she called Sharon that day and wanted to visit her that
2:02:34
night, but Sharon said no because she was having friends
2:02:37
over. Right, Okay.
2:02:38
Grateful for small. Mercies for 16 year old could
2:02:40
have been there. Escape, yeah.
2:02:42
And Steve McQueen. Well, I wish she was.
2:02:44
There, Yeah. You would have sold them out.
2:02:46
Yeah. Captain Hills and the car.
2:02:49
The Manson's turnip in was a recreation of their real Ford
2:02:52
Galaxy. Steven Butcher was the Picture
2:02:54
Corps coordinator and he was given access to the Manson's car
2:02:58
and recreated it, right down to having the same dents.
2:03:01
Wow. Yeah.
2:03:02
Also, the truck from FBI, the show that Rick's in, Butcher got
2:03:05
his hands on the very truck from that episode of FBI.
2:03:08
So it's the real thing that we see.
2:03:09
I love that episode. Of FBI, It's great, Brad Pitt's
2:03:12
voice. So I love that shot Kill.
2:03:14
Number. 2. I don't think we were talking.
2:03:17
About a pitcher called coordinator before either, no, I
2:03:19
haven't. But you kind of have to on.
2:03:20
This yeah, he did a pretty good. Job and never will again.
2:03:25
And the four? Manson family members all the
2:03:27
same for that went to Sharon's saw Charles, Tex Watson, Susan
2:03:31
Sadie Atkins, Patricia Quinwinkle, played by Madison
2:03:35
Beatty, and Linda Kasabian, played by Maya Hawk, daughter of
2:03:39
Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawk. Yeah.
2:03:42
Yeah, then the. Kasabian was the only one who
2:03:43
didn't go to jail for the murders.
2:03:45
Apparently she did try to stop them on the night and then
2:03:47
testified against the others afterwards to put them away.
2:03:50
That's right. So that's why Tarantino had to
2:03:51
drive away in the car presumably, right?
2:03:53
Nice. And there were four.
2:03:54
People inside Sharon's house who were killed by the mansions
2:03:57
Sharon Jay Sebrien, Abigail Folger, played by Samantha
2:04:00
Robinson and Voytek Frykowski played by Costa Ronan.
2:04:04
But there was also a fifth victim.
2:04:06
Stephen Parent was sitting outside Sharon's house when the
2:04:09
mansions turned up and Charles Watson shot him.
2:04:11
Yeah, there's. No reference to him in the film
2:04:13
at all. Stephen Parent, but Abigail
2:04:15
Folger was daughter of Peter Folger of the Folger Coffee
2:04:18
Company. She was.
2:04:19
She was pretty well known at the time as well apparently, right?
2:04:22
We also see Abigail at the piano singing Straight Shooter by the
2:04:25
Mamas and Papas, and this is because when the police arrived
2:04:28
the next day, they found the sheet music to the song on the
2:04:30
piano right. And Michelle Phillips.
2:04:33
Of the Mamas and the Papas apparently had a thing with
2:04:35
Polanski when he was with Sharon, which I guess is why
2:04:37
she's at the Playboy party near the start, Right?
2:04:40
OK. Wow.
2:04:42
Voytek. Frykowski, he did sleep on the
2:04:44
couch, like shown in the film, and he was walking by Charles
2:04:47
Watson, pointing a gun in his face.
2:04:49
When he asked who he was, Watson said I'm the devil, and I'm here
2:04:52
to do the devil's business, which is aligned Texas in the
2:04:54
film. It is, yeah.
2:04:56
Holding that. Yeah, but the delivery of it is
2:04:58
excellent, but terrifying when you know that's what he really
2:05:00
said. Yeah, it is.
2:05:03
And then the following night, the 10th of August, the Mansons
2:05:05
went to the home of a businessman called Leno Labianca
2:05:08
and murdered him and his wife Rosemarie, who was the same 4
2:05:11
plus Leslie Van Houten and Manson himself.
2:05:14
Linda Kasabian said Manson wanted to show them how it was
2:05:17
done. Well, for that, Manson and the
2:05:20
four family members went to prison in 1971.
2:05:23
Four of them were never released, and Leslie Van Houten
2:05:25
was released after 53 years. Right.
2:05:27
Was it worth it to be Evil bastard for a couple of days?
2:05:30
No, of course not. No bloody hell.
2:05:32
So anyway, back to some. Nicer stuff, please.
2:05:34
Yeah, the creativity behind the film because he changed it.
2:05:37
Tarantino left the end and out of the script that he gave to
2:05:39
people, the only people apart from Tarantino who knew from the
2:05:43
start what would happen with Tarantino, DiCaprio, Pit and
2:05:46
Robbie and Robert Richardson didn't even know until like
2:05:49
midway through production to allow him to prepare for it.
2:05:52
Didn't know until I've got to prep for the end what happens.
2:05:56
I think he also let. Everyone, Polanski's
2:05:57
representative read the ending, right.
2:05:59
I mean, that's a bit he's going to be concerned about, so you
2:06:00
kind of have to. Yeah, of course.
2:06:02
Yeah. And there's a couple of other
2:06:03
actors with Tyson Tarantino who show up in smaller roles.
2:06:07
Rick's Italian actress wife, Francesca Cappucci.
2:06:10
Oliver Renko Russell says her name.
2:06:11
Yeah, it's great. She's played by.
2:06:13
Lorenzo Izzo, and she's the wife of Eli Roth, famously 1 of
2:06:17
Tarantino's film maker buddies and the girl who sells Cliff the
2:06:20
cigarette dipped in acid for $0.50.
2:06:22
That's Pearla Heaney Jardine, and she played Bebe the Bright's
2:06:27
little girl in Kill Bill volume to Oh wow, nice.
2:06:30
Yeah. And away we go.
2:06:35
Off his. Box When the man sits you can't
2:06:38
even put the lights on. You know, it's amazing licking
2:06:41
the dog. Food.
2:06:42
It's when he tries. The dog food, he's, I'm really
2:06:44
tempted. Yeah, he is tempted.
2:06:46
Yeah, he is. And then it's all.
2:06:48
Over Cliff leaves in the ambulance, Francesca just goes
2:06:50
back to bed somehow and we get Rick left alone for the final
2:06:54
moments. What do we think of the Den?
2:06:56
You more I. Find it very, very poignant, and
2:07:00
not just because Rick is being accepted as a real hero and he's
2:07:03
in the Hollywood circle now, but because this is how that night
2:07:07
should have ended. And the tragic thing is we all
2:07:08
know how it did. And the music suddenly becomes
2:07:11
very melancholic and gentle. You get another one of those
2:07:13
incredible crane shots. And I just think it's so
2:07:16
notable. It's only now we get the title
2:07:18
on screen because, yeah, sadly, this is only a fairy tale.
2:07:21
I think this moment is the most heartfelt thing Tarantino's ever
2:07:25
done. And in terms of his punch on for
2:07:27
change in history, this slams 1000 times better than it did in
2:07:31
Inglorious Basterds. I totally agree, I love it as a
2:07:35
final scene. It's funny when she asked Rick
2:07:37
if everyone's OK and Rick's like, well, the hippies aren't,
2:07:40
that's for goddamn sure. And with the crane shots.
2:07:46
Over Cielo Dr. obviously, as we have to, and it's one of the
2:07:48
best ones we get. Miss the Langtree by Maurice
2:07:51
Shaw playing us out and the logo comes over the screen.
2:07:54
It is perfect way to end. Yeah, except for one thing.
2:07:58
OK, right. So, Rick.
2:08:00
Standing there alone on the drive, he has hello off screen.
2:08:03
Turns around to see Jay Sebring at the gate.
2:08:05
Yeah. Why or?
2:08:06
Why is that not Sharon standing there?
2:08:09
Yeah. I cannot fathom it as a
2:08:11
storytelling choice. We've not seen them together.
2:08:13
The whole thing's been set up since the first act, and the
2:08:15
dialogue doesn't even need a change.
2:08:17
Sharon going all the flame through our from 14 Fist of
2:08:20
McCluskey. How awesome would that be?
2:08:22
Yeah, I said. This is about the end of In
2:08:23
Glorious Basterds, and the only reason I can think of is that
2:08:26
Tarrant, he was done it to piss me off.
2:08:29
It's mad or. Am I wrong?
2:08:30
Is it better this way, Wesley? I don't know.
2:08:32
I think it's good. That she's on the intercom and
2:08:34
she's asking what's happening from the safety, from the safety
2:08:36
of a house and he's coming out and try and play the big guy and
2:08:39
find out what's wrong. She's heavily pregnant.
2:08:41
For her to investigate something that was could be bad news.
2:08:45
That's not her character to do and never has been throughout
2:08:47
this film or throughout this fairy tale really.
2:08:49
It does make more. Sense he'd be the one that goes
2:08:51
out. You're absolutely right.
2:08:52
Yeah. It's just seeing them together
2:08:54
we kind of need it, don't we? Yeah, I guess.
2:08:56
So yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, we do though.
2:08:59
Get another scene where to cap you and Robbie share the screen
2:09:02
on the flight back from Italy. Rick has served a cocktail by
2:09:04
stewardess at one point. We only see her arms and hear
2:09:07
her say it enjoys her, but that's Margot Robbie nice.
2:09:11
Yeah. She made a name in America
2:09:13
playing in a stewardess in the TV show called Pan Am Margot
2:09:16
Robbie. So with all the references to TV
2:09:18
in the film, I guess that's why they did it, which is a nice
2:09:21
touch of. So makes sense, yeah.
2:09:23
And with. That we fade to black and an end
2:09:25
credit sequence featuring Rick advertising Red Apple
2:09:27
cigarettes. So we are in the Tarantino
2:09:29
verse. Here we are.
2:09:31
And the Rick put you just. Cardboard cut out, I've got a
2:09:33
double shit. These cigarettes taste like.
2:09:35
Shit. That's for the climax.
2:09:38
Once Upon a time in Hollywood, Tarantino flips things on its
2:09:41
head and gives us the fairy tale we wish we'd got.
2:09:44
Absolutely. 100% absolutely. Reception and awards.
2:09:52
So that's the tale behind the fairy tale and Once Upon a Time
2:09:55
in Hollywood open cinemas on July the 26th, 2019.
2:10:00
As for how it performed, well, our own Hollywood historian Matt
2:10:03
is. He had to tell us.
2:10:04
So crunch those numbers, Matt. Okay, so production budget of
2:10:09
about $90 million. The film took $392.1 million
2:10:14
globally, so a huge hit. And it did do well at the
2:10:18
Oscars, who was nominated for 10 overall, winning two, which, as
2:10:21
we've said, Brad Pitt for best supporting actor and Barbara
2:10:24
Lane and Nancy here for best production design.
2:10:27
I mean, so well deserved that. Well deserved.
2:10:29
Yeah, well. Deserved.
2:10:30
Nothing for. Best Picture card coordinator
2:10:32
for Steven Butcher even been good.
2:10:34
Shame. The picture card coordinator.
2:10:36
Awards, Yeah. To promote the film.
2:10:39
And the run up to its release, Tarantino curated and presented
2:10:42
a swinging 60s movie marathon 'cause he did.
2:10:45
Yeah, films that. Influenced Once Upon a Time in
2:10:47
Hollywood. It was broadcast on TV and 80
2:10:50
couldn't Reason was a selection of Columbia Pictures.
2:10:52
Classics included Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Easy Rider
2:10:56
and The Wrecking Crew. Nice.
2:10:58
The. Wrecking crew, of course.
2:10:59
Yeah, an Easy Rider. Rick calls text Dennis Hopper,
2:11:02
doesn't he? He does, yeah.
2:11:04
That's really funny. Hey, Dennis Harper, get out of
2:11:08
here. However, China refused to give
2:11:11
the film a certificate rating, meaning couldn't be released
2:11:14
there, and they said the reason was the depiction of Bruce Lee
2:11:17
in the film and said that if Tarantino took the scene out
2:11:20
entirely that give the film a certificate.
2:11:22
Obviously, Tarantino refused, so the film didn't release in
2:11:25
Chinese theaters, right? Yeah, I think, Shannon.
2:11:28
Lee raised the original complaint, and I wonder if
2:11:30
that's why Tarantino kind of made amends in the novelization,
2:11:33
like we talked about. Yeah.
2:11:34
Accepted. The portrayal of Bruce Lee could
2:11:36
have been a bit better, Maybe, yeah.
2:11:39
Under the critics. Then Rick Dalton's nemesis to
2:11:42
see what they thought of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
2:11:44
Yeah. We'll start with Roger, of
2:11:45
course. Of course, the score from
2:11:47
rogereber.com. What do you think?
2:11:51
I'm going to go pretty. High and this is a love letter
2:11:52
to cinema and these guys love cinema, so I'm going to see high
2:11:55
praise, so I'm going to go full marks for that one.
2:11:58
I'll go all three. You're right, Westy.
2:12:01
Four stars over four yeah wow and Brian Talarico said Lee had
2:12:05
an ambitious Once Upon a time in Hollywood is the product of a
2:12:08
confident film maker working with collaborators completely in
2:12:11
tune with his vision they are that's what we've.
2:12:13
Said. Isn't it fantastic?
2:12:15
I think a lot of. Confidence has never been a
2:12:16
problem for Quentin. Definitely.
2:12:18
You know what? He could do by himself.
2:12:19
He's confident in the video store, for fuck's sake.
2:12:23
Pi travel as a. Rolling Stone game very close to
2:12:25
top marks 4.5 out of five and said all the actors in roles
2:12:29
large and small bringing their A games to the film. 2 hours and
2:12:32
40 minutes can feel long for some.
2:12:35
Ah, you wouldn't change your frame.
2:12:38
Neither would I. Except for the one I talked
2:12:39
about with Sharon at the end. An Empire magazine gave the film
2:12:44
four stars out of five, with Ian Freer saying if it's not top
2:12:48
draw QT. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is
2:12:50
at once an engaging buddy comedy, an intoxicating faction
2:12:53
fiction mash up, gorgeous filmmaking and a Valentine to
2:12:57
the movies that delivers geek Nirvana.
2:12:59
Right. Valentine to the.
2:13:02
Movies from QT. All these films are about a bit
2:13:04
though, yeah. Pretty much, yeah.
2:13:07
And then on Rotten Tomatoes today, the film has a big 86%
2:13:11
critics approval rating. And it may be surprising, 70%
2:13:14
from audiences just feel a bit low.
2:13:16
But then on IMDb 7.6 out of 10. As far as audiences are
2:13:22
concerned, it's the lowest rated QT film on Rotten Tomorrow.
2:13:25
It is very divisive. Though that's what we're saying,
2:13:27
it is divisive it. Really is, yeah.
2:13:28
You love it. I hate it.
2:13:29
There's. No middle ground with this
2:13:30
whatsoever. Yeah, so.
2:13:31
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with a success on its release,
2:13:34
big return to the box office straightened Quentin's back
2:13:36
pocket. Pretty much unanimous critical
2:13:39
acclaim, not so much from audience as our China maybe, but
2:13:42
still don't know OK on the whole if they got a chance.
2:13:44
To see it, I think it would have been different, yeah.
2:13:50
Sequels and influence there were no.
2:13:54
Sequels to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and it's unlikely
2:13:57
there ever will be. However, that hasn't stopped our
2:13:59
page ones fantasizing about 10. Nice.
2:14:02
Time for our. Finally, a TRM pager on question
2:14:05
and it comes from Tim Bruce Lee. Hello, Tim.
2:14:08
Hello, Tim. So, Tim.
2:14:09
Says QT would never do a sequel, but the ATR M boys are another
2:14:13
story. That's true enough, Tim.
2:14:15
Yes, we are. Using Rick Cliff.
2:14:18
And Sharon, what real life event of the 70s, eighties, 90s
2:14:21
etcetera would you have them revising the sequel?
2:14:24
And Tim says thank you for making me healthy.
2:14:26
I always found walking and running boring, but when I
2:14:29
became a patron and had access to all that material, I haven't
2:14:32
missed a day in 18 months. Amazing.
2:14:34
Become a patron, get healthy. There you go.
2:14:37
Running every day. For 18 months.
2:14:39
Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump.
2:14:42
I just felt like being a patron. And Tim like RPR.
2:14:47
Guy with that praise, thanks. Yeah, too, right.
2:14:49
Yeah, but Matt, any? Sequel ideas?
2:14:52
So what I would do? For sequel is I'd have Rick
2:14:55
decide that he wants to embark upon a music career better than
2:14:57
the Green door he does early on in the film, and he wants to
2:15:00
spend no expense. So he relocates to London, 1970
2:15:05
Abbey Road. Cliff is obviously along for the
2:15:07
ride. Shounds.
2:15:08
They're doing back and vocals and when they're there they see
2:15:11
all the tension that's going on between The Beatles and they're
2:15:13
just sorted out. It takes Paul and John out,
2:15:17
teaches them the value of friendships.
2:15:18
Or, you know, let George have some more songs.
2:15:21
Cliff tells George, I know what it's like to be overshadowed all
2:15:24
the time. Be your moment to shine will
2:15:25
come. And then he just reminds Ringo
2:15:27
he's Ringo fucking star Sharon. She takes York on the girls
2:15:31
weekend away. She's not hanging around causing
2:15:33
tension. Chills her out.
2:15:35
Chills her out. There you go to stop The Beatles
2:15:37
breaking up and because the time above the Manson family, John
2:15:40
and York or decide to live in London instead of moving to
2:15:43
America. John Lennon lives.
2:15:45
Brilliant. That's.
2:15:45
Awesome, there you go. He wouldn't want that.
2:15:48
I certainly would. Yeah, yeah.
2:15:51
I mean, Tim's right. Tarantino wouldn't do a sequel,
2:15:52
but I'd love it if he did more than probably any of that film
2:15:55
he's done. I'd love to see this LA again.
2:15:57
I'd love to see these three characters again.
2:15:58
Yeah. And if you are listening, QT my
2:16:01
idea, it's not a good match, to be fair.
2:16:03
But mine's a trilogy. So 3 films where we move through
2:16:06
part of Hollywood history and like US culture with Rick, Cliff
2:16:09
and Sharon. So film one.
2:16:11
Obviously we've got new Hollywood counter culture, The
2:16:13
Mansons. Great film. 2/5 to 10 years
2:16:16
later, mid to late 70s and now Rick Cassidy with the movie
2:16:20
brats and the rise of the blockbuster.
2:16:22
Right. So how does he fit into that?
2:16:23
OK, Spielberg's in there. Koblas in there.
2:16:25
Scorsese. Yeah.
2:16:26
I'd love the city. Tarantino's version of Lucas.
2:16:31
And set to. A backdrop of political activism
2:16:33
and the Vietnam protests, the rise of feminism, Watergate,
2:16:36
maybe. That'll be pretty cool, yeah.
2:16:38
And then film 3, the 80s and more change for Rick to deal
2:16:42
with the rise of the action * Arnold's in there, obviously.
2:16:46
Obviously. The development of.
2:16:47
CGI so I and Jim's in there. The advent of home video.
2:16:50
Rick struggles against all these things, set to a backdrop of
2:16:53
like consumerism, evolving, the rise of MTV and politically, the
2:16:57
end of the Cold War, Reaganism before the Berlin Wall.
2:17:00
And then Part 3 ends. Early 90's, the arrival of
2:17:04
Tarantino, playing himself, playing himself.
2:17:07
In the video store, obviously. Yeah, exactly.
2:17:10
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Elaborate is.
2:17:11
Like, yeah. And it ends with.
2:17:13
Tarantino being direct, like, you're so perfect, I could have
2:17:16
wrote you myself. Yeah.
2:17:17
And he cast Rick in a film about his own life called Once Upon a
2:17:21
Time in Hollywood. Manner as hell.
2:17:23
Tarantino finally devours himself like a snake.
2:17:26
And. The Tarantino Trilogy.
2:17:31
And Rusty. I did have a couple.
2:17:32
But that's just kind of stolen me.
2:17:35
Main 10? Really.
2:17:37
I had once. Upon a time in New York.
2:17:39
So the go in New York late 70s and Rick and Sharon have got a
2:17:43
part and it's going to be kind of the grimy streets.
2:17:45
New York bring all that back. Cliff goes and be the stunt
2:17:49
double and then somebody walks up and asks Rick and Sharon for
2:17:52
the autograph and it's Mark Chapman and the guns behind him.
2:17:56
But Cliff gets there first in case he's facing with A10 of dog
2:17:58
food. And then we'll see John Lennon
2:18:01
and you're going to walk out the Dakota Hotel in the background.
2:18:04
So it's. Prevented yet?
2:18:05
Another assassination. That's fine.
2:18:06
I think we should do all. These.
2:18:08
Yeah, great. In a Series A.
2:18:09
Netflix series Yeah, 10 episode just go Once Upon a time, but
2:18:14
Tarantino has. Actually talked about what
2:18:15
happens to Rick after the events of the film mean he obviously
2:18:18
thought about this and he said that after fighting off the
2:18:21
Mansons, Rick stock rose in Hollywood.
2:18:23
And he did have some success. He starred in a couple of low
2:18:25
butchered studio features and became a bigger name on TV.
2:18:29
He's not doing Land of the Giants or the Green Hornet
2:18:31
anymore, but he's now on Mission Impossible as the bad guy, and
2:18:34
it becomes his episode and Tarantino said, and he's going,
2:18:37
OK, well, that's a relief. No good.
2:18:40
Is it a relief? Yeah.
2:18:41
Apparently Tarantino. Submitted the fake filmography
2:18:43
for Rick to IMDb. They declined it.
2:18:48
How much time does? He have on his hands.
2:18:50
He just goes all. In doesn't He, all of it doesn't
2:18:52
sleep. As for the influence and legacy
2:18:55
behind the film though, how do we think we've seen the impact
2:18:58
of Once Upon Slime in Hollywood since 2019?
2:19:01
I mean, we've seen it, I've definitely seen it, but I think
2:19:04
it owes more to its influences itself.
2:19:06
You know the likes of easy right?
2:19:07
I've mentioned getting straight to that.
2:19:09
Elliott Gould Rome come from 1970, which is fantastic.
2:19:11
Arizona Raiders, the Western is great.
2:19:13
Kiss the girls and make them die.
2:19:15
Hammerhead, if you haven't seen them, they're fantastic.
2:19:18
But after it, the only thing that's touched on it that's come
2:19:21
close to it and it stars Pitt and Robbie.
2:19:23
Can you guess what I'm going to say?
2:19:24
Yes, Go on then Babylon. Absolutely.
2:19:27
And that arcs back to the, you know, the golden era of
2:19:30
Hollywood. The really try there.
2:19:32
And you know what? Nobody else got it.
2:19:34
But I absolutely fucking love. That's a great film.
2:19:37
Really. Unofficially.
2:19:39
Brilliant and flew under the radar.
2:19:41
So if you want to say anything close to this and you haven't
2:19:43
seen Babylon, go to that one, because this is kind of based
2:19:46
before where this one came from. And for me, Babylon is the only
2:19:49
thing that's close to this. Yeah, I'll.
2:19:52
Take a shout in terms of influence.
2:19:54
I mean, it's not Pulp Fiction, is it?
2:19:55
How could it be? No, but still, I think it has
2:19:57
had an impact. In effect.
2:19:59
I think it breathed new life into the period piece genre for
2:20:02
a while. Nostalgic without being overly
2:20:04
sentimental. I mean, nostalgia now is a very
2:20:06
powerful force across culture and especially in Hollywood.
2:20:09
Constant reboots. Reimaginings.
2:20:12
Films referencing previous films in the same series but Once Upon
2:20:15
a time in Hollywood shows film makers how to do that how to do
2:20:18
nostalgia and still be original. It's showcasing on at the films
2:20:22
TV shows the music of that period without just doing the
2:20:25
exact same thing. Yeah, no doubt that some people
2:20:28
taking a new interest in that as well.
2:20:30
And I think it definitely on as the memory of Sharon Tate.
2:20:33
Any respectful. A nice way.
2:20:35
Yeah. If you're talking revisionist
2:20:36
history storytelling in Hollywood, I think this is kind
2:20:39
of the benchmark. And any future film makers who
2:20:42
are thinking about rewriting real life events will surely
2:20:45
look upon Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to see how Tarantino
2:20:48
did it. Yeah.
2:20:49
Yeah, I have. Babylon Down as well.
2:20:51
I think this and Wolf of Wall Street just before really
2:20:55
propelled Margot Robbie into the big time where she is now, where
2:20:57
she's an absolute A Lister. But it's legacy for me.
2:21:00
There's like a sense of finality to this, a sense that he's
2:21:03
saying something here, that he's been building his entire great
2:21:06
watch. And that's its legacy for me.
2:21:08
In a way. It's the ultimate Tarantino
2:21:10
statement ended on this. Well, no sequels.
2:21:12
To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and unlikely there
2:21:14
will be, but the legacy and influence of the film and its
2:21:18
revisionist take on history that may be seen in the working with
2:21:20
our film makers. Yeah, yeah.
2:21:23
Definitely watch. Papa, all the right movies.
2:21:28
Ranking. And we've completed Once Upon a
2:21:32
Time in Hollywood. Now it's time for the Tinseltown
2:21:35
tally, where we each rate the film out of 10.
2:21:38
Westie. Your choice.
2:21:39
So what do you think your summary and score for Once Upon
2:21:42
a Time in Hollywood? Yeah, I mean.
2:21:44
There was reason I put up. This is just to talk about it
2:21:47
again and to make sure that all of us were on the same page,
2:21:49
which I know we are. But it was just to dive into it
2:21:52
and I have it down and to say we've talked about it and talked
2:21:54
about it with such adoration as we have.
2:21:57
I didn't realize how divisive it was.
2:21:59
I didn't realize there's people out there who it's his worst
2:22:01
film. It's really self indulgent.
2:22:02
It's really pretentious. There's always an audience for
2:22:04
that and that's fine, but on the other side of the coin, there's
2:22:07
always the audience for really appreciating that, really
2:22:10
appreciating the honesty and the how genuine the film is, how
2:22:13
passionate it is, how wonderful it is.
2:22:15
It takes the boxes on every conceivable level of me.
2:22:17
The acting's amazing, the writing's amazing, the crew,
2:22:20
every single one of them, incredible.
2:22:21
The casting is just a lesson. Everything works from start to
2:22:26
finish. There's not a frame I would
2:22:27
change. There's not a scene I would.
2:22:29
Put differently, nobody else could have made this film apart
2:22:31
from Quentin Tarantino. It's completely original.
2:22:33
It's completely fantastic. It's completely wonderful.
2:22:35
It's a complete den. Oh, massive.
2:22:38
Wonderful. Yeah, it's Tarantino, isn't it?
2:22:42
It is a. Bit, yeah.
2:22:44
One of Hollywood's most distinctive voices for me, and I
2:22:47
think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is maybe him.
2:22:49
It is most personal from the setting.
2:22:51
His hometown in the Pvt. grew up as a child, referencing all the
2:22:54
music, the TV shows, the places that he knew, the character
2:22:57
writing. It's there, too.
2:22:59
I think Tarantino sees a lot of himself in Rick, which is one
2:23:02
part of the reason that character feels so rich and so
2:23:04
alive. Yeah.
2:23:06
The other reason for that is Leonardo DiCaprio at his
2:23:09
brilliant best as all the rest of the cast.
2:23:11
Brad Pitt's performance for me probably is best.
2:23:14
Margot Robbie is a joy whenever she's on the screen and the
2:23:17
supporting A list casting Kurt Russell, Al Pacino and Bruce
2:23:20
Stern are fantastic. And another joy is in the what
2:23:23
at the time was C listed best actors playing the Mansons all
2:23:27
great, but Austin Butland, Mikey Madison both outstand out
2:23:30
moments for me. Yeah, and it looks.
2:23:32
Incredible. Robert Richardson, Barbara
2:23:34
Liang, Nancy Haig delivered world class visual work.
2:23:37
This version of LA, it looks like a great place and it even
2:23:40
chews up and spits out the Manson Family, which can only be
2:23:42
a good thing. Yeah, not for everyone, I know,
2:23:45
but it is in the top tier of Tarantino's work for me, and I'm
2:23:48
going 9 out of 10. Nice.
2:23:51
And Matt? To finish us off your summer
2:23:53
against Score for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, please.
2:23:56
Very much like Wesley, it was fascinating to see how divisive
2:23:59
this is in the comments on the film because, yeah, as he said,
2:24:02
some people say it's as best, some people say it's as worst.
2:24:05
And I'm not staying on the fence, but I do get both sides
2:24:07
of the argument for this one. But I'll just think back to the
2:24:10
first time I saw this, and I felt so knocked out by
2:24:13
particularly how unexpected and funny the ending is and how much
2:24:17
of A relief it was. And it's never really dipped
2:24:20
from there for me. I love the recreation of the
2:24:22
period, from the soundtrack to the costume design.
2:24:25
I'm just so happy to just hang out with these characters,
2:24:28
particularly DiCaprio, I think given maybe his most underrated
2:24:31
performance. But above everything else, it's
2:24:34
the genuine warmth and emotion I get from Tarantino here and not
2:24:38
together with the time period, the set and what he's seeing
2:24:40
here. That's why this feels like the
2:24:42
ultimate Tarantino film for me, the one where it feels like
2:24:46
that's what he's been building towards his entire career and
2:24:49
he's seeing something. And to try and criticize his
2:24:52
film I'd be really nitpicking. And honestly I can't.
2:24:56
I genuinely just love this film. I'm on that side of the fence.
2:24:59
This is also a 10 for me. I think it might be his best
2:25:02
film. Wow.
2:25:03
How's that? Nice hot takes from Matt.
2:25:06
Hot take. Random, yeah.
2:25:09
Well, we. Also put this out there to our
2:25:10
very own Manson family or ATR MP.
2:25:14
Your Charlie Manson. Matt, the Madison family, OK,
2:25:17
that's fine. Very nice.
2:25:19
So some of. Their thoughts, Liam Moore said.
2:25:22
I've watched it more than any other QT film and I love QTI
2:25:26
think it's his finest work. The time period, the subject
2:25:28
matter, the soundtrack and the stellar cast.
2:25:30
When 2 cameo performances like Kurt Russell and Bruce Dern
2:25:33
explode off the screen in a movie this great, it must be
2:25:36
great. 10 out of 10 QTS magnum opus.
2:25:40
Yeah, nice. You agree with you, Matt.
2:25:42
Yeah. And he loads his.
2:25:43
QJ does Liam eat us? Yeah.
2:25:45
It wasn't all positive though. No and Mark Shufflebottom said
2:25:48
overblown and self indulgent. Nothing wrong with the
2:25:51
performances, just too much filler which the over the top
2:25:54
ending can't overcome, right? He wasn't alone in.
2:25:58
Calling this self indulgent mark, I do get that.
2:26:00
Totally get it. Totally get it.
2:26:02
I like the indulgences sometimes I don't with Tarantino.
2:26:06
This one I do if it's. Unintentional self indulgence.
2:26:09
It's awful. If it's intentional, fine.
2:26:12
Yeah, I think that's the. Divide line.
2:26:13
Yeah, yeah. And to count, Kyle said it can
2:26:17
be a tough watch if you're looking for typical structure
2:26:19
and purpose driven story, but if you just go with this, it's a
2:26:22
great world to hang out in. Yeah, 1 of Dicaprio's most
2:26:25
enjoyable roles. Him having a meltdown in his
2:26:27
trailer is worth the runtime alone.
2:26:29
It is hilarious, batshit crazy and full of characters that no
2:26:32
one can do. Like UT Yeah.
2:26:35
One that we'd. Argue with that, would we?
2:26:37
No. No.
2:26:37
Arguments that definitely not. So positive leaning but mixed
2:26:41
from our patrons and all together they read the film as
2:26:44
or what do you think I would attend it.
2:26:46
Yeah, it's going to be. All over the place.
2:26:47
I think it is about fair. It was. 90 Wow.
2:26:51
OK, good score. Yeah.
2:26:53
And if you want to cast your vote and get your overview read
2:26:55
out during the ATRM PH1 gang, yes, please do.
2:26:58
It Yeah, the Mudson family. Don't let that put you off
2:27:01
though. In total, like it was Once Upon
2:27:05
a time in Hollywood. 38 out of 40.
2:27:08
Great score. Nice.
2:27:10
And that is? Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2:27:12
hopefully hasn't made you want to pick up any dumpster driving,
2:27:15
hitchhiking hippies. Try not to.
2:27:16
If it has, take your flamethrower just in case.
2:27:19
Just in case. Yeah, keep it in the boot next
2:27:22
time. Out back and to the left, Luke,
2:27:25
Westy and Matt are getting their conspiracy boards out as they
2:27:28
talk all of us to own Kevin Costner and JFK.
2:27:32
Yeah, more than its history. Possibly a.
2:27:35
Little bit of it, probably. Yeah.
2:27:36
Well, we'll see. We'll see.
2:27:38
It's going to be massive. That one, yeah.
2:27:40
Well, in the. Meantime, to find out more about
2:27:42
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It's a lot. Yeah, we're all off now.
2:28:49
To neck, eat whiskey sours and see what does really happen when
2:28:52
Wesley turns his camera off. Should just stick with phone.
2:28:55
Could just stick the phone, come back for.
2:28:57
JFK signed up as an 80 or in paper and not and thanks for
2:29:00
listening. Yes, thanks very.
2:29:02
Much guys. Thanks everyone.