Title: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino and a Hollywood Fairy Tale

Description: Today we talk with podcaster and fellow Parthenon Podcast member, Josh Cohen, about the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. We discuss the various genres this movie tackles and much more.

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Josh Cohen of The Eyewitness History Podcast and Unfiltered Podcast
Unfilteredpodcast.blogspot.com
https://www.spreaker.com/show/eyewitness-history
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Music Provided by:
"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Image Credits:
By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60263751

Begin Transcript:

Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Josh Cohen of the Eyewitness History Podcast. Josh interviews luminaries from various fields, as well as expanding on various cultural and social topics. He has interviewed people as varied as Washington Free Beacon founder Matthew Continetti, Roger Rabbit creator Gary K. Wolf, and best-selling singer Tal Bachman. Links to learn more about Josh and the Eyewitness History Podcast can be found at ###### or in the Show Notes.
A great way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on Facebook and Twitter by searching for A to z history. You can contact me there or just send an email to steve at a to z history page dot com. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.
[00:00:00] Today, we are going to talk about the incredible 2019 Quintin Tarantino film. Once upon a time in Hollywood. Josh, are you excited to talk about this movie? I am extremely excited. I have been a Tarantino’s fanatic basically since reservoir dogs came out. And once upon a time in Hollywood, I've probably watched more repeatedly than, than any other Tarantino movie.
So I'm stoked. Now, once upon a time in Hollywood, it's a difficult to place in an exact genre box. It's a historical film. It's alternative history. It's an action drama. It's a fairy tale of sorts. It stars, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot, Robbie, Timothy Olifant LPAA Chino, and much, much, much, much more.
And as I always say, what these people with these films to people is an one we review them on beyond the big screen, at least that we're giving spoilers. So if you don't want spoilers, I suggest watch the [00:01:00] movie, listen to this episode, watch the movie, but you can do it in any order you want. Now going into this movie, you were, you're a Quentin Tarantino fanatic.
What was your, kind of your expectations going into this movie? Yeah. Well, well, first off, , Steve, a quick word of agreement for you. , it's absolutely a genre bending film. Therefore it fits quite nicely into the coterie of queen. Filmography, , his films are famously hard to, to really diagnose with the genre.
, my expectations was my understanding was it was going to be something a backstory of the Tate murders and that we were going to be seeing a lot of exposure to the Manson family. We're going to see Sharon Tate in her element, Roman Polanski in his element. And of course, Jay Sebring, , hardly tagging along.
That was my expectation going into it. , what I got. Quite a bit more than that. , yes, we do see the Manson family and, and the family plan skied sprinkled throughout the film, but they're by no means at the forefront. , the main plot of the film really is that it's, , it's an end of what we call the [00:02:00] golden age of cinema.
It's set in Los Angeles, 1969. And it follows the paths of, , actor, Rick Dalton and stuntman cliff. , cliff booth of course played by Brad Pitt and Rick Dalton played by Leonardo DiCaprio. And there's something of an, , allegory or a historical cousin that it might have in the form of the partnership between the great Burt Reynolds and his stunt man, Hal Needham.
They worked something together for 30 years. So, , that's based on what that partnership is based around Rick Dalton. Coming to terms with, , having already started on a very popular show called bounty law is coming to terms with sort of the sunset of his career. Along with the end of the golden age of cinema, he's sort of at a crossroads and he feels himself fading into, into the background.
He's getting less and less juicy roles and he's finding himself perennially cast as the head. , by the networks and this is Adam braided, a great deal in a conversation with, , that he has without Pachino. , , Marvin spores, Al Pacino plays an [00:03:00] agent named Morgan scores and they have this discussion.
And then, , of course his stuntman cliff booth played by Brad Pitt. , it follows. The goings on, in their lives throughout this movie. Yeah, it's interesting. When I walked into this movie, I mean, I've watched as many, I've watched a Tarantino movies, pulp fiction, and those movies, this one, now I walked into it with no background whatsoever.
It was just a Friday night and we're , oh, let's pop on a movie. People are talking about this movie and it just unfolded and it, what is this movie? And I think that that is an interesting way to go into the movie with zero expectations, because I've never seen it on a movie unfold this movie does.
Yeah, without question. , I, I went in and watched it and for at least half the film, I kept asking myself, where is Sharon? Where is Sharon? Where is Plansky? And as I said earlier, , they're sprinkled throughout the film, but so they're by no means non-existent, , but [00:04:00] they're always in sort of quick, almost throwaway scenes.
, and they don't really delve into, I guess, the deepest. With them is when, , , we, the audience catch up with them when they're at the Playboy mansion, , for a party and Steve McQueen, , I forget the name of the actor that plays Steve McQueen, but he basically talks to the audience through the relationship between Jay Sebring, Roman Polanski, and, and of course, Sharon Tate.
And yeah, I thought it was a phenomenal way of, of introducing us, , as I say, the two booth and Dalton. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, I don't think that the person who plays Roman Polanski, he might not even have a lie. Are very, , very, very few lines. If he does it all, what we'll tell you this, just the fact that I even have to think about it probably means he, he, he, , didn't have much to say.
, yeah, I actually. Oh, th there is one where he, , he he's thrown something to his dog and he is cursing at his dog getting his morning coffee. Yeah. Bring, definitely gets a lot more lines than Roman [00:05:00] Polanski dot, which is ironic because I don't know about you, Steve, but I had no idea what J C ring was.
, prior I knew something was wrong with plans to give them. Let's call them exploits. Right. And of course, Rosemary's baby and so forth, but yeah, I knew nothing about JC brown. Yeah. I can't say I ever, I maybe if I had read a book at some point during the Manson family, maybe I, I probably would have bred him, but it wasn't been one of the names that really stuck in my mind, , at, at the least now some of these, , the it, since it does straddle the line between fiction and.
Has history. So most of the people are historical except for booth and Dalton, man. , yeah, without question, , obviously Manson was a, is a real figure and Plansky and Tate and so forth. , all the characters, , that were shown, , outside of Morgan Haley's character, all the characters that were shown at Spahn ranch, which I'm sure we'll get into, , our real figures as far as I, I know, I [00:06:00] know, I know Tex was obviously squeaky from.
, and, , , I believe maybe we can have one of our viewers have fact check me on this, but I believe that Dakota Fanning's character, , the ride head, , was a real character as well. You talking about blurring and, and I'd probably classify the movie before anything else. As a historical fiction prep, you could call it.
You could make the case that it's a buddy film, but it's a historical fiction film following the long line of Tarantino movies that we've seen starting from Inglorious bastards and moving through to Django, Unchained, and the hate blade with everything with cliff booth, he just did. I don't know if they presented.
I am almost as a little slimy, a little smarmy, especially since that's hanging over his head, that he may have killed his wife, but he seems a moral character the whole time without question. I mean, a good argument could be made. He was the most moral character in the movie. I mean, as you point out, , Steve, Rick Dalton's by no means a bad [00:07:00] guy, but you know, clearly an alcoholic clearly.
How has the capacity to be mean cliff booth?