“So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for… and deserved. Which ever since I’ve… ever since I’ve always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I’d like to think this isn’t weakness or… evasion… but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness.”
-Briony Tallis, Atonement
Tarantino didn’t use historical revisionism to create a world where the holocaust didn’t happen in Inglorious Basterds; he simply gave Hitler a more violent end.
He similarly didn’t use historical revisionism to create a United States without slavery in Django Unchained but rather told the tale of a slave who is freed, saves the girl, and gets his revenge.
This is because those events were of such a large scope that it’s going to mean similar but different things to people. When discussing the Holocaust, someone might think of the grief associated with the death of their grandmother. Someone might think of their own time in a concentration camp. Someone might think of the guilt associated with their grandfather being a nazi. Similar questions and relations can be brought up regarding slavery.
But when dealing with the night of the Tate murders, the smallness of its scale creates an undeniable specificity to the event, and any revisionism to create a historical revenge fantasy that he’s become known for would presumably require an “undoing” of the event itself. This is different from what he did in Basterds and Django. In those films, people weren’t watching their specific relative kill the specific nazi or slave owner responsible for their death and suffering. In Basterds they watched the man who ordered the nazis to kill their relative get shot in the face. In Django they watched a man who was in a similar situation to their relative get their revenge.
The point is that their scope allowed for a fantasy that didn’t involve the undoing of the event.
While different people may have responded differently to the Manson murders, the fact remains that five specific people were murdered.
I pray this doesn’t come as me trying to escalate the horrors of that night in 1969 to that of slavery or the Holocaust, or to try and say that the night in 1969 “wasn’t a big deal because only five people were killed.” I’m merely distinguishing the events, and thus distinguishing the approach Tarantino would have to take.
With all this in mind, from the time I heard about the movie involving the event, I felt uncomfortable. Seeing a world where Sharon Tate got the upper hand and killed her murderers, or a world where she victoriously killed Charles Manson herself, anything so triumphant would remind us of the triumph-less truth. That the night of August 9th, 1969 was not one of victory, but of a violent loss.
Having seen the movie an embarrassing number of times now, I’ll just say it’s a good thing that Tarantino’s as good with writing as he is with his over the top violence.
History and Fiction, Stuntman and Actor, Everyday Legends
In Hollywood, Tarantino explores the contrast of history and fiction (and their unification through historical fiction) with great reverence and fascination, perhaps more than any of his other historical fiction. He goes as far as broadening the subject to the contrast of “real” and “fake”, thus allowing him to embed the subject in the contrast of his two leads, stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) and actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio). This contrast and unification is everywhere, from their personalities, social status, and the nature of cinema itself.
This contrast is also found in what they do for the majority of the film. Even the setup of the majority of the film speaks to this contrast; it is a day in the life of a legendary place, making the extraordinary ordinary and the ordinary extraordinary.
(The title is, after all, Once Upon A Time….In Hollywood.)
The drama of Dalton’s day is found in his villainous role on the pilot for Lancer. As what he is partaking in is fiction, he’s able to be evil without the repercussions (to an extent, one he doesn’t push). So the drama is found then not in the morality of his actions; they’re instead found in his place as an actor going up against a new star, and confronting the insecurity that comes with that.
The drama of Booth’s day is found in something he has to confront in the “real world”, and is thus based in morality. He’s genuinely worried about the safety of an old friend, and puts his own life in danger out of this concern. Rather than having the luxury of being a bad guy for a job, he has the duty of doing the right thing for its own sake.
Of course, even this “real world” drama is all fake. Brad Pitt is not actually Cliff Booth, and thus his life is not actually in danger. This speaks to the dilemma found in the portrayal of Sharon Tate and the night she and her friends were murdered. There’s a moral obligation both in the sense of undoing the wrong that was done, as well as a moral obligation in understanding that it is still fiction. Tarantino’s film has to acknowledge the horror of that night, and it has to acknowledge that the victims will still be dead when the credits role.
And he does. The offscreen history lingers throughout the onscreen fiction. When the leads first drive to Dalton’s house, the camera lingers on the street sign for Cielo drive. It haunts us because we know what happened there. Similarly, there’s an incredible discomfort when Charles Manson first appears in the film. His face is obscured for most of the scene, and the moments when we see it directly practically feel like a jump scare in their brevity and intensity.
(Poor Damon Herriman).
And, of course, in one of the more lovely moments, Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate watches the real Sharon Tate on screen as though watching herself.
It’s towards the end of the film where the recognition of the history and its distinction from/unification with the fiction really kick into gear. After a time jump of six months, which Dalton and Booth spent in Italy, the two men return home. Having severed their actor/stuntman partnership, Kurt Russell’s narration informs us that the only thing the two men know is that, that night, they’ll have a “good old fashioned drunk.”
Throughout the next scene, Tarantino plays around with our understanding of the history and uncertainty of what awaits us with the fiction. Going back and forth between the night that Booth/Dalton are having and the one Tate and her friends are, not only does the narration treat these fictional events and historical ones with the same objectivity, but the narration is also coming from a place of reflection. When we see Sharon at a restaurant, the narration speaks of how it was “later reported that it was the hottest night of the year, and it made her feel especially pregnant in all the worst ways.” When we see Booth and Dalton drinking, the narration says they “drank so much that when they left, they left the Cadillac there and took a cab home.”
In both of these moments, the narration is intentionally speaking of everything, both fictional and historical, from a place where it has already happened, informing us of the night’s weather and of Dalton and Booth’s actions with the same objectivity. Tarantino uses the narration in this way because, again, he knows that we are aware of the history. He even makes us aware of the future of some of the fiction.
But we do not know where the historical fiction will go.
And so when we get closer to the actual event, the narration drops out.
After the narration drops out, the fictional Cliff Booth walks his dog Brandy down Cielo drive, and when he’s out of the frame, the historically based Manson murderers drive into it. The camera follows only their car, and their faces are obscured, but we know why they’re there. While the film is again contrasting reality and fiction by having the fictional Cliff Booth leave the frame as the historical characters enter it, the film’s place as historical fiction is further cemented by the next scene; the fictional Rick Dalton walks out to the car, the murderers obscured only until he’s close enough to see them. They are illuminated and now in focus thanks to Dalton’s presence.
Dalton’s scolding of the drivers leads the history on its way to fiction. The murderers decide to kill him, Booth, and his wife Francesca instead. The scene that takes place, again, speaks to the contrast and unification of the real and fictional, and of the nature of Hollywood. The murderers are dispatched of, and the stuntman Booth does most of the leg work. Not only this, but the purpose of the scene is to fulfill the dramatic function of the fictional story at hand while acknowledging the offscreen truth. Booth brutally attacks the would-be murderers because they want to kill him and his fictional friends, but it’s also providing a taste of vengeance based on real world events.
Once more complimenting the nature of their friendship and how movies work, Booth doesn’t quite finish them all off. An actor sometimes does at least one big stunt for the camera, and Dalton uses a flamethrower he kept from one of his films to finish off the last of them. While serving a “proper” dramatic function in that he’s using something he keeps around his house (like his posters or other memorabilia), it also fulfills Tarantino’s over the top, old testament style justice based on an historical event.
After all this, though, they don’t reflect on this the way we might. They don’t realize the horrible event they prevented; after all, they prevented it. When speaking to the police, they speak of it as a bizarre story of breaking and entering, attributing the behavior to their own bizarre prejudices as they call the would-be-murderers “hippy assholes.”
The movie takes these “legendary” killers and reduces them to assholes who broke into the wrong house.
The “extraordinary” are made ordinary.
Murder
No loss of a loved one (or someone you admire) is easy to endure, so I’m not sure I want to say that murder is the worst form of it. But, at the very least, its distinction from other forms of loss cannot be denied.
Death is, more often than not, against the will of the person dying. And the death of a loved one is when someone you love is hurt, and you can’t comfort them in their pain.
In the case of murder, their will is denied by a human being who knows of, who comprehends their victim’s will to live.
It’s not pain resulted from disease or accident, but from malice.
The murderer knows of that will to live, and they respond to it by saying “no.”
Living in the aftermath of this kind of death is an awful thing to experience for loved ones. People who have are forced to comprehend the loss of their loved one that came about because of the will of another human being. A human who can comprehend what death means and the effects it will have says “that’s fine.”
It is a horrible thing to be forced to comprehend.
Life
When Cliff is taken to the hospital for minor injuries from the fight, Rick thanks him for being a good friend.
This moment is a simple pleasure. The type of pleasure this final scene will be full of.
Rick then stands outside, alone, only for Jay Sebring to speak to get his attention. Sebring inquires what happened, and Dalton fills him in. They seem to bond over the conversation. We then hear Sharon’s voice over the driveway intercom, horrified by what almost happened to her neighbor but delighted to finally meet him.
While it is obviously not the real Sharon Tate we hear, we hear the actress that played her without seeing her.
And so the fiction and the offscreen truth are united. As we did with the significance of certain historical moments in the movie, we get to fill in our own blanks, and we briefly get to live in a world where this horrible event didn’t happen. The will of the murderer is denied, if only in a fleeting, brief way.
In a movie about a day in the life of legends, the movie becomes a legend by giving Sharon Tate and her friends just another day.
Tarantino had to keep the treasure of this event being undone both bombastic and simple. But the obligation of keeping it simple doesn’t restrict it. It makes it all the more valuable.
It makes the ordinary extraordinary.
What Does This Mean?
So
Yeah
What does this mean?
I’ve wondered that about Briony’s actions in Atonement, and now I wonder it about Tarantino’s revisionism in Hollywood.
This question is, of course, relevant to any and all kind of fiction or fantasy. But in this case, it feel particularly relevant. The night of August 9th, 1969 still happened. Tarantino didn’t undo it. They’re all still gone. Whether or not they can view this kind gesture, this kind fantasy, this kind wish that this is how that night went, I don’t know.
What I do know is this:
It gave life to a fantasy of life, of another day, that many of us have had, be it for the victims of that night or someone we know. Creating and appreciating this kind of wish for Sharon and her friends seems to only be able to come from a place of love, and that love does not exist in a vacuum. It comes not from a denial of the event, but from an acknowledgement of the life lost, the life they wanted.
The love from creating this fantasy also results in other things, and appreciating it feeds that desire to do these other things, be it in sharing the lives of the loved ones we lost, or in fulfilling their wishes. Taking care of each other. Starting and donating to charities in their name. Telling evil to fuck off. Making art they would love. Making a world they could have lived in.
In the last, sappy moments of this writing, I’ll say that I hope I’ve done something like that with this writing. If I did, keep it going. If I didn’t, pick up where I left off and make up for my failure.
And at the end of this writing that uncertainly looked at history, fiction, and remains uncertain about the value of what all this means, I’ll end it with a certainty:
I love you all.
devilsadvocritic 