Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
2019 · Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Original language: English
- comedy
- drama
- thriller
The story
Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate, who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski…
What it’s like
Sun-bleached 1969 Los Angeles, rendered in warm, saturated 35mm grain: convertible-lit afternoons, pastel motel rooms, the glow of a drive-in screen and the flat gold of a backlot set. Camera moves are unhurried, with long tracking shots down Hollywood boulevards and easy pans across studio lots, then sudden tonal shifts that tighten into handheld unease. The soundtrack is a loose collage of late-sixties pop and AM radio, with tape-hiss warmth and the occasional needle drop cutting against long quiet stretches of idling cars and crickets. Vibe: nostalgic, funny, wistful, with a simmering edge. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon or a late evening with the lights low. Pacing is leisurely and digressive, built around scenes of ordinary craft: acting rehearsals, a TV set, a long drive. Its two leads are an ageing actor full of self-doubt and his loyal stunt double, and the emotional register is affectionate, melancholic and often very funny. Violence arrives in sudden, graphic bursts, and it is brutal and stylised rather than lingering; language is frequent and profane. For people who love film-history textures, character-driven male friendship, and a slow, talky immersion in a vanished movie world.
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