Screw it.

I know I said August 1st, but I saw this again last night and I can't wait another 12 hours to keep talking about it.

This movie is a masterpiece.

Granted, it's not a masterpiece in the traditional sense (again, it's bloated, meandering, etc.), but it's a masterpiece in the way it transcends traditional narratives to achieve an almost dream-like quality. In that sense, it really is a Quentin Tarantino fairytale. And a brilliant one at that. Seeing it for a second time only confirmed that this will be the second of dozens, once it hits cable/streaming. The first time I saw it, I was thoroughly entertained.

The second time I saw it, I fell in love.

Easily top three Tarantino for me, along with Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds, and maybe even the most re-watchable. I at least I want to bask in this world again and again more than any of Tarantino's others.

A few random things I noticed this go-around...

- It's crazy that the entire second act is only one day. Dalton on the set of Lancer, Booth at Spahn Ranch, and Tate at the theater are all that Sunday. Considering the combined length of those three threads, and the expectations of my initial viewing, it almost felt like a week the first go-around. Really, the entire movie is basically a Saturday night, the Sunday immediately following (in February) and then a Friday evening/night (in August). With a few flashbacks and the Italian montage spliced in. This is all obvious, I know, but for a nearly three-hour movie, it really struck me this time how little time actually passes in the world of the movie.

- The narrative itself also felt much tighter. So many little things that felt like fluff the first go-around were actually perfectly setup and paid off throughout. A lot of great character moments that help paint exactly who these people are and what their woes are in life. One of my favorites was setup in the beginning, after the scene with Pacino at Musso & Frank's, when Dalton tells Booth, "It's official, ol' buddy, I'm a has-been ," and then as they're getting in the car, Dalton says something along the lines of, "Nobody recognizes me anymore." But then the final scene of the movie is Sebring, of all people, recognizing Dalton in the driveway and telling him what a big fan he is - something that likely leads to Dalton getting cast in a Polanski movie down the line. Just so many little things like that I didn't catch the first time.

- Speaking of Sebring, in this version of reality, he totally gets Tate back in the end. Not by the end of the movie (though that sentiment is definitely there), but eventually, at some point in that world. When Steve McQueen is explaining the Polanski/Tate/Sebring dynamic to the woman at the Playboy Mansion, he/Tarantino makes a point of saying something along the lines of, "And when that assh*le f*cks it up, [Sebring] will be there waiting" - a nod, of course, to Polanski's eventual rape charge. Granted, with Tate alive, Polanski may have never committed rape, but the fact that he's someone who *would* is enough to assume that he likely will regardless.

- The location where Tate picks up the hitchhiker woman on the way to Westwood is maybe two minutes from the Bruin theater in real life (where she watches her movie). The Bruin is right off Wilshire there, and the hitchhiker was just a few blocks down on Wilshire. Meaningless, I know, and Tate even says she's not going far, but I usually drive that stretch of Wilshire multiple times a week, and it's literally just a few blocks. Kind of funny.

- I haven't read the entire thread, so I might have missed it, but has anyone mentioned the two Aggie "references"? Hullabaloo is the name of the show where Rick Dalton dances, and the name of the movie Tate is in/watches is of course The Wrecking Crew.

The Debt said:

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My biggest complaint is that the Polanski group really didnt have any role in the plot. They were just this separate kingdom minding their own business and could have been cut from the film and nothing of value would have been missed except Margo's sexiness. Maybe that's QT showing how insulated Hollywood is from the narrative. But their role is just there to remind people of the real historical event.

One could argue, QT has to piggyback that reality as a means to justify the ultraviolence against the home invaders. The audience brings their knowledge of the event into the theater and QT uses that preexisting knowledge to justify any pornographic gore against them.

To put it this way: 3 unknown home invaders come into a house, is it overkill to bash one of their faces into 27 different places until the brain comes out the skull? ....yea. but is it overkill if it's the Manson family? No. Is it overkill if the intruders were klansmen entering a black household? No.

The Manson family (and the existence of the Polanski house) gives QT the liberty to be as violent as he wants. This is gonna piss off a lot of yall: but its weak storytelling. This is in contrast to the excellent story telling of pitt/leo on screen. What motive did the film provide for th antagonist? What buildup? The incident at the ranch was entirely coincidence. "Senseless random violence" isnt compelling storytelling, its lazy. Every psychopath has some internal rationale that drives them, here we get 40 secs of dialogue "Charlie said" and "media teaches us to murder". As an audience we are just suppose to accept that as the "rising action".


Maybe I'm all wrong. The break-in isnt the narrative of the film, leo getting accepted into the A-list is the story. The breakin is just some peripheral event that gets him into the gate. The conversation with his neighbors is the true climax because his entire career hinges on their acceptance.

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Did we watch the same movie?

"The Polanski group really didnt have any role in the plot."

Plot is nothing more than the mechanism by which the writer affects the characters. How the writer affects the characters is what leads to their change. And change is the point of all storytelling.

In the words of Christopher McQuarrie, "Plot is condiment, not a course."

Who cares what they had to do with the plot?

They had EVERYTHING to do with the main course; they had everything to do with our characters changing.

The Manson Family wasn't in a "separate kingdom." They were not only haunting the edges of the actual kingdom (Hollywood), they were slowly but surely trying to infest it, trying to rot it from the inside. Their opening scene is literally them arriving to Hollywood and then digging through the trash, pillaging. Their ultimate goal is to then try and kill the joy of cinema, manifested in Sharron Tate. They've already infested a part of Hollywood - Spahn Ranch - and in that sequence we see exactly what they're capable of; how bad things can get if the plague they represent goes unchecked. Now, they're coming for the whole shebang. They represent the "dirty hippies" mentioned time and again throughout the movie, and they infuse the narrative with a constant, underlying sense of dread that rears its head over and over and over again.

Only when Dalton and Booth finally decide they're not going to go gently into the good night - once Tarantino finally brings them to a moment of change and understanding; a realization that they can still be relevant - they're able to fend off the encroaching infestation, and figuratively "save" the joy of cinema.

Could all the dots have been connected more, and the plot have been more of a well-oiled machine? Sure. But I'd argue that it'd ultimately be a worse overall movie for it. In this instance, I'd sacrifice "plot" for the experience of what we got, all day long.

This pretty much sums it up for me...

Quote:

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I know it's not Tarantino's job to cater his films to our current time, but its like he is blissfully unaware that his film kinda argues a point that is in complete contrast to what mainstream Hollywood is arguing day in and out for the last 3 years.

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Can you explain further? I'm honestly not sure what you're referring ti.

I don't quite track. To me, the politics of actors or Hollywood or whatever has nothing to do with a joy/love of cinema. I don't understand why those things not being presented as one and the same could be interpreted as contradictory. They're two completely separate things in my mind.

Not sure I follow this either. I am probably on the opposite side from some of the poster's above me when it comes to Hollywood and its infusion of politics in art, but I don't see what that has to do with this movie.

If anything, this movie shows the benefit of leaving out references to our current political culture and just making a good movie.

I honestly think you're going several layers deeper than even Tarantino did.

Reminds me of this interview with QT, where the lady asked him if the violence in his movies is his critique on humanity. His response was great.

Yeah, I hear you, and I get what you're saying, but I think I'd still refer you to Wes97's last sentence in his post immediately above.

I understand the point you are trying to make now, but I disagree. It seems this is just the other side of the coin to those people who search every detail of a movie trying to find some hidden liberal point to get offended about. Sometimes the movie should just be looked at for what it is trying to say without inferring current political arguments in it. Not everything is political.

And nostalgia for some aspect of the past might be "small c" conservative but it is not automatically politically conservative. Plenty of aspects of liberalism infer some nostalgia for certain aspects of the past. Not every form of nostalgia automatically equals an endorsement of the dark ages or bringing back slavery. You can be nostalgic about some aspects of the past and still acknowledge some of the shortcomings in the past as well.

And now I have veered way off into politics on what should be an "entertainment" related discussion which is what I normally oppose, so I will drop this train of thought like a bad habit,,,

I thought Steve McQueen at the Playboy Mansion was a pretty brilliant way to dump exposition/backstory, but in an entertaining and somewhat organic fashion.

So many great moments little like that. Another is when Cliff puts the beer can in the tool holster, right before he fixes the antenna.

My favorite random moment of the whole movie, though, is Rick's FBI commentary when he and Cliff are watching his episode. It's like Tarantino's version of a director commentary on a DVD. Just Rick, half drunk, half mumbling about Malibu, that one guy being a ***** assh*le, and then immediately following that up by saying the dead guy, though, was a "Real good guy." I was cracking up so much at all of that.

Whoa, that was actually a real scene starring a young Burt Reynolds...

Man I really want to see this in the theatre a second time. It also makes me want to rewatch his entire catalog. And to get back to writing more. Just in general in love with cinema.

TCTTS said:

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Whoa, that was actually a real scene starring a young Burt Reynolds...

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That's freaking badass