Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

[black&huge]

What I loved though:

The early scene with Cliff getting into his old car and driving home - what is the song for this scene, please? - and prepping dinner for his dog and watching TV - that encapsulated the hangout feel of this film the most.

Cliff's reverie on the rooftop - speaking of which, none of the women is as sexualised as Brad Pitt is in the film, including an admiring shot of his butt in the flashback scene in the boat, and of course, his half naked torso on the roof.

The Bruce Lee sequences were pretty funny though what Lee fans will make of those will be anybody's guess.

Finally, this has got to have the most lingering shots of female feet in any of Tarantino's films, no? There's the one of Tate's feet in the slow pan and Pussycat (callout to Russ Meyer, perhaps?) planting her feet on Cliff's dashboard and I'm sure there was another one elsewhere in the film.

First - yep! The editing when it's showing his drive home was just, for lack of better words cool. It was captivating and I rarely make these associations but it really felt like you were taking that ride with him.

About Lee - the film simultaneously aggrandizes and de-mythologizes. The era itself for the former and the characters for the latter. Tate and Lee are criticised and gossiped about by other characters and the film even does it to the fictional characters

Spoiler

we're supposed to be on board with Cliff's day by day take it as it goes relaxed attitude essentially empowering his coolness yet we're dealt a huge conflict regarding the story of what may or may not have happened between he and his dead spouse

I guess the point I wanted to make was that Tarantino didn't want people to misinterpet his love of cinema and the people he holds in high regard as their "pass" to live or think higher than everyday people. That's the best I can articulate it right now. But he wanted to show that these famous people are people just blessed with an extraordinary amount of luck.

Lastly I think so about the amount of feet and not only do we see a lot of them but he's never featured dirty feet before and boy if that is anyone's thing well this film surely excels in that area. I'm pretty sure Dakota Fanning's dirty feet are seen as well.

[Murdoch]

Cathartic is not what I got from it, for sure.

Spoiler

I'd completely forgotten about the face stomp on Tex which admittedly is at least as graphic as what the Redhead and the torched girl got but I guess it says something about me that Tex's death didn't register in the same way.

Spoiler

Tex also survives the encounter with Cliff and fixes Cliff's car after the beating.

The audience around me loved the final encounter with the Manson members. Like you, I wasn't so enamored with it. I'm no Tarantino fan but always find something interesting in his work. The scenes in his last few features tackling fictionalized revenge in historical tragedies have felt very juvenile to me though. This film at least subtly acknowledges the fantasy of the climactic fight's resolution by giving Rick passage into the Hollywood promised land at the end, signalling that the Manson members' deaths were only Hollywood magic at work as the camera pans out and gives the last minutes a sort of dream-like quality.

[black&huge]

Spoiler

Tex also survives the encounter with Cliff and fixes Cliff's car after the beating.

Spoiler

Tex only greeted Cliff when he first gets to the Ranch. It was the other hippie with the annoying laugh that stabs the car tire and is beaten to made fix it. During that scene they had one of the girls go and get Tex who was giving Connie Stevens the scenic horse ride in the hills and Cliff is already driving off when he finally makes it back

Also this may have been obvious but I took that Hippie's laughter for the audience to approve of the beating. Moreso than for the actual vandalism.

[Murdoch]

Oh right, I got the two mixed up. Thanks for clarifying.

[Arthur House]

The early scene with Cliff getting into his old car and driving home - what is the song for this scene, please?

It's Billy Stewart's 1966 hit version of "Summertime", which features some major vocal acrobatic riffs from the singer, which is the excerpt we hear onscreen. It's segued into Joe Cocker's version of "The Letter" (an anachronism, as it was recorded in 1970 as part of the Mad Dogs And Englishmen project), and (I think) "Hector", a boogaloo by The Village Callers.

[Black Hat]

I don't believe the film would have worked in the ways that it does if Tate's character was handled any differently because it would then overshadow the remembrance of her that was based in a reality she created for herself instead of the one that was thrust upon her. To the critique that he gave her no agency I say what a bunch of horseshit because he gave it back to her. He absolutely did, in a subtle most moving, compassionate way at that.

This is a kool-aid drinking PR parroting take. There are several other reservations raised beyond just "no lines". Try addressing those if you want to convince others about the depth of Tate's character development in this film.

Well go on then, bring up your other reservations and I'm sure myself along with others will address them.

Spoiler

Blackhat -- "A picture is worth a thousand words" is just as dumb and lazy of an argument as the pieces that you denounced, asking for more of Robbie. Dialogue matters. It's often what is remembered most! Why couldn't she have been the one to have a one-on-one conversation with Rick Dalton in the end, instead of keeping her outside the frame with two men talking.

And I have a third issue. What is with that Bruce Lee sequence?!

LVT, that's not exactly what I said, but sometimes the most simple, straightforward arguments are correct. With regard to dialogue it's pretty irrelevant to cinema so we're going to have to disagree on that one.

Spoiler

So often in this film we get characters like Steve McQueen or Jay Sebring talking about what she thinks and feels in relation to others. Wouldn't it have been nice to experience that through Robbie's Tate?

In short - no. The Steve McQueeen bit felt misplaced, but I took it as a quick nod to a largely forgotten superstar.

Spoiler

And I have a third issue. What is with that Bruce Lee sequence?!

What I'll add to the responses others have given you is that he also speaks to the film's conservative politics.

Spoiler

Why couldn't she have been the one to have a one-on-one conversation with Rick Dalton in the end, instead of keeping her outside the frame with two men talking.

Because this would have been an inauthentic choice contradicting the film's thesis. It's a rather ominous acknowledgement of reality, re:defeat or perhaps even submission, which was the central conflict throughout.

[Black Hat]

Tate's role in this film is not to exhibit character development.

Bingo. I would even argue that character development is not a concern of this film at all.

She's a ghost to all of us, including Tarantino, but she isn't to Tate's sister Debra, who loved the film

Thank you for this, I was wondering how her family felt.

On a completely different note, of the seemingly hundreds of music cues, I particularly liked the use of José Feliciano's cover of "California Dreamin',"

This was so good!!! I'm usually put off by the overstuffed show offy musical natures of Tarantino and Scorsese, but everything here was handled deftly.


I'm not sure if anybody else has mentioned this so I apologize for overlooking it if someone has, but how perfect was the sequence with the 8 year old? Was Leo even reading the book? I thought this was brilliant.

[Finch]

The early scene with Cliff getting into his old car and driving home - what is the song for this scene, please?

It's Billy Stewart's 1966 hit version of "Summertime", which features some major vocal acrobatic riffs from the singer, which is the excerpt we hear onscreen. It's segued into Joe Cocker's version of "The Letter" (an anachronism, as it was recorded in 1970 as part of the Mad Dogs And Englishmen project), and (I think) "Hector", a boogaloo by The Village Callers.

Thank you!

[spectre]

I really liked this movie. I found it the most enjoyable, entertaining, and emotionally resonant of QT's since Inglorious Basterds, if not Kill Bill. Sign me up for any Leo & Brad buddy movie. The movie theater sequence was sublime.

But the movie does have it's warts. 21st Century Tarantino has certain tendencies that many people admire and see fit to defend. I think you can enjoy and even champion a movie while still taking it to task for it's shortcomings, and I'm so glad that Brian C and Nasir007 brought these to the discussion...

Spoiler

I have to be honest and say that I don't really understand the difference between what you call "working in harmony with his audience" and rather straightforward pandering. Your analysis in this thread of the film's structural virtuosity is excellent, but I feel a little bit like you're selling me a car when you talk in such high-minded terms about the very basic act of setting up characters as reprehensible villains and then giving them grisly deaths - this may literally be the least sophisticated storytelling device that there is, and certainly it's the most basic and shameless appeal to the animal nature of human beings. Every huckster in the world knows that people want to see the bad guys die, it is not hard to "work in harmony with the audience" to pull that trick off.

While I'm at it, I also don't understand the various assertions in this thread along the lines that the film gives Tate an identity. What identity is that? She has exactly three character traits in this movie aside from being super pretty: 1) she likes to dance, 2) she likes to watch herself onscreen, and 3) she has a specific taste in men that the movie explicitly makes fun of her for. Obviously none of these traits amount to any kind of meaningful identity either on their own or in sum, and Tarantino doesn't seem to show the least bit of interest in her aside from presenting her as a sort of innocent untarnished angelic figure. I mean, her pregnancy could be the result of immaculate conception for all we know. To me, it seems gravely demeaning.

I agree with you there and the question asked of Tarantino in the Cannes press conference which he saw haughtily dismissed has relevance.

Spoiler

It is mercenary marketing to call Tate the heart of the movie. She's not a fully formed character in the slightest. I swear Bruce Lee has more lines than her. And I explained the reason above, she's only included so Tarantino can have an ending to his adventures of Cliff and Rick. She is otherwise absolutely extraneous. Robbie has absolutely nothing to work with here. There is no character to play. She's essentially a 'concept' in the film - a figurehead. He's using her as a Macguffin basically. She just exists so that the heroes get to take revenge. She's a cutaway, something to cut to break the flow a little, have a little variety and have some semblance of a female character. So has no agency because she doesn't do anything. I think people are buying the marketing of the movie rather than what is in it. (Like how I feel people fell for the marketing of Roma more than what was actually in it.)

Spoiler

I'm not someone that squirms at violence, but the way Tarantino takes it to an extreme EVERY time... It isn't lyrical, like Peckinpah. Or pointed, like Haneke or von Trier. It isn't matter of fact, like Scorsese. For me QT's ending are rarely cathartic. They're excessive. Like telling a joke and continuing to underline the punchline for those you think didn't get it (but probably did initially). How many times is necessary for Sadie Atkins to get her face smashed into the rotary telephone? Would once or twice not have done the trick? There were so many laughs in my theater in these moments, and some (flamethrower payoff) seem understandable and earned. But others are just kind of ugly. And looking around the theater in my periphery, mixed between the laughing majority, are a few people -- like myself, and many of them women -- gobsmacked at the handling of violence on the screen and the cacophony of chuckles it engenders.

The second point about Sharon Tate... While that scene in the movie theater is beautiful, in part due to the brilliant choice to use the actual Tate footage, that doesn't mean that the rest of your film can't give the character of Tate some agency. At times she comes off as practically vacuous. Blackhat -- "A picture is worth a thousand words" is just as dumb and lazy of an argument as the pieces that you denounced, asking for more of Robbie. Dialogue matters. It's often what is remembered most! Why couldn't she have been the one to have a one-on-one conversation with Rick Dalton in the end, instead of keeping her outside the frame with two men talking. So often in this film we get characters like Steve McQueen or Jay Sebring talking about what she thinks and feels in relation to others. Wouldn't it have been nice to experience that through Robbie's Tate?

And I have a third issue. What is with that Bruce Lee sequence?! This was the first time I really stepped outside the film and wasn't fully invested... What did Bruce Lee do to engender such a problematic caricature? If Sharon Tate is treated with such distance and high regard in death, why too isn't he? Again, hearing my mostly white audience laughing at Bruce Lee getting beat up by Brad Pitt (talk about a fantasy) while making exaggerated karate calls made me so uncomfortable. What is with that poorly written speech about Cassius Clay? Like the scene later where we're told in VO that Frykowski prefers American TV to inferior Polish television, this lifting up of an American ideal over another nation's was unnecessary, and for me unnerving. And why was Cliff in a tuxedo when Rick was in the Western? And if he wasn't there solely as his double but just for the work, then what was the aha moment causing Cliff to force the issue and show up on set that day? Remembering that he murdered his wife? I must be missing something, but that section seemed a mess, and possibly altogether unnecessary.

This is why I wanted to read spoilers! Totally hate this kind of violence in films and even more so when it's set up as justified, which I agree with Brian is the cheapest trick in the book. Rest of the movie sounds fun, but I think I'll take Tarantino's advice and skip the whole thing.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm not sure if anybody else has mentioned this so I apologize for overlooking it if someone has, but how perfect was the sequence with the 8 year old? Was Leo even reading the book? I thought this was brilliant.

It was beautiful and one could make a case for it being the best dynamic between two actors in the film (yeah it’s the Pitt and DiCaprio show, but there was a lot of chemistry there). The places it goes resulting in a simple yet incredibly meaningful compliment from one actor to the other provided the ‘real’ version of the validation this film was so interested in exploring, and felt like the kind of moment Tarantino and all the Hollywood heroes he admires, and colleagues he works with, live for in pursuit of their devotion to the arts. What a priceless gift to receive such a compliment about one’s abilities and worth.

[Black Hat]

Re: the depiction of Lee, I found one of the most interesting takes on it to be Walter Chaw’s thoughts on Twitter over the weekend, the conclusion of which finds more problematic about the patronizing concern some have shown than Tarantino’s portrait of the man:

Last thing: portraying Bruce as arrogant (he was), didactic (yep) and hot-tempered (famously) is imminently respectful to the legacy of a man who has been elevated to golden calf status by western idolaters.

Chaw's review is some of his best ever writing, which is saying something

Sharon in the theatre, listening as the crowd loves her, having a wonderful time. Even as he demythologizes The Family, Tarantino effectively humanizes Tate. She is lovely and effervescent. She picks up a hitchhiker, and following their short ride together he gives her a parting hug. Though coveted as an object, she's a normal woman who does her own shopping and goes to the movies. Yet it's clear in this moment that she's special. Later, she has a conversation through her call box with Rick, and hearing her voice, ghostly and electric, coming through the space of all these years and that atrocity, is the first time I cried like my heart would never stop breaking.

I wasn't familiar with this dude, but both his tweet thread and review were tremendous.

Anyone find it interesting that a few of the Spahn ranch hippie girls were played by daughters of famous people? Felt like if it was intentional it fits with the movie's anti-hippieness and overall anti-culture change.

Absofuckinglutely, certainly felt like a giant you won the battle but we won the war middle finger.

[Black Hat]

I'm not sure if anybody else has mentioned this so I apologize for overlooking it if someone has, but how perfect was the sequence with the 8 year old? Was Leo even reading the book? I thought this was brilliant.

It was beautiful and one could make a case for it being the best dynamic between two actors in the film (yeah it’s the Pitt and DiCaprio show, but there was a lot of chemistry there).

I think with the scene's placement right in the middle of the film it was very much intended to be showcased as that.

[Nasir007]

I really liked this movie. I found it the most enjoyable, entertaining, and emotionally resonant of QT's since Inglorious Basterds, if not Kill Bill. Sign me up for any Leo & Brad buddy movie. The movie theater sequence was sublime.

But the movie does have it's warts. 21st Century Tarantino has certain tendencies that many people admire and see fit to defend. I think you can enjoy and even champion a movie while still taking it to task for it's shortcomings, and I'm so glad that Brian C and Nasir007 brought these to the discussion...

I agree with you there and the question asked of Tarantino in the Cannes press conference which he saw haughtily dismissed has relevance.

Spoiler

It is mercenary marketing to call Tate the heart of the movie. She's not a fully formed character in the slightest. I swear Bruce Lee has more lines than her. And I explained the reason above, she's only included so Tarantino can have an ending to his adventures of Cliff and Rick. She is otherwise absolutely extraneous. Robbie has absolutely nothing to work with here. There is no character to play. She's essentially a 'concept' in the film - a figurehead. He's using her as a Macguffin basically. She just exists so that the heroes get to take revenge. She's a cutaway, something to cut to break the flow a little, have a little variety and have some semblance of a female character. So has no agency because she doesn't do anything. I think people are buying the marketing of the movie rather than what is in it. (Like how I feel people fell for the marketing of Roma more than what was actually in it.)

Spoiler

I'm not someone that squirms at violence, but the way Tarantino takes it to an extreme EVERY time... It isn't lyrical, like Peckinpah. Or pointed, like Haneke or von Trier. It isn't matter of fact, like Scorsese. For me QT's ending are rarely cathartic. They're excessive. Like telling a joke and continuing to underline the punchline for those you think didn't get it (but probably did initially). How many times is necessary for Sadie Atkins to get her face smashed into the rotary telephone? Would once or twice not have done the trick? There were so many laughs in my theater in these moments, and some (flamethrower payoff) seem understandable and earned. But others are just kind of ugly. And looking around the theater in my periphery, mixed between the laughing majority, are a few people -- like myself, and many of them women -- gobsmacked at the handling of violence on the screen and the cacophony of chuckles it engenders.

The second point about Sharon Tate... While that scene in the movie theater is beautiful, in part due to the brilliant choice to use the actual Tate footage, that doesn't mean that the rest of your film can't give the character of Tate some agency. At times she comes off as practically vacuous. Blackhat -- "A picture is worth a thousand words" is just as dumb and lazy of an argument as the pieces that you denounced, asking for more of Robbie. Dialogue matters. It's often what is remembered most! Why couldn't she have been the one to have a one-on-one conversation with Rick Dalton in the end, instead of keeping her outside the frame with two men talking. So often in this film we get characters like Steve McQueen or Jay Sebring talking about what she thinks and feels in relation to others. Wouldn't it have been nice to experience that through Robbie's Tate?

And I have a third issue. What is with that Bruce Lee sequence?! This was the first time I really stepped outside the film and wasn't fully invested... What did Bruce Lee do to engender such a problematic caricature? If Sharon Tate is treated with such distance and high regard in death, why too isn't he? Again, hearing my mostly white audience laughing at Bruce Lee getting beat up by Brad Pitt (talk about a fantasy) while making exaggerated karate calls made me so uncomfortable. What is with that poorly written speech about Cassius Clay? Like the scene later where we're told in VO that Frykowski prefers American TV to inferior Polish television, this lifting up of an American ideal over another nation's was unnecessary, and for me unnerving. And why was Cliff in a tuxedo when Rick was in the Western? And if he wasn't there solely as his double but just for the work, then what was the aha moment causing Cliff to force the issue and show up on set that day? Remembering that he murdered his wife? I must be missing something, but that section seemed a mess, and possibly altogether unnecessary.

This is why I wanted to read spoilers! Totally hate this kind of violence in films and even more so when it's set up as justified, which I agree with Brian is the cheapest trick in the book. Rest of the movie sounds fun, but I think I'll take Tarantino's advice and skip the whole thing.

It is still worth checking out I think. The first 2 hours are very good. The ending is what it is. You take the questionable with the good and try to make of it what you can.

[Boosmahn]

Re: discussion about the violence

Spoiler

The reality of Tate's brutal murder was the driving force behind the final scene... I doubt it would have been as gruesome as it is had the circumstances of Tate's death been less horrific. Tarantino builds an almost angelic aura around her while assuming we're familiar with what happened that night; by the time we reach the day of her death, we're desperate for the outcome to change. The violence here doesn't seem exploitative -- gratuitous as it may be, it appears genuine.

I might sound like a Tarantino fanboy, but trust me, I have plenty of issues with a couple of his films. This is one of my favorites of his, and I'm looking forward to rewatching it soon.

[therewillbeblus]

Spoiler

...is that Cliff smokes the LSD-dipped cigarette... I believe Tarantino is showing how the madness we associate with the Family infects Cliff to the same level of brutality; their motivations are transferred to him. Rick, who lacks the authenticity of Cliff, can only respond to the threat by imitating what one of his film characters would do.

Spoiler

I read Cliff's actions on LSD as less of an infection of brutality via a commonality of substance-induced hysteria medication of the Mason family, but actually quite the opposite. Cliff is able to indulge in these same drugs and yet is still quick on the draw, and exuding the same loyalty and protection to himself and his friend that he as always done, authentically being Cliff. He is not susceptible to the 'ill effects' as the Manson family is... or rather this is Tarantino again trying to prove a point that this, just like any external source, wasn't source of the problem of the Manson family, attempting to disprove the 'ill effects' of drugs as a reason for these murders. Cliff is acting brutally yes, and issue with that I think is separate from Tarantino's intent here, but regardless of how fantastical this depiction is (and I think we all agree that it's intended to be very exaggerated), Tarantino's 'movie hero Cliff' does not compromise his own 'self' once in this film, even when taking the hallucinogens that the Manson family does. There is a statement here, that Tarantino’s Cliff takes mind-altering drugs and yet his actions, values, and temperment remain the same (of course he kicks into fight/flight mode, but that feels besides the point; he's quite calm and relaxed and not 'tweaking out' the way the Manson family characters are whenever we see them onscreen). The intent here seems to be presenting Cliff on LSD as a manifestation of an idea that serves to poke holes in the opposing idea that drugs, just like violence, or anything else for that matter, are to blame for the acolyte mentality, barring any pathway out of diffusing responsibility for those who commit crimes and blame movies, music, drugs, other people, environments, etc. as a crutch for their own actions. It felt like another "fuck you" moment, not to hippies or even the Manson family specifically, but to that mindset of people.

As a disclaimer, I'm not in full agreement with this idea at all, but it felt larger than a statement about drugs not being a variable (which I believe they are) and more about crushing our instinct to go to one source for 'blame' or to place total utility in the real moments of violence in our society that are far more complex than "I did this because I saw it in the movies/heard it in a song/was on drugs/etc. so shift your anger and attention there." This is obviously something Tarantino has been accused of for most of his career, glorifying violence, and those artists who do so usually have at least a few moments where people wonder out loud if their art is to blame for violence in the world, to which Tarantino vehemently disagrees. The fact that he was able to address these accusations and his larger intentions and beliefs to the power of filmmaking in some sly and subtle (in addition to some more obvious) ways in this film only add to its greatness in my opinion. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the arguments in all of these stances, the various paths Tarantino took towards approaching the ideas is admirable.

[black&huge]

Spoiler

I read Cliff's actions on LSD as less of an infection of brutality via a commonality of substance-induced hysteria medication of the Mason family, but actually quite the opposite. Cliff is able to indulge in these same drugs and yet is still quick on the draw, and exuding the same loyalty and protection to himself and his friend that he as always done, authentically being Cliff. He is not susceptible to the 'ill effects' as the Manson family is... or rather this is Tarantino again trying to prove a point that this, just like any external source, wasn't source of the problem of the Manson family, attempting to disprove the 'ill effects' of drugs as a reason for these murders. Cliff is acting brutally yes, and issue with that I think is separate from Tarantino's intent here, but regardless of how fantastical this depiction is (and I think we all agree that it's intended to be very exaggerated), Tarantino's 'movie hero Cliff' does not compromise his own 'self' once in this film, even when taking the hallucinogens that the Manson family does. There is a statement here, that Cliff takes mind-altering drugs and yet his actions, values, and temperment remain the same (of course he kicks into fight/flight mode, but that feels besides the point; he's quite calm and relaxed and not 'tweaking out' the way the Manson family characters are whenever we see them onscreen). The intent here seems to be poking holes in the idea that drugs, just like violence, or anything else for that matter, are to blame for the acolyte mentality, barring any pathway out of diffusing responsibility for those who commit crimes and blame movies, music, drugs, other people, environments, etc. as a crutch for their own actions. It felt like another "fuck you" moment, not to hippies or even the Manson family specifically, but to that mindset of people. As a disclaimer, I'm not in full agreement with this idea at all, but it felt larger than a statement about drugs not being a variable (which I believe they are) and more about crushing our instinct to go to one source for 'blame' or to place total utility in these moments of violence that are far more complex than "I did this because I saw it in the movies/heard it in a song/was on drugs/etc. so shift your anger and attention there." This is obviously something Tarantino has been accused of for most of his career, glorifying violence, and those artists who do so usually have at least a few moments where people wonder out loud if their art is to blame for violence in the world, to which Tarantino vehemently disagrees. The fact that he was able to address these accusations and his larger intentions and beliefs to the power of filmmaking in some sly and subtle (in addition to some more obvious) ways in this film only add to its greatness in my opinion. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the arguments in all of these stances, the various paths Tarantino took towards approaching the ideas is admirable.

To piggyback off this

Spoiler

I took note almost instantly how Tarantino chose to not portray the Manson members as under the obvious influence of any substance. The only tiny hint is the way Tex acts and his glazed over eyes. Otherwise I read it as a call out of sorts in regards to over the years, while in prison some of those responsible that night repeatedly brought up the amount of drugs they did and how they were under the influence the night of the murders basically shifting all the blame. It seemed to me Tarantino was calling bullshit and placed the blame right where it belongs: on each and every one of them that chose to go that night.

Therewillbeblus explained it very well.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Spoiler

I have a lot of thoughts on the movie as a whole, but I really only want to engage with the Sharon Tate question for right now. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, and while I certainly don't agree with many that the ending is cathartic (although the audience I was with probably would disagree), I also don't think the film itself intends it to be. But about Tate.

I think, essentially, that Tate is three things in this movie: a fetish object (no judgment), an ideological container, and, yes, a human being. But not all at once.

If we can't agree that at times, Tarantino's camera fetishizes her, well, I suppose we just better call it quits. The scene of her sleeping in bed, starting on her feet, moving across her body, including the humanizing detail of her snoring, is the epitome of objectifying desire. Add to it the general lack of things for her to do, and the foregrounding of her feet in the movie theater scene––she's a fetish object, like many others in the film (including Pitt, for the record). This does not, however, undermine her other two functions.

As an ideological container, she embodies everything pure and sweet and joyful about this time period. Her picking up a hippie hitchhiker, her general sweetness, her being part of a general landscape of freespirited but not chaotic (i.e. the hippies) individuals at this time positions her clearly as a beautiful thing that was lost with her murder. The fact that the murder was avoided, the fact that Tarantino at least somewhat recognizes that this is all a fairy tale sort of cements this for me. It does not matter that she may have been like this in real life: the "truth" in reality does not make "truth" in fiction, and when we are deprived of so much interiority of her, it cannot help but be this way.

The scene where she is a full human being is the movie theater scene. It is here that we do get interiority, where we do understand her as an individual with feelings and responses. However, what is problematic here, and what makes me completely confident in my feelings (even if I've failed to express them as convincingly or eloquently as I may in my head) that she is an ideological container is––this scene, where she is at her most human, at her most "three-dimensional", at her most vivid, is the scene in which is it most apparent that Sharon Tate and Margot Robbie are not the same person. Robbie is very convincing, and looks incredibly similar, but not similar enough to pretend that the person on the screen, and the person on our screen is the same person. If the end of the movie gives lie to the fantasy Tarantino has concocted, with the title appearing over the image of Dalton and Tate meeting, this scene also undercuts the entire fantasy, as we are reminded, even if we don't want to acknowledge it, that Tate is dead, that she died, and that all we can do is watch a movie. The scene that most convincingly evokes for us the living breathing Sharon Tate as a comprehensible and real human being is the scene that exposes to us the illusion of it all.

[Nasir007]

Bruce Lee's daughter and biographer essentially call Tarantino's portrayal of Lee as racist and designed to prop up the ego of the white male hero.

Bruce Lee's daughter Shannon Lee: I can understand all the reasoning behind what is portrayed in the movie. I understand that the two characters are antiheroes and this is sort of like a rage fantasy of what would happen… and they’re portraying a period of time that clearly had a lot of racism and exclusion. I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-ass who could beat up Bruce Lee. But they didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive. He comes across as an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air. And not someone who had to fight triple as hard as any of those people did to accomplish what was naturally given to so many others. It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father. Here, he’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was. What I’m interested in is raising the consciousness of who Bruce Lee was as a human being and how he lived his life. All of that was flushed down the toilet in this portrayal, and made my father into this arrogant punching bag. I think he (Moh the actor who played Lee) was directed to be a caricature.

Lee's biographer Matthew Polly: The full scene with Bruce and Brad Pitt is far different than what was in the trailer. Bruce Lee was often a cocky, strutting, braggart, but Tarantino took those traits and exaggerated them to the point of a ‘SNL’ caricature. Bruce revered Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali); he never trash talked him in real life. Bruce never used jumping kicks in an actual fight. And even if he did, there wasn’t a stuntman in Hollywood fast enough to catch his leg and throw him into a car. Given how sympathetic Tarantino’s portrayal of Steve McQueen, Jay Sebring, and Sharon Tate is, I’m surprised he didn’t afford the same courtesy to Lee, the only non-white character in the film. He could have achieved the same effect–using Bruce to make Brad Pitt’s character look tough–without the mockery. I suspect the reason Tarantino felt the need to take Bruce down a notch is because Lee’s introduction of Eastern martial arts to Hollywood fight choreography represented a threat to the livelihood of old Western stuntmen like Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who were often incapable of adapting to a new era, and the film’s nostalgic, revisionist sympathies are entirely with the cowboys.

https://www.thewrap.com/bruce-lee-daugh ... annon-lee/

Do you think they have a point? Is the film racist?

[Luke M]

I think like others have pointed out that scene is a flashback told from Cliff Booth's point of view. There's a later scene where Lee is shown training Tate and he's portrayed more favorably.

[therewillbeblus]

I think that entire scene was meant to provide Pitt's character with his equivalent of the "moment of glory"/being seen theme. He can take it or leave it, because of his serenity and acceptance of his place compared to Rick, but it's still a pleasant memory and one that Tarantino gives us and to Cliff to romanticize an exciting aspect of his mostly banal/routine life. Most if not all people have these moments, small or large, where we felt special, or like 'winners,' whether as a product of spectacle with eyes on us or because of an inner feeling where a strength or ability we possess allowed us to feel good about ourselves. I think this was partially designed as a 'fun' scene but also to give Cliff that moment to sit with and meditate on, that provides him with some feeling of nostalgia for the 'old days' when his career was more active and he had more memories to form, but also because memories and the feelings they bring are significant and one line of thinking is that they are all we really have at the end of the road; priceless moments, just like the compliment DiCaprio gets from an unexpected actor.

As for whether or not it's racist, as I said before (and as my girlfriend believes) it's entirely possible. I don't think it's intentional, but that doesn't necessarily matter. Upon reflection I do think there is a larger point to it, as I've just written about, but the arguments for its racism are worth exploring. Like many of these instances, with limited information given in the frame the racism is likely filtered through microaggressions, unintentional unbalanced dynamics, assumptions, or stereotypes, that are subjective in nature to one's own experience but not any less threatening or real. Since I personally don't feel equipped to speak on any experience regarding these microaggressions, I'd like to hear people who do have that experience and understanding of the depictions here voice their concerns and will gladly listen and contribute if I feel it's appropriate.

[mfunk9786]

This is the most absurd discussion to me - Lee being a little bit egotistical (rightfully so at that!) is hardly a negative portrayal, let alone racist (someone essentially tying in a friendly contest before it's broken up is racist? Brad Pitt in no way "beats up" Lee), and I still think it's ridiculous to think the flashback is somehow imagined from Cliff's point of view when there's absolutely no evidence of that. Shannon Lee was 4 years old when her father tragically died, of course she's going to have a lionized view of him, and she should. Her opinion doesn't make the scene racist, either.

[HitchcockLang]

Agreed. Even if the portrayal is an unfavorable one (or even an “SNL” level parody), the negativity seems to be coming exclusively from his characterization as an egomaniac, not his race. This could have been just as offensive to close friends and family members if it had been Chuck Norris instead of Bruce Lee. Unless there’s some stereotype I’m unaware of, I don’t see how anything objectionable in the scene is in any way racist (unless it’s racist to portray anyone other than a white person as anything but a holy saint).

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think that the flashback is imagined, and while perhaps it's from his point of view at parts (he laughs and shrugs in understanding of why he wasn't able to get work in Rick's current gig) there are clear elements in there that occur behind closed doors (literally) between Rick and the stunt director, informing us of its objectivity. I also don't see anything racist about it, but since I am white and therefore don't have any experience with microaggressions in these specific portrayals of white/non-white character dynamics, I don't feel like I have the right to grab the mic and dismiss that perspective. I agree with both of you on all your points above. I am willing to hear any arguments from those with that perspective who feel like sharing their voice on the matter, as although clearly unintentional sometimes it's necessary to recognize areas outside one's scope, though doing this without lighting the film on fire is a fine line and of course I don't want this thread to take a sharp left turn from the interesting discussion on its larger themes. The question Nasir posed is fair, and I would hope that welcoming discussion from those with a different vantage point in one small area wouldn't be interpreted as an invitation to attack the film as a whole (which would be quite ironic considering this reminds me of a theme of the film attacking singlemindedness from upthread!), or for those without that vantage point to chime in and speak for the group at the other end of the microaggressions. Still, from where I'm standing I'm equally as confused by the claims.

[Stefan Andersson]

Great info about the film´s fake posters and set design from Mubi and Architectural Digest

[Nasir007]

I am a POC but not Asian heritage so I am also perhaps not best placed to comment because I also did not think it was racist. But I will admit I was laughing during the scene.

But the reaction now is not singular. Right after Cannes first screening people were calling the portrayal racist.

Let me approach it from this angle to understand the criticism because I have seen many people on twitter refer to it as a white male power fantasy (which is like a running theme in the film almost). Bruce Lee for a certain set of people represents the absolute pinnacle of human potential in terms of fighting skill and martial arts. His size notwithstanding, he is viewed as a powerhouse, someone who excelled beyond his station. He was also Asian.

Now if some film portrays a casual white male beating up the best Asian fighter there is, that might seem offensive to the group. In the sense that 'even our best is below the average white male'. And of course Pitt's character is not an average white male, he's a TV stuntman and an aging one at that. But it is worth considering. To draw an analogy, say 50 years from now, someone makes a movie where Serena at the peak of her powers is casually beaten by a common white girl, that would seem offensive to people.