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Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
I was able to tease out a distinct theme in over half of the movies on my “best of” list this year. The theme is a grandness of scale. A lot of the movies on this list are telling big stories. Either the ambition of the characters or subjects is larger than life, as in number 5, or the cinematic scope of the filmmaker is immense, as in numbers 2, 3, and 4. Or, it’s a little bit of both, as in numbers 1 and 6.
Even the smaller films feel big and important in their own way (numbers 8 and 9).
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (OUaTiH) is Tarantino’s re-creation of and loving, yet gleefully revisionist, tribute to this fractious period in Hollywood’s history. Without giving too much away, this film is a spiritual cousin to Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds. That movie incensed more than a few people with its shockingly gory climax that reimagined the end of World War II.
The same will probably be true for OUaTiH. Tarantino puts his unique spin on the bloody, unspeakable events that closed the 1960s. When creating works of art, I have no need for the artist to feel constrained by the facts when representing real events. A big part of art is reimagining the world in new, different, and interesting ways. A possible exception is documentaries, but even those have exceptions to the rule. Mainly, the purpose Tarantino’s divergence from truth serves in OUaTiH, at least for me, was one of catharsis. Just like in Inglourious Basterds, we get to see good triumph over evil, in the bloodiest, most outrageous way possible…
