The 50 best films of 2019 in the US: No 7 – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Quentin Tarantino’s superbly realised homage to 1960s LA is saturated with impeccable detail, even as he rewrites its history
- This article contains spoilers
- The best films of 2019 in the US
Not much stands between us and the Netflix-inspired bonfire of the cinemagoing experience: even titans such as Martin Scorsese have succumbed, caught between the pressing needs of escalating production budgets and shrinking box-office expectations. To give him his due, Quentin Tarantino is not going down without a fight. This is a director who prizes the actual projection of celluloid on large silver screens – and, in fact, one of the most enjoyable sequences in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follows starlet Sharon Tate into a movie-theatre showing of the spy comedy The Wrecking Crew, in which she appeared opposite Dean Martin. From the lobby cards to the upholstery to the glittering beams of light, Tarantino offers a lovingly detailed homage to the act of film-watching as it was practiced in late 1960s Los Angeles.
Tarantino isn’t only interested in the big screen, though; much of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is just as concerned with the industrial-scale production of the kind of TV shows that fueled the everyday entertainment habits of Americans. (Tarantino, six years old at the time the film is set, would no doubt have soaked up countless shows like Bounty Law, the fictitious western serial of which Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is the star.) Not only does Tarantino create superbly realised extended sequences of a real-life show, Lancer, in which Dalton has a guest-star bad-hat role; he also films hilarious versions of TV ephemera: on-set interviews, commercial spots and the like.