While its main narrative is fictional, Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 feature blends fiction with fact to entertaining and somewhat controversial effect. In doing so, it raises questions about the use of real-life people and events to create compelling screen stories…
Background
Set in 1969, the film tells of fictional television actor Rick Dalton, a star whose career is on the wane, and his friend/stunt double Cliff Booth. We follow these characters through La La Land, as Dalton attempts to revive his career in the dying days of Hollywood’s so-called ‘golden age’. This covers the period from the 1920s (some say earlier) through to the late-1960s, during which five major studios dominated the industry.
The year the film is set was also the bloodiest of the Vietnam War, with nearly 17,000 deaths among American soldiers alone, as well as seeing the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, and widespread cultural and political unrest (just a year before, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated). In addition, it was the year of Woodstock and the Apollo 11 moon landing.
One of the tragically pivotal events of 1969 was the murder of (pregnant) actress Sharon Tate and four of her friends by members of the Manson Family, followers of Charles Manson.
In his 2000 book, Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders, Greg King quotes writer Joan Didion, who suggested that the 1960s ended at the exact moment when news of the murders spread through the community. Tate, in particular, symbolised a light and optimism that seemed to capture the spirit of the 60s. Her brutal death brought the dark side of the decade and the hippie movement into stark reality.
The use of real-life in One Upon a Time…
One Upon a Time… combines multiple storylines, one of which has Dalton as the neighbour of Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski (who was away during the murders), with our heroes taking matters into their own hands, Tarantino-style, when they realize there’s trouble afoot next door.
Meticulously researched, the film authentically captures the time-period, which is as much the ‘star of the show’ as the cast (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie). As you might expect from the writer/director’s previous work, it features great performances across the board, with layered characters, cool cameos and plenty of cinephile fodder. We are transported to Heff’s Playboy Mansion and taken on a laidback tour of tinsel town, including the making of a Hollywood western.
We also spend time with Tate, a young actress whose career is blossoming, providing a counterpoint to Dalton, who his trying to remain relevant. At this point, reality intersects with fiction as Dalton interacts with his new neighbours, setting up Act Three when the Manson Family shows up to wreak havoc.
Tarantino reportedly first imaged the film as a detective story involving the murders before it evolved into a character study. As such, not a lot ‘happens’ for much of the movie, until the action focuses on the Tate house, at which point, things become problematic.
Imagining an alternate reality
In One Upon a Time…, Tarantino subverts history in his own inimitable way to have Dalton and Booth step in to take care of the would-be murderers, preventing the deaths of Tate and her friends. At this point, the film departs from its California-cool vibe to become a orgy of violence perpetrated by our heroes on the Manson cultists.
The optic of middle-aged men meting out such violence to teenage girls is a discussion for another day. However, in terms of manipulating fact-based material, there seems to be something distasteful about portraying a fanciful history in which people who were murdered in real life get to live on in fiction. Tarantino even heightens this fiction at the very end, as he reveals that this story is, indeed, just a fairy-tale (as if we didn’t get that from the title).
Of course, this is not the first instance of a filmmaker positing a different version of history. In Tarantino’s world, we saw the assassination of Hitler in Inglorious Basterds (2009), while Titanic (1997) and Gangs of New York (2002) place fictional characters against a historical backdrop, and in JFK (1991), Oliver Stone presents his own version of the events surrounding the president’s assassination.
Beyond this, Once Upon a Time… functions as a comment on a society which, at the time, was dominated by violence, both actual and fictional, as the US struggled through a turbulent and bloody transition, leaving behind the carefree hippie days and golden age of Hollywood to a new era of Nixon and Watergate, of cynicism and activism.
But ultimately, is it right to play with people’s lives?
Is it fair on the family members of those killed, who worked for decades to keep the real-life murderers in prison?
Is subverting history in this way acceptable when it’s a movie… or just a Tarantino movie?
Does wrapping real-life events and figures in a fictional narrative allow writers and filmmakers more freedom to play with history?
While Tarantino’s commitment to authentically portraying the era is clear, his manipulation of the history does again raise the question of how far filmmakers (and writers) have a responsibility to those they fictionalise. And that’s not even taking into account his controversial depiction of Bruce Lee…
Go further:
Take a look at the trailer:
> Learn more about the Golden Age of Hollywood: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/golden-age-of-hollywood/
> Read more about the US in 1969: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/1969-series-explores-important-events-of-the-year/
> This article by the BFI profiles Sharon Tate and her legacy: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/beautiful-damned-cinematic-afterlife-sharon-tate
> Here’s one of many articles on the controversial depiction of Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time…: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-07-31/bruce-lee-tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood
> You can also read our analysis of the opening to The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), also set in 1969, about proceedings against anti-Vietnam protestors, which includes an effective prologue that sets up the historical context.