Film Review : Once upon a time in Hollywood (2019)

Abstract - I try to demonstrate the importance of the technique ‘mise en abyme’ (film-in-film) to analyse different historical time frames and implicitly, to discover alternative histories.

I have not watched a lot of Tarantino and am not quite sure if Once upon a time in Hollywood (2019) was representative of his films. But, the film (OUTH) fondly reminded me of Bollywood calling (2001), a quite delightful Nagesh Kuknoor film that I had watched a few years ago. OUTH made me think of 2 kinds of films – a. films about films and b. films by Coen brothers, both these aspects owing respectively to the subject and the treatment given. 

Film about films

The subject of OUTH was a reminder of films in Hindi like Bollywood Calling and other commercial ones like Rangeela, The Dirty picture, Om Shanti Om. Such films deal with the film industry itself, its history, its techniques, the different issues it faces, etc. In western art theory, this is referred to as ‘mise en abyme’ - a reflexive technique where the content of a medium becomes the medium itself i.e. a play or a film talk about how they are made and in the process make theatre or art a reflective performance, an activity rather than a passive spectacle. This involves taking the spectators in confidence as if to solicit their suggestions about play/film making. OUTH, (being a film and not a play which is lot more interactive) didn’t quite involve participation of the viewers but, by delivering a ‘film-in-a-film’ at different points, Tarantino certainly tried to relive the making of western films and he makes us reflect on the golden era of western films. By narrating the stories of fading years and of attempts of redemption of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his no-longer-required stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), OUTH touched upon a number of aspects pertaining to the production of westerners, the social living in Los Angeles, the upheaval set by television series, the vulnerabilities and uncertainties faced by actors, the functioning of the entertainment/cinema industry and the show biz life in the late 1960s.

Exploration of loss of Identity through mise en abyme

The frame-in-a-frame or film-in-film technique helps us also to make sense of the central character, Rick Dalton who is struggling to re-invent himself according to the changing times. We can easily identify 3 operational time frames – the viewer’s time (T1), the historical time of late 1960’s (T2) and the fictional time (T3 as shown on TV series and westerner films). We can further classify these time frames by ascribing T1a, T1b or T2a, T2b to individual histories of the characters, but let’s keep things simple and bare minimum to drive our point which is - the technique enables us to view different histories and see the transformation of the central character not just within his time frame of T3 or T2 but also from, T3 to T2. 

The very first scene of OUTH shows Dalton explaining the role of Booth, his stuntman. “Actors are required to do lot of dangerous stuff and Booth helps me carry the load”. Later on in the film, we also realize Dalton has become alcoholic, forgets his dialogues and feels threatened by a future failure. He is weary of director’s ideas and accepts them unwillingly in a bid to regain fame and popularity. During his glorious time, Dalton has been ably supported by his friend, Booth who complements him in various ways. Rick Dalton certainly has a few weaknesses and Booth is always around to cover those. The very idea of needing a stuntman suggests Dalton’s lack of something and his need and dependence on Booth. He requires Booth not just as a friend and chauffeur but as a professional crutch to further his career, gain more films. The re-invention however seems challenging as he doesn’t want to depend on his double anymore. Booth is thus a missing part of Rick Dalton’s identity.  

Booth, on the other hand, is quite full of his own self, lively and doesn’t care so much about others. He is least bothered by rumours of his killing his wife. He can take blows without being harmed and has the guts to smash Bruce Lee on the director’s wife’s car thus putting his career in jeopardy. This carefree attitude is seen missing in Dalton. I see the film as Dalton’s attempt to overcome his failures and move away from Booth. He succeeds only at the end when his decision to part ways with Booth works for him. This is where the transformation lies from T3 to T2. If on the sets, in the first part of the film, Dalton is seen as tame, hating to use arms, unable to use machines like flamethrower (T3), he succeeds in his endeavour (to re-invent himself in T2) given that the tame and shy Dalton fires a flamethrower with ease at the end of the film. This is, I think, the denouement, the scene that defines his fulfilment. By forsaking one’s part of missing identity, Rick acquires a kind of fulfilment of identity, if not complete. 

The mise en abyme also helps to understand the historical time of 1960s in US where the Television has made deep inroads in the drawing rooms. (Such a situation – i.e. the commercial success of the television series and its actors is very telling of the situation in India today where life without Television is impossible and unimaginable). The ‘mise en abyme’ technique is used by showing - a group of hippies watching TV, Tate watching her own film, Dicaprio, Brad Pitt and his dog sitting in front of TV, etc. This gives the impression that we all (the viewers) are watching the same film along with the actors and erases the levels of time (T3, T2) that exist between us and the on-screen actors. Such a technique thus pushes us to understand different operational levels of the film and also, importantly, compels us to think of the impact of westerners on social life and the way these films affect our psyche and influence our society. This film was a fantastic demonstration of how cinema, television and society influence each other in a number of ways. In fact, that is the very premise of the dénouement of the film. The hippie group comes to create ruckus and beat up a guy and eventually decides to kill Dalton, a television icon of the series named ‘bounty killer’. Dalton is about to receive the same treatment he has meted out to his adversaries in his series. This is a very good example showing the kind of ‘pervert’ influence of violence of TV on the youngsters.

The image of the hippies lazing around, sitting idle, consuming TV is significant. For one, at a basic level, it reproduces and reinforces an idea of a hippie, dozed and sedated. At another level, the sedation aspect works figuratively - to show the addiction and sedation of a whole generation of 1960s whose staple diet consists of consuming TV shows, serials, regularly. The TV itself becomes at such a point an important character of the film as on the one hand, all the important characters in the film thrive on TV and the cinema industry. On a broader level, TV has the potential to train the youth to act in certain ways and take them away from them their heady ideas of anarchy and revolution, as demonstrated by an absolute absence of counter attack by ABC who punctures Booth’s car. 

The Surreal

At the same time, OUTH bore a sensibility of a movie made by Coen brothers for its surreal element and for the way the film unsettles clear distinctions of different genres. In some of Coen brothers’ black comedy films, the stories often blur the boundaries between comedy, action, thriller, romance, etc. What we see is a mix of different genres in one film in such a way that a very funny scene can be seen as extremely tragic at the same time and vice versa. In their stories, the funny element can suddenly turn into an ugly, violent, grotesque affair. Such astute handling of comedy, tension and violence is their signature where the story line, if it seems slowly moving, suddenly stands and starts running. The same was the case of OUTH. If the first part moved slowly and even dragged a bit, the second part was quite a pacy thriller. The first part also is done in such a way that we wonder what the main plot/story is. 

Further, the surreal was lot more evident in the second part in tracking Cliff Booth’s movements in search of George Spawn, the owner of Spawn Ranch where Booth once filmed or in the way the Hippies abruptly decide to attack Rick Dalton and surprisingly, get counterattacked. Here, I must also mention another quite amusing scene – a wonderful and comical one between Rick Dalton and the little girl, Tex. She is just 8/9 years old, committed to acting, thoroughly professional and she talks, acts wisely as would a mature, seasoned old professional. In contrast, set against this innocent looking girl, Rick Dalton looks as if he has lost his charm and is terribly at loss of identity. He is an actor, famous one at that for his role in Bounty Law and yet, he is not in control of himself, he drinks a lot, forgets his part of dialogues, looks tired and is constantly bullied by the directors, producers and their teams. He is sick of being stereotyped a cowboy and is worried about his future. Such a purportedly funny scene drapes the anxiety of an actor who feels he has lost his charms. OUTH with different, parallel stories (enabled by the narration and words like ‘until then, in the meanwhile’, etc) had a few surreal moments that make it different from other films.  

Showing this anxiety of the cinema industry is important as it is often neglected by the general audience that treats entertainment/cinema/film industry as an easy profession and often, equates it to fun and frolic. However, the wonderful part of the film, I felt, is that it doesn’t become a caricature. Dalton looks funny and we sympathise with him, with his losing grip of stardom, his desperate attempts to revive his old charisma. And yet, the film doesn’t seem to make fun of him. This is something that the mainstream Bollywood movies can try to imbibe (though I also agree that the caricaturesque characters are themselves produced by circumstances of production of film in India).