Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (spoilers)

[Relic]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

 

Are there unreliable narrator moments from him at all? I don't think there are. I certainly don't think that scene is intended to be one. I know much is made of the vanishing audience, but it's not entirely true: you can see reflections in the car of people seeming to be removing themselves from the scene when the car gets dentedr... and there's one person, who was there throughout the scene, who's still there (and apparently now on the phone, presumably to tell someone there's a problem) when Janet comes in and starts chewing them out.

Tarantino himself cited the scene as being there to establish that Cliff was capable of going toe-to-toe with Bruce Lee, to establish what happens later.

Two articles to read on this topic, if you want. I'm not married to this but my take away (after seeing the movie once and only once, mind you) was the Cliff thinks more of himself than he really is. Once Upon a Time in Cliff's Life...

 

https://brobible.com/culture/article/cliff-booth-bruce-lee-fight-scene-truth-revealed/

 

https://mashable.com/article/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-cliff-booth-brad-pitt/?europe=true

 

and a bit of a counter - 

 

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/08/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-bruce-lee-battle-timeline-1202163929/

 

 

[JGP]

I'm late to this as well. 

I almost laughed from the climax until the end credits. Typically silly wish fulfillment from Tarantino. Again. A little bit different than Inglorious Basterds, but really, just variant icing on the same cookie.

I'm done with Tarantino, I suspect.

[Relic]

33 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

I'm late to this as well. 

I almost laughed from the climax until the end credits. Typically silly wish fulfillment from Tarantino. Again. A little bit different than Inglorious Basterds, but really, just variant icing on the same cookie.

I'm done with Tarantino, I suspect.

Hmmm, yeah the ending was ridic. But i was highly amused and entertained by this movie until then. I'm not a big QT fan, so i count this as maybe my second fav of his movies. 

[JGP]

Fair enough, brother.

I just can't with this fucking guy anymore. 

[Conflicting Thought]

3 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Fair enough, brother.

I just can't with this fucking guy anymore. 

Yeah, and the way he treated uma thurman, the guy is a pos. 

[Ran]

8 hours ago, Relic said:

Two articles to read on this topic, if you want. I'm not married to this but my take away (after seeing the movie once and only once, mind you) was the Cliff thinks more of himself than he really is. Once Upon a Time in Cliff's Life...

 

https://brobible.com/culture/article/cliff-booth-bruce-lee-fight-scene-truth-revealed/

This one I saw, and yeah, it's wrong about there being no witnesses after the throw into the car, which is what their entire argument hinges on.

Quote

 

https://mashable.com/article/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-cliff-booth-brad-pitt/?europe=true

I'll grant that his telling the Qualley's character that he's spent his life avoiding jail and it hadn't gotten him yet, but I feel like his stating a mistruth (whether it's this or his story about the chain gang) isn't the same thing as supposing the flashbacks themselves are unreliable.

I still can't reconcile the fact that Tarantino is explicit about the Lee scene as being there to show how tough a fighter Cliff is with the idea that Cliff is no such thing because the Lee scene is a lie. 

As to the film itself, I enjoyed it but it a bit of a trifle, and he's getting really much more into gory, screamy violence. It started with Kill Bill or perhaps Kill Bill 2, and has only gotten worse with time. I feel it detracts, to differing degree, from the films. I blame Eli Roth.

[Jeor]

I watched this and didn't like the Lee scene (being Asian myself), although my brother was more outraged about it than I was; he saw it as a typical example of white people needing to show dominance over one of the few Asian role models. I'm a bit more laidback, but in principle I just don't see why you'd go to the trouble of denigrating a real-life historic character in service to a fictional one. If Tarantino wanted to establish how good a fighter Booth was, there are a whole lot of other ways he could have done it.

In terms of the overall film, Once Upon A Time itself was exceptionally atmospheric (and though I was born later in the mid-80s, it still made me feel nostalgic) but it meandered a little too much for my liking. As has been mentioned, the film lacked tension/stakes - probably the only time where I actually felt invested was when Booth was checking things out at Spahn ranch. The look and feel of the movie were great, but I think the plot was fairly thin and didn't quite match the rest of it.

[Heartofice]

Bruce Lee scene didn’t bother me, I thought it was actually one of the highlights of the movie. The world is awash with gushing praise for Lee and he is basically worshipped, so it’s quite funny to see him being portrayed as a bit of a dick and getting his ass handed to him. People should lighten up.

 

[red snow]

I can see why some would see it problematic in terms of taking down an icon by a white guy. There's no getting around that being awkward.

I also think the writer/director would have made a better argument if the scene was a meta commentary on the "kung-fu" genre of the time being a passing thing (like the western) than simply going for "we wanted to make Pitt's character look tough". Sometimes it's best to stay out of the argument if you can't add anything but fuel.

I do think there's a massive difference between being a shit-hot martial artist for film and being in an actual street-fight which is how I took the scene. Lee was playing to his audience meaning he wasn't really approaching it as a genuine fight - he was showing off and over-confident. Pitt's character is a brawler and gets paid for taking hits and doesn't care how he looks winning - it's at least plausible that he could beat Lee in a fight. Lee taking the fight seriously is a different thing but ultimately he's fighting a fictional character who's bio could be "he's one hell of a fighter - he could beat Bruce Lee". If it were Bruce Lee vs Brad Pitt then Bruce wins but he's not fighting Bradd Pitt he's fighting Cliff.

It's also ridiculous the scene is being labelled as reimagining history. It's a fight with a fictional character it's not them saying "there was this one time Bruce Lee beat up a stunt co-ordinator but in this film we decided he lost". The ending of the film is reimagining history as it blatantly contradicts  an event that actually occurred, much like the ending of basterds.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

getting his ass handed to him

That wasn't Tarantino's intent. His intention was that Cliff was more or less Lee's equal, not that he was wildly better than him.

Tarantino's use of Lee is complicated. He's absolutely a fan of Bruce Lee (hence Beatrix Kiddo wearing a homage to Lee's jumpsuit in Game of Death), but at the same time he has no sacred cows. He also likes Lee as much because he was a confident, unashamed self-promoter. He had to be, to get where he got, but it's a fact of the man's nature. Hence his fictionalized Lee is bullshitting his way in front of an admiring audience. 

[Inkdaub]

I loved the movie and would probably rank it somewhere in the middle of QT's filmography. 

I didn't like the Bruce Lee scene at all.  In truth, it's my least favorite scene in the entire film.  I saw it as QT taking the piss out of martial arts stars in general and throwing in the people who think Bruce Lee can really play ping-pong with nunchucks for good measure.  I would expect QT to be a big Lee fan but thought it might be a funny scene showing Lee from a different perspective than usual.  I don't think the movie needed that scene to show Cliff as a tough guy at all.  I think Cliff was portrayed tough enough already.  That scene was the low point of the movie for me.

I don't know.  Otherwise I really enjoyed the movie.

[Maithanet]

3 hours ago, red snow said:

I do think there's a massive difference between being a shit-hot martial artist for film and being in an actual street-fight which is how I took the scene. Lee was playing to his audience meaning he wasn't really approaching it as a genuine fight - he was showing off and over-confident. Pitt's character is a brawler and gets paid for taking hits and doesn't care how he looks winning - it's at least plausible that he could beat Lee in a fight. Lee taking the fight seriously is a different thing but ultimately he's fighting a fictional character who's bio could be "he's one hell of a fighter - he could beat Bruce Lee". If it were Bruce Lee vs Brad Pitt then Bruce wins but he's not fighting Bradd Pitt he's fighting Cliff.

It's also ridiculous the scene is being labelled as reimagining history. It's a fight with a fictional character it's not them saying "there was this one time Bruce Lee beat up a stunt co-ordinator but in this film we decided he lost". The ending of the film is reimagining history as it blatantly contradicts  an event that actually occurred, much like the ending of basterds.

One of the people Cliff's character was based on is Gene LeBelle, who worked with Bruce Lee on Green Hornet, is a 9th degree black belt in ju-jitsu and is considered "the godfather of grappling".  According to wikipedia, he and Lee were actually friends and he taught Lee some grappling techniques.  So the idea that LeBelle (or someone like him) could fight Lee to a draw in a random scrap does not seem far-fetched at all.  Now, Cliff and LeBelle obviously differed in their opinion of Lee, but Cliff is a fictional character, so some differences with reality are a given. 

Honestly, I had a bigger problem with Lee being such a douche that he's picking fights with random dudes and then getting them fired.  That does not match anything I've ever heard/read about Lee's personality. 

[red snow]

18 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

One of the people Cliff's character was based on is Gene LeBelle, who worked with Bruce Lee on Green Hornet, is a 9th degree black belt in ju-jitsu and is considered "the godfather of grappling".  According to wikipedia, he and Lee were actually friends and he taught Lee some grappling techniques.  So the idea that LeBelle (or someone like him) could fight Lee to a draw in a random scrap does not seem far-fetched at all.  Now, Cliff and LeBelle obviously differed in their opinion of Lee, but Cliff is a fictional character, so some differences with reality are a given. 

Honestly, I had a bigger problem with Lee being such a douche that he's picking fights with random dudes and then getting them fired.  That does not match anything I've ever heard/read about Lee's personality. 

It's definitely unfair if he never behaved like a jackass - the fight could still have occurred without portaying him that way. 

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, red snow said:

It's definitely unfair if he never behaved like a jackass - the fight could still have occurred without portaying him that way. 

I really enjoyed seeing him portrayed as a jackass, it was quite funny, maybe the funniest part of the movie. I didn't believe or one second he was like that in real life. I've seen far too much about Lee to know he wasn't, and also the movie deliberately creates a version of reality that is not correct, the entire last section of the movie is a complete switcharoo on real events. Plus you have the unreliable narrator element. 

And then, Hollywood is full of examples of real life characters being represented differently to how they were. 

It was just a funny scene. 

[JGP]

11 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Yeah, and the way he treated uma thurman, the guy is a pos. 

David Letterman has a pretty funny story about Tarantino that he told somewhat recently, iirc.

Personally, I don't think he's since done anything remotely approaching quality of True Romance, but who knows how much of that script was Avery rather than Tarantino.

[Nictarion]

54 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It was just a funny scene. 

Especially Zoe Bell’s reaction to her car. 

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Personally, I don't think he's since done anything remotely approaching quality of True Romance, but who knows how much of that script was Avery rather than Tarantino.

De gustibus non est disputandum! Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown would definitely go above True Romance for me... after that, yeah, maybe TR. 

The last film of his I think I whole-heartedly enjoy is Kill Bill: Volume 1. After that the off-putting  violence becomes more pronounced (like Daryl Hannah's wild flailing around after losing her other eye in the follow-up) and it just starts ramping up from there. Yeah, Reservoir Dogs was a bloodbath, but there was a different style and tone to it that I was fine with. Pulp Fiction, too. I suppose the better way to look at it isn't the violence, as such, but that there's a gleeful enjoyment of pain and suffering that I think becomes more pronounced in the later films.

 

[JGP]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

De gustibus non est disputandum! 

Veritas.

Largely agree with the remainder as well. You can almost feel the sadism. 

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

Especially Zoe Bell’s reaction to her car. 

I agree and i laughed too. I can see why it might upset fans of Lee but that's going to happen with any joke. It's not like south park will ever please or not offend anyone.

[Jeor]

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It was just a funny scene. 

As an Asian person I didn't like it, but I can also see how other people without that history would be able to enjoy it as a joke. At the same time, I do agree with my brother that it's a particularly unfortunate example since it's a white person beating up one of the few Asian role models in an era where Asians were already very much overlooked and suffered from huge prejudices in the industry. I don't mean to ruin the joke, people can enjoy it, but should be aware that for others there are some sensitivities about it.

To get back to the main film, I think one of the issues I had with the plot was that it seemed to me like a bunch of vignettes one after another. Individually, a lot of the scenes were masterpieces in showing the atmosphere, look and feel of old-time Hollywood. Sharon Tate in the cinema, Booth driving around Hollywood, people hitchhiking, all that stuff was great. But if you asked me to summarise the plot in a couple of sentences, I'd have no idea what to say.