76 THENEWYORKER,AUGUST 5 &12, 2019
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio star in Quentin Tarantino’s film.
THECURRENTCINEMA
SURFACE TENSION
“Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.”
BYANTHONYLANE
ILLUSTRATION BY ADRIAN TOMINE
C
ars and songs. To be exact: the sight
of a car bowling along, at speed,
while a song cries out on the soundtrack.
That, in the end, is what Quentin Taran-
tino loves more than anything; more
than crappy old TV shows, more than
boxes of cereal, more than violence so
rabid that it practically foams, and more,
if you can believe it, than the joys of
logorrhea. His latest work, “Once Upon
a Time... in Hollywood,” is a decla-
ration of that love. There are many
scenes in which the characters—folks
like Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio)
and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt)—motor
around Los Angeles without a care. To
call those scenes the best thing in the
film is not a slight upon Tarantino. As
he, of all people, is aware, they are the
kinds of scene that play in our movie
memories, years after the event, on a
helpless and happy loop.
Rick Dalton is an actor, just about.
It’s 1969, and he’s worried that, sooner
or later, somebody will say that he used
to be big in pictures. He’s not yet over
the hill, but he’s well past the peak. Hav-
ing starred in “Bounty Law,” on televi-
sion, in the nineteen-fifties, he is re-
duced to playing heavies and scumbags;
and their sole purpose, as an agent named
Marvin Schwarzs (Al Pacino) explains
to Rick, is to be bested by the hero. Get-
ting bested is the worst. Viewers come
to see you as expendable. Still, it’s a job,
and Rick likes nothing more, even now,
than sitting down with his buddy Cliff
and a six-pack of cold ones, watching
an episode of “The F.B.I.,” and waiting
for the moment when the villain—Rick,
of course—gets to deliver his scumbag
line, with a sneer on his scumbag face.
Cliff is Rick’s stunt double, although,
these days, he seems to be much more:
driver, gofer, and fellow-drinker. He’s
also a cheerleader, of a somewhat cheer-
less variety. He doesn’t shake a pom-
pom or anything, being more of a shades-
and-jeans man, without a trace of hoopla
or hullabaloo. But he does cock a finger
like a pistol, point it at Rick, and say,
“You’re Rick fucking Dalton. Don’t you
forget it.” This is Hollywood, after all,
where being forgotten can be a cause of
death. One lowly task, for Cliff, finds
him high on the roof of Rick’s house,
on Cielo Drive, fixing the TV antenna.
It’s roasting up there, so he sticks a can
of beer in his tool belt and strips to the
waist. Followers of Pitt will fan their
brows and recall his appearance as Will,
on “Friends,” in 2001, during which, in
the midst of a dispute, Phoebe exclaimed,
“Oh, come on, Will, just take off your
shirt and tell us.”
I remember thinking, back then, what
a smooth and unrushed comedian Pitt
could be, wholly at ease with the daz-
ing effect that he had on other souls,
and it’s been disheartening, ever since,
to see him locked down into too many
roles that give him only a fitful chance
to be funny. Praise be to Tarantino, then,
for granting Pitt the time and the lat-
itude to unfurl his good humor, and for
guaranteeing that no twist in the nar-
rative, however menacing, is enough
to nullify his smile. The result is one
of Pitt’s most involving performances,
blessed with wraparound charm, pre-
cisely because Cliff never tries to get
too deeply involved.
One day, for instance, he picks up
a teen-age hitchhiker by the name of
Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) and gives
her a ride to a ranch out in Chatsworth,
in the San Fernando Valley. She lays her
head in his lap as he drives. It’s creepy
and dusty at the ranch, with a troop of
girls as young as Pussycat, plus an old
man (Bruce Dern) who claims to be
blind but likes to watch TV. We hear
mention of Charlie, whoever he may
be. Something is massing in the air, like
thunder. Cliff ’s tire is stabbed, and we
fear for his safety, out there in the half-
wilderness, but he makes it home just
fine. Oh, and by the way: Charlie’s last
name is Manson.
W
henever you go to a Tarantino
film, you come away with the
feeling that history is one inch thick.
The thinness is part of the fun. Boy,
does he know every fraction of that
inch—every movie poster in the hero’s
home, every billboard beside the road,
every commercial on the radio. (“Heaven
Sent, by Helena Rubinstein.”) Rarely
has the parading of such knowledge
seemed more maniacal. Check out Rick,
alone in his pool, floating in an inflat-
able chair and crowing along to “Snoopy
vs. the Red Baron,” thus confirming the
doctrine of cinema as Pop art: the more
