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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Started by Wet Blanket, March 20, 2019, 02:35:01 PM

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Piggyoioi

Quote from: Sin Agog on August 23, 2019, 01:13:04 PM
...shot, turned into dogfood, then set alight with a flamethrower whilst screaming like a banshee.

What point are you making exactly? women should never be the victims of violence in films? watching those cunts get the shit kicked out of them was one of the high points in the movie.

Sin Agog

Quote from: Piggyoioi on August 23, 2019, 01:17:02 PM
What point are you making exactly? women should never be the victims of violence in films? watching those cunts get the shit kicked out of them was one of the high points in the movie.

No.  I've just been binging the Lone Wolf & Cub movies this week, so I don't think that. I'm all for showing whatever the fuck you want, and pressing any buttons that can be pressed, but I'm allowed to feel a little disquieted that two of the big comedic set-pieces of his last two movies have been the fe-males getting absolutely bludgeoned.  I'm making more of an emotional point than an intellectual one.

Shit Good Nose

This is NOT aimed at you, Sin Agog, but just because the point has been made - for all of my dislike of QT, I must say that these regular attacks of him being a misogynist and his films being little more than a male gaze at the female form greatly annoy me.  Of all the A-list male directors that have been working in mainstream cinema since the 90s, he's got to be one of THE most feminist ones.  I mean you've got four films that have female lead characters, and he's always written strong female characters.  I just don't understand it.

Piggyoioi

Quote from: Sin Agog on August 23, 2019, 01:23:28 PM
No.  I've just been binging the Lone Wolf & Cub movies this week, so I don't think that. I'm all for showing whatever the fuck you want, and pressing any buttons that can be pressed, but I'm allowed to feel a little disquieted that two of the big comedic set-pieces of his last two movies have been the fe-males getting absolutely bludgeoned.  I'm making more of an emotional point than an intellectual one.

Fair enough, personally i'd need to see more of a pattern than two movies before I'd start making judgements, especially since QT has had some pretty great female leads in the past not to mention brutal violence committed against men in all his other films.

Sin Agog

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on August 23, 2019, 01:29:11 PM
This is NOT aimed at you, Sin Agog, but just because the point has been made - for all of my dislike of QT, I must say that these regular attacks of him being a misogynist and his films being little more than a male gaze at the female form greatly annoy me.  Of all the A-list male directors that have been working in mainstream cinema since the 90s, he's got to be one of THE most feminist ones.  I mean you've got four films that have female lead characters, and he's always written strong female characters.  I just don't understand it.

Yeah, I don't think he's a misogynist.  It'd probably be painful for him to write a female character who just hangs there like a wet noodle with no agency or inner life.

Did you say that Jackie Brown was your favourite of his?  You might end up half-liking this after all if so.  It definitely most closely resembles that one more than anything else he's ever done.  Although we were talking about that shoddy Australian flick Stunt Rock awhiles back in Non-New Movies, about a stuntman just driving around L.A. doing stunts and getting into the occasional tussle, and I'm probably one of the first people to point out he was probably pretty influenced by that one 'n' all, especially in the first half.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Sin Agog on August 23, 2019, 01:51:09 PM
Did you say that Jackie Brown was your favourite of his?  You might end up half-liking this after all if so.  It definitely most closely resembles that one more than anything else he's ever done.

No - Pulp Fiction is the only film of his I REALLY like (without having seen The Hateful Eight or OATIH yet).  I think Jackie Brown is okay - absolutely watchable, but it's one I only revisit every few years.  But there are a few other CaBbers who think it's his best film, and it's probably the one that has the greatest increasing popularity generally. 

CaptainSchpunklewiff

Quote from: Sin Agog on August 23, 2019, 01:23:28 PM
No.  I've just been binging the Lone Wolf & Cub movies this week, so I don't think that. I'm all for showing whatever the fuck you want, and pressing any buttons that can be pressed, but I'm allowed to feel a little disquieted that two of the big comedic set-pieces of his last two movies have been the fe-males getting absolutely bludgeoned.  I'm making more of an emotional point than an intellectual one.

I can't change how you felt on a visceral level whilst watching a film, but I'm going to debate this point anyway.
This is all done to spare the grisly murder of Sharon Tate. Despite having quite few lines in the film, you feel her character's presence throughout the film. Tarantino paints her with such affection, portraying her as a funny and likeable character, arguably the most secure and level-headed character in the film. And Tarantino lovingly rewrites her tragic history by flexing his muscles for cathartic violence, rolling around in the blood of a bunch of dick-holes that were an indictment on the end of the golden age of Hollywood that Tarantino loves so much.
Lest we forget, Tarantino lovingly gunned down Hitler in IB, chewed to bits by bullets. And Hitler had a moustache, so that proves he's not an woman.
Tarantino, if anything, is a Misterogynist, if his back catalogue is anything to go by.

popcorn

Once Upon a Time has a sequence of a woman being repeatedly smashed in the face and it's horrible and hilarious at the same time. Is it misogynist? I don't know, why would it be? The movie doesn't care that she's a woman. It's loaded with nothing except the same juvenile joy we get from machinegunning Hitler's face off.

I think if anything Tarantino is one of the most moral filmmakers working today. In Django he blew up American slavery, in Basterds he blew up Nazism. It's fantasy and it's obviously cartoonishly broad, but it's fearless and unambiguous.

For all the ultraviolence I think his films are overwhelmingly positive and optimistic. Sharon Tate isn't really Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time, she couldn't be. She's movies, or specifically the love of movies, the sort of thing Tarantino is always going on about in interviews. She goes to the cinema and watches her movie and she's delighted that she/the movie (same thing) are bringing joy to the audience. So in the end it's movies that Tarantino rescues by halting the killings, not Sharon Tate, Sharon Tate doesn't really exist, she died decades ago. It's a movie.

popcorn

One thing I thought rather abruptly shoehorned in: the Manson kids arrive on instructions to murder everyone in the Tate house. Dalton pisses them off. One of the Manson kids, seemingly, happens to be a Tarantino-esque pop culture nerd and explains who he is. They reason that as Hollywood has taught them to kill, they should go and kill Hollywood actors.

Apart from this being contrived, this is the only bit of the rewriting of history that bothers me, because it's fucking with their motivations. Suddenly Tarantino isn't rescuing Tate from the Manson family but from a gang of killers who are specifically anti-Hollywood. He didn't need to do that. The metaphor was already there. (And besides, the Mansons are grossly Hollywood, as much a part of the myth and mystique as anything.)

It also makes it too personal. They basically stand for the critics of Tarantino's violence. What do they have to do with anything? Why take revenge on them?

phantom_power

Lots of cameos/small roles as well. Scoot McNairy, Kate Berlant, Clifton Collins Jr, Rumer Willis. Even Harley Quinn Fucking Smith

chveik

I haven't seen the movie yet but I don't really understand why there would be a link between the end of the golden age of hollywood and the Manson murders. and surely he's got his timing fucked, because this golden age was already over in the late 50s/beginning of the 60s.

popcorn

AND ANOTHER THING: the precocious 8-year-old. When she's introduced she feels like a wind-up, like look how annoying this girl is, she even complains about the word "actress", what a feminazi. But actually she's treated with respect, she's shown to be talented and in charge of herself, and she humbles the self-pitying Dalton.

popcorn

Quote from: chveik on August 23, 2019, 03:11:28 PM
I haven't seen the movie yet but I don't really understand why there would be a link between the end of the golden age of hollywood and the Manson murders.

Because the Mansons lived in Hollywood (on a disused movie lot!), Charles Manson was a failed showbiz musician, they killed a Hollywood actress (and wife of famous Hollywood director), and became for better or worse part of the fabric of Hollywood mythology and popular culture.

Not related to the movie, but Vox puts it well:

QuoteThe Tate-LaBianca murders, a.k.a. the Manson Family murders, profoundly shook America's perception of itself. They upended ideas of safety, security, and innocence, and effectively sounded the death knell of '60s counterculture, ushering in a new decade of darkly psychosexual, conspiracy-laced cultural exploration of America's seedy underbelly.

Dr Rock

I realise now why Tarantino changed history so one of the would-be killers drives off.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

While overall I'd say I enjoyed it, I'm in two minds about the film. It's rambling and self indulgent, even by Tarantino's usual standards. As someone said above, I could go along with it, because several scenes were very good in their own right and I trusted that it was all going somewhere. The ending certainly was a doozy, but as someone else said, it's also a bit of a cheat - the day could have been saved by alien wizards, for all it had to do with the rest of the film.

On the subject of mysoginy, it's a bit unpleasant to see Emile Hirsch playing some nice bloke, after he apparently beat a woman unconscious in real life.

Quote from: popcorn on August 23, 2019, 03:12:58 PM
AND ANOTHER THING: the precocious 8-year-old. When she's introduced she feels like a wind-up, like look how annoying this girl is, she even complains about the word "actress", what a feminazi. But actually she's treated with respect, she's shown to be talented and in charge of herself, and she humbles the self-pitying Dalton.
Was she supposed to be someone famous? I kept expecting her to reveal that her name was Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore, or somesuch.

Quote from: popcorn on August 23, 2019, 03:07:06 PM
They basically stand for the critics of Tarantino's violence. What do they have to do with anything? Why take revenge on them?

Mister Six

Quote from: Dr Rock on August 23, 2019, 03:24:19 PM
I realise now why Tarantino changed history so one of the would-be killers drives off.

Why?

I do suspect there's some kind of subversive audience-prodding going on with the prolonged acts of violence against women in hate and OUATIH, knowing that this is probably one of the last lines of transgression that QT both can cross and is willing to cross (and that it can be justified by having said women be such horrifically murderous pieces of shit).

But I also don't really care, nor do I think this actually makes a misogynist at all.

Dr Rock


Peru

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on August 23, 2019, 01:29:11 PM
This is NOT aimed at you, Sin Agog, but just because the point has been made - for all of my dislike of QT, I must say that these regular attacks of him being a misogynist and his films being little more than a male gaze at the female form greatly annoy me.  Of all the A-list male directors that have been working in mainstream cinema since the 90s, he's got to be one of THE most feminist ones.  I mean you've got four films that have female lead characters, and he's always written strong female characters.  I just don't understand it.

I mean it ends with a man who killed his annoying nagging wife righteously beating a woman to death for laughs and actually stars a man (Emile Hirsch) who choked a woman to the point of unconsciousness in 2015. I would be hard pressed to call that feminist even being generous.

Mister Six

I don't think casting Hirsch in a relatively tiny, non-violent role should count against it in that regard.

popcorn

Quote from: popcorn on August 23, 2019, 03:16:37 PM
Because the Mansons lived in Hollywood (on a disused movie lot!), Charles Manson was a failed showbiz musician, they killed a Hollywood actress (and wife of famous Hollywood director), and became for better or worse part of the fabric of Hollywood mythology and popular culture.

More here: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/8/20707915/joan-didion-sharon-tate-manson-white-album

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Mister Six on August 23, 2019, 09:00:00 PM
I don't think casting Hirsch in a relatively tiny, non-violent role should count against it in that regard.
Given that it is a tiny role, why not cast an actor that isn't a nasty piece of work? If there are any.

Mister Six

Because there aren't any that fit the role well enough? Because his first three choices had scheduling conflicts? Because other actors wanted more money? Because Tarantino's not aware of the court case?

I dunno, I'm not exactly ecstatic that this guy got the job - he's clearly a cunt - but I don't think it works as ammunition for the "Tarantino's a misogynist" argument.

chveik

Quote from: Mister Six on August 24, 2019, 12:26:27 AM
Because there aren't any that fit the role well enough? Because his first three choices had scheduling conflicts? Because other actors wanted more money? Because Tarantino's not aware of the court case?

I dunno, I'm not exactly ecstatic that this guy got the job - he's clearly a cunt - but I don't think it works as ammunition for the "Tarantino's a misogynist" argument.

it works as ammunition for the "Tarantino isn't a feminist" argument.

Peru

Quote from: Mister Six on August 24, 2019, 12:26:27 AM
Because there aren't any that fit the role well enough? Because his first three choices had scheduling conflicts? Because other actors wanted more money? Because Tarantino's not aware of the court case?

I dunno, I'm not exactly ecstatic that this guy got the job - he's clearly a cunt - but I don't think it works as ammunition for the "Tarantino's a misogynist" argument.

Come on-if there's a director who knows the minutiae of an actor's past, and who frequently uses it for stunt casting, (and who has recently had to reckon publicly with being strongly associated with a woman-abuser) it's Tarantino.

Mister Six

Fair enough on both points.

I don't think he's a misogynist even if he's not much of a feminist though.

Mister Six


popcorn

Quote from: Dr Rock on August 23, 2019, 04:07:09 PM
So Manson gets caught.

I don't see what this changes. The police would obviously still investigate the gang and their home invasion, Booth knows they were on the ranch, the trail to Manson is still there, and there's nothing in the film to indicate the other murders were halted too.

Quote from: Peru on August 23, 2019, 07:25:23 PM
I mean it ends with a man who killed his annoying nagging wife righteously beating a woman to death for laughs and actually stars a man (Emile Hirsch) who choked a woman to the point of unconsciousness in 2015. I would be hard pressed to call that feminist even being generous.

I'd call all that really disingenuous at best. Break it all down.

Quotea man who killed his annoying nagging wife

We're never shown that he did kill her. Only that's what's rumoured. The one scene we see her in ends ambiguously. But saying she was a nagging wife again goes against the evidence of what we're shown. She's drunkenly berating him and telling him she's going to start a fight whether he wants to or not. If the genders were flipped Pitt's character wouldn't be called a nagging husband, he'd be called emotionally abusive. Calling her nagging is dismissive. At best, based on the evidence given, you can say that Pitt's character is rumoured to have killed his abusive wife. Suddenly sounds far less harsh, doesn't it?

Quoterighteously beating a woman to death for laughs

That woman has along with two other people broken into a home and threatened him with knives and a gun. She's already told her companion with a gun to shoot Pitt and she's charged at him with a knife. The thing that's pissed me off about trying to paint Tarantino as sexist are doing it by downplaying the actions of real life fucking murderers. How feminist was it when they took part in the butchering of Tate and her friends? Where was the sisterhood when a heavily pregnant Sharon Tate begged for her child's life and called for her mother before they stabbed her 16 times and wrote the word pig in her blood? So again, he didn't "righteously beat a woman to death for laughs" he beat a woman to death when she threatened his life. Pitt also kills Tex Watson in the same scene by stamping on his head. But people continually ignore that because it doesn't fit their narrative.

As for Hirsch. I think his punishment was insanely light but he did stand trial for the assault, plead guilty and received punishment for it. Now either as a society we believe people can be rehabilitated or we don't. If we do then we have to believe they can return to employment. Also, where was the outrage when Hirsch was cast in films by other directors? The assault and the trial was in 2015. He's been cast in numerous films between then and now and done voice work  on a kids' television series. Why is it only when Tarantino casts him it suddenly says something negative?

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: worldsgreatestsinner on August 24, 2019, 05:07:05 PM
As for Hirsch. I think his punishment was insanely light but he did stand trial for the assault, plead guilty and received punishment for it. Now either as a society we believe people can be rehabilitated or we don't. If we do then we have to believe they can return to employment. Also, where was the outrage when Hirsch was cast in films by other directors? The assault and the trial was in 2015. He's been cast in numerous films between then and now and done voice work  on a kids' television series. Why is it only when Tarantino casts him it suddenly says something negative?

Basically what I was going to say, BUT, IIRC, there were one or two films he was in fairly recently (I can't remember which ones off the top of my head, and an IMDB search doesn't ring any bells either) that did draw some negative press for his hiring.  OATIH has probably set the headlines alight a bit more because it's such a high profile film, whereas most of Hirsch's output has been low budget and indie stuff.

That doesn't change the basic point you're making - which I wholeheartedly agree with - but I thought it was worth mentioning.

This was the first film I saw catch flak for it, back last year, because Jameela Jamil kicked off about the casting on Twitter. But I think it's being twisted t make it seem like he was untouchable before Tarantino cast him in this, which isn't true, so if Tarantino's feminist credentials are drawn into question for casting him then so should every director and actor, male and female, who has worked with him since. I think the only reason this gets brought up at all in relation to Tarantino is it's something else to throw against him in this bizarre attempt that's going on to paint him as ultra right wing. I saw some fucking idiot claim on Twitter that if Tarantino had been born in the 90s he would march with Nazis. That's how fucked conversations around art have become.