Hail, Caesar!

Okay so real quick I just wanna mention two reference points for my appreciation of the new Tarantino movie. First, the most amazing documentary I’ve ever seen is the “30 for 30” O.J.: Made in America (2016). Also relevant: Hail, Caesar! (2016, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen).

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019, Quentin Tarantino) is crafted around its setting—Hollywood, in August 1969. And its milieu of superstars and hippies, rising talents and fading has-beens, residents and transients, all overlap and blend together in a period rock-fueled kaleidoscope of a party time-capsuled at the moment right before its end. This thing’s gotta get nominated for the Best Sound Editing Academy Award.

The most fun is the way Robert Richardson, ASC wall to walls the proceedings with a Titan crane, making Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood Tarantino’s own studio product in homage to the era he’s romancing; and, Bob—who won his first Oscar for JFK (1991, Oliver Stone)—also uses 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, various aspect ratios and laboratory processes to distinctively recreate the era.

And Robbie’s SHARON TATE is the glue that holds the narrative together. So what if she doesn’t clock in that much spoken dialogue while on screen? It’s Pudovkin’s principles in action.