Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I am a huge fan of the way Tarantino tells stories. I don't think there is anyone quite like him making films. This is a masterpiece. Growing up in the 1960s was the era when Westerns and American TV programmes were the staple on both TV channels. The visual texture of this film feels so spot on and the way the cinematography is lit and captured make it a feast for the eyes. Anyone who has been along Sunset Strip, driven past the iconic Capitol Records Tower or toured the Hollywood Hills will have recognised many of the famous sites. 

The fact that this film is a realist fairy-tale referencing and featuring many of the characters of the period only adds to, the at times, almost documentary feel of the film. Tarantino takes facts and real Hollywood characters, puts them in a bag and shakes them up, and then empties the bag, representing them in a jumbled retelling of the final years of Hollywood's golden era. It is literally as though Tarantino makes a memory dump onto the screen and arranges the images with a connecting narrative. Simply amazing.

Whilst the film captures the excesses of the times in its portrayal of drugs, sex and the rock and roll lifestyle, even featuring a scene at the Playboy Mansion, it also contains characters and acts which demonstrate great virtue. Whilst most of the characters in the film seem to be out to get whatever they can, Brad Pitt's Oscar winning character Cliff Booth oozes a cool strength and courage whilst being loyal to his friend and employer Rick Dalton played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Booth is however also capable of great violence - a not so virtuous trait. In the film Cliff Booth is rumoured to have killed his wife although he was never charged with her murder - surely more than a passing reference to Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner?

The innocent beauty of Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate wafts through the film punctuating it with a feeling akin to walking into a air-conditioned building when it's hot outside. The menace of the Manson gang holed up at the Spahn Ranch foreshadows the soon to pass Tate murders. After a six month spell in Italy shooting Spaghetti Westerns, Dalton returns to Hollywood with an Italian wife who is a conflation of Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and other Italian sirens of the period. The way in which this film interweaves fiction and reality, and then presents each as the other is extremely clever.

The fickle nature of celebrity which is an integral part of Hollywood is explored from many different angles. The whole premise of the film is that Dalton's career is waning and Booth's work as a stuntman has all but dried up. They feel disconnected from a Hollywood they no longer recognise. We see an emerging Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis) at the height of his game and even Mama Cass (Rachel Redleaf) and Michelle Phillips (Rebecca Rittenhouse) from the Mamas and the Papas. 

This film offers a unique portrait of Hollywood in 1969. It is very cleverly conceived and Tarantino's screenplay and Direction are phenomenal. The casting is spot on even if many of the first choices either didn't pass audition or were unavailable through other projects. There is a huge and interesting exploration of the film on Wikipedia - well worth a look. As you may have gathered, I enjoyed this trip back to my childhood. Thank you Quenten. I'll give it 8/10.

Nomadland

I watched this film with a group of friends at church as part of our discipleship programme exploring themes of 'home' this term. I found the film to be very depressing but I'm glad I saw it as its multiple messages are important and need to be heard and seen. Others found the film uplifting. It's just as well not everybody is like me! I guess it's a 'Marmite" film - as it appears was the score of plinky piano and a cello being sawed in half - yep, I didn't like that much either!

For me this was a film whose story was primarily about two things: remembering and relationships. To remember literally means to put back together. For me, the film pivoted around a scene where a helpful friend had accidentally dropped a box containing some crockery that Fern (Frances McDormand) had very strong sentimental attachment to - and for good reason. A plate was broken that was part of a dinner service given to her by her now dead father - the design was Fall Leaves. As Fern painstakingly glued the pieces back together, she remembered her strong bond with her father and felt again the pain of loss.

The pain of loss lies at the heart of this film - yet there is hope for Fern and those she shares her nomadic lifestyle with. The town in which Fern and her husband lived and worked was a one employer town and everybody worked at the factory or in one of the businesses supporting the community. When the factory closed the town became a ghost town and everybody became jobless and houseless as the company also provided housing. Not long afterwards, her husband died. Fern had lost her job, her husband and now her home. All she had left was a van. The van became more than just a home for Fern. It contained many of her memories and she had customised the interior with things from her previous home and life and possessions of her husband. Although houseless, Fern never considers herself to be homeless, as home is somewhere deep within.

Other characters in the film - many of them real life nomads, have also experienced loss. With a social security system unable to provide a living pension, many of these people could not afford to live in a house or flat despite a lifetime of paying tax. A rent free van or RV and the empty desert was all they had. With monochromatic landscapes and shot almost exclusively with hand-held cameras (not even steadycams) and often in extreme facial close-up, the characters offer an openness and honesty which allies with the integrity of their way of life. Not once in the 103 minute run time did we see a law enforcement officer - there was no need of them. Often it is clear that the dialogue is improvised but it works so well.

What we did see plenty of was community. Relationships were the second key theme for me. Fern was widowed and childless. Later in the film we discover she has a sister. She forms attachments to a number of characters such as Linda (Linda May) and Swankie (Charlene Swankie) and is torn about her feelings for Dave (David Strathairn) with whom the prospect of a romance develops throughout the film. The group of nomads rally around Bob (Bob Wells) who delivers quasi-philosophical witterings that find an a welcoming home amongst the semi hippy nomads. His rhetoric helps them to find an identity as a group.

The starkness of the nomadic lifestyle forces each nomad to face up to the reality of death at some point. There is a lot tree-hugging New Age type communing with nature with a strong 'everything in the universe is connected' feel. We could learn much from this. The way the narrative plays out, sets up a dichotomy between a settled life with a job and a mortgage, family responsibilities and social engagements against the freedoms of being a nomad. Twice in the film, Fern is offered permanent accommodation, first with her sister and later with Dave's son's family. She rejects both offers and returns to the open road.

Whilst some of the nomads appeared to be fairly static or stayed within one locale, others were clearly on a never-ending road trip and others like Fern, followed seasonal work around the country. We see Fern joining the Christmas recruits at an anonymous Amazon Fulfillment Centre picking and packing goods for Christmas. She then moves on to working in a restaurant and then being an attendant at a  camping and RV ground and in the autumn works the sugar beet harvest. Throughout she demonstrates that she is no shirker, Fern is a hard worker with a strong moral code and a predisposition to always be looking out for others in her community. She is generous and loving - at least as far as her own limitations allow.

If ever a script had Frances McDormand's name on it, this is it - she also co-Produced the film. She not so much acts but feels like one of the real life nomads in the film (therefore is an excellent actor!). Her character Fern commands attention. With Chloë Zhao's sensitive and detailed Direction and the hand-held camera work, this film offers an intimate portrait of an important and growing slice of American society. Has the American Dream simply been illusory for them or are they living it? As I said above, this film has much that is important to say and its three Oscars testify to that. If you've not seen the film, do see it. I'll give it 7/10.