Quentin Tarantino has few peers that are his equals. Everyone from his “Four Rooms” days has basically come and gone besides Robert Rodriguez who has seemingly gone in a different direction these last few years, and there are very few directors from his era that were up-and-coming at the time that are on his level. Perhaps the only one, arriving on the scene a few years after the 1994 success of “Pulp Fiction” is Paul Thomas Anderson (who followed not far behind, making “Hard Eight” in 1996 and “Boogie Night” in 1997). And while there are sometimes rivalries between filmmakers on the rise in Hollywood, competing at the same level, PTA and Quentin have always been strong admirers of one another’s work.
Tarantino has talked to nearly everyone under the son about his new film “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” which has grossed $183 million worldwide so far, but he hasn’t yet talked to Paul Thomas Anderson about his ‘60s-set Hollywood love letter about a faded actor and his stunt double strive to make their mark in the film industry.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as that struggling actor, Rick Dalton, the former star of a western television series, trying to figure out his way in Los Angeles in the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age and Brad Pitt plays his loyal, longtime stunt double, Cliff Booth. While fame has seemingly passed them by, a vague glimmer of hope appears when he realizes rising starlet Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her director husband Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) are his new next-door neighbors. The movie takes some crazy turns from there and of course, dominated Film Twitter’s discourse for a few weeks; much of it centered on the way, Tarantino chooses to revise history once again.
Tarantino recently sat down with director Paul Thomas Anderson to discuss the making of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.” following ae DGA membership screening in Los Angeles on August 18. The conversation has been made available thanks to the excellent DGA podcast, The Director’s Cut which always finds a contemporary filmmaker to interview the director in question.
It’s a terrific Q&A with great insights into the film you may have not heard before. For example, Tarantino says there’s so much about these characters not seen on screen; Pitt’s Cliff character in WWII is “five movies.” The filmmaker also says if the movie had more of a plot it might’ve ended up being more of an Elmore Leonard-like story that involved the Charles Manson family and also notes that he started working on “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” screenplay after “Death Proof,” so the idea has obviously been kicking around for years. Give it a listen and definitely subscribe to The Director’s Cut.
