Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

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swo17
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#26 Post by swo17 » Wed Jul 12, 2017 5:52 pm

Maybe this will end with all of Manson's victims brutally murdering him?

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knives
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#27 Post by knives » Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:01 pm

Wouldn't that just be Death Proof?

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Big Ben
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#28 Post by Big Ben » Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:05 pm

swo17 wrote:Maybe this will end with all of Manson's victims brutally murdering him?
I fully confess in a moment of pure brain fuckery that the first image that crossed my mind when I read he was doing this was a pregnant Sharon Tate killing them all with a machine gun.

I do however want to give Tarantino credit for at least understanding violence in some context. Before you laugh yourselves into unconsciousness please let me explain. Most of the time when people mention Tarantino content the first thing they think of is the over the top violence. (In Django Unchained for instance it's cranked up to eleven.) But I always got the feeling that's exactly what Tarantino wanted. But Tarantino also knows how to show death without the...Tarantino-ness. The sequence in Jackie Brown where a certain character is killed without any real gore is significant and frankly a stand out from his regular carnage. The same could be said of Bill's fate in Kill Bill Vol. 2. Bill's death is not a Sanjuro inspired ragu fountain. On the contrary it's ridiculously simple. And personally I think the film is all the better for it.

If Tarantino writes a script with that sensibility in mind I think he could actually make it work. But I just have too many reservations.

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domino harvey
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#29 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:06 pm

I don't think Tarantino is infallible but I am curious to see how he handles this, and I give him credit for picking a project seemingly no one saw coming-- especially since this is his next to last film

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domino harvey
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#30 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:10 pm

Variety just made wild speculation in a tweet suggesting Walton Goggins for Manson and now I'm going to be disappointed if it's actually anyone but him

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#31 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:37 am

Wonder where Polanski is in all this? I mean for real not casting.

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carmilla mircalla
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#32 Post by carmilla mircalla » Thu Jul 13, 2017 3:05 am

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:Wonder where Polanski is in all this? I mean for real not casting.
who knows but he wasn't a good guy during their marriage so he's the last person anyone should be caring about in this whole thing. I wonder what Tate's one surviving sister is feeling though.

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How rude!
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Re: Quentin Tarantino

#33 Post by How rude! » Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:06 am

domino harvey wrote:I haven't even seen the version of Helter Skelter he stars in, but it's hard to imagine anyone topping Jeremy Davies as Charles Manson
There is no argument. Steve Railsback is the standard. An extraordinary performance. Tarantino will glorify the violence. He is an man-child.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#34 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:38 am

carmilla mircalla wrote: I wonder what Tate's one surviving sister is feeling though.
Maybe he'll invite all the victims family members to the premier. And then he can have a screening at Corcoran.

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Bumstead
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#35 Post by Bumstead » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:16 am

Due to his remix proclivities, it took me years to accept Tarantino as a master *director*. But there's no lingering doubt, he's the real deal; especially since the young turks of cinema are Vimeo Artists at best, generally devoid of a personal point-of-view. That being said, even reading about this movie makes me extremely uncomfortable. Watching an eight months pregnant woman get stabbed and brutalized is always going to be a tough sell. Or may be, having reached my mid-30s, I'm just getting old...

oh yeah
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#36 Post by oh yeah » Thu Jul 13, 2017 10:40 am

I share the same reservations as everyone else, and I'm the walking cliche who thinks Jackie Brown is the only genuinely great Tarantino film, but I'm also too morbidly interested to see how he'll tackle this to offer any sort of condemnation at this point. It certainly is not what I expected from him. (Mining the Holocaust is one thing - not that I liked what IB was doing - but a more personal series of murders like this carries different baggage).

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#37 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:25 pm

I could kind of imagine this being a return to something in the same kind of claustrophobic vein as Reservoir Dogs (or The Hateful Eight). A single main location which then gets widened out in the middle with flashbacks.

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#38 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:52 pm

Tarantino is so fixated on a certain kind of structure though that I wonder exactly how he's going to do this unless it's unlike anything he's done so far. Am indeed secretly hoping this is another mythbreaking revenge scenario where the victims are able to turn the tables on their captors in some way. Otherwise, why make a film where a group of people just kill a bunch of innocent victims and are arrested for it? Tarantino's usually got another dimension in his work that would be totally unexplored were that the case.

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Bumstead
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#39 Post by Bumstead » Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:21 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Am indeed secretly hoping this is another mythbreaking revenge scenario where the victims are able to turn the tables on their captors in some way. Otherwise, why make a film where a group of people just kill a bunch of innocent victims and are arrested for it? Tarantino's usually got another dimension in his work that would be totally unexplored were that the case.
Now THAT I would love to see!

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#40 Post by Foam » Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:26 pm

Maybe it says something about me, but I was only excited when this was announced (and I'm ambivalent about all his films released after Sally Menke's passing).

I'm surprised that so few seem to think a non-revenge take is somehow beyond his capabilities. If he's in the mindset of retiring, he may well be reflecting upon his fascination with revenge and comeuppance--I'd be disappointed if this weren't some kind of development beyond that or complication of it, honestly.

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#41 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:39 pm

Foam wrote:I'm ambivalent about all his films released after Sally Menke's passing
What has changed in the editing of these films that causes you to feel this way?

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carmilla mircalla
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#42 Post by carmilla mircalla » Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:49 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Foam wrote:I'm ambivalent about all his films released after Sally Menke's passing
What has changed in the editing of these films that causes you to feel this way?
Django's editing was rough but that's also because it is the most linearly structured Tarantino film most likely a decision by the man himself. I used to think that dinner scene intercut with the Candie convoy riding to Candieland was awfully misplaced but now I've accepted it's literal place in the film but it still seems funny to me how it was edited in.

Also Menke had a tremendous technique with abrupt cutaways and had a very poetic style to how she edited the fast cut action scenes ala the tavern in IB and the Crazy 88 fight. Raskin while I understand worked with her just does not have that ability at least not yet. Hateful Eight didn't seem like it needed so much of the wild editing in his previous films so it's perfectly fine.

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#43 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:46 pm

Foam wrote:If he's in the mindset of retiring, he may well be reflecting upon his fascination with revenge and comeuppance--I'd be disappointed if this weren't some kind of development beyond that or complication of it, honestly.
I also think he's also enough of a egotist about his career and his place in cinema that I could see this is as a deliberate attempt to prove he's always been capable of this sort of "serious" movie, and that he's simply chosen not to with his career.

I also think he's talented enough to pull off such a hubristic move.

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#44 Post by Foam » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:19 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Foam wrote:I'm ambivalent about all his films released after Sally Menke's passing
What has changed in the editing of these films that causes you to feel this way?
Menke is probably my favorite editor. Maybe it's a coincidence but starting with Inglorious Basterds the films begin to lose something (I know she worked on it, but still). I think most noticeably they don't feel quite as snappy and start to feel a bit more languorous and indulgent. But at a more subtle level, Menke imbued his films with a dynamic, push-pull quality that is noticeably absent from Django and The Hateful Eight (although I think I like the latter film anyway). There's no dialogue-heavy scene as well edited as the Jack Rabbit Slim's scene in any of his work after her death.

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#45 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:24 pm

I think you may have torpedoed your own argument by including Inglourious Basterds in that lineup, despite your acknowledgement that it was edited by Menke. I realize there may have been a symbolic loss and some measurable change after Inglourious Basterds, but the writer, director, and much of the crew remains the same - chalking a perceived career decline up to a change in the editor seems strange to me. Was All the Pretty Horses snappy, or languorous and indulgent?

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Foam
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#46 Post by Foam » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:31 pm

It's also possible that Tarantino started shooting in a way that wasn't as amenable to Menke's strengths as an editor (which I think is reasonable, considering the nature of the set-pieces in IB). Whatever the case, Tarantino 1994-2007 are some of the most well edited films ever, and the ones before and beyond that are, imo, not. Menke is known to have a signature style; it seems more strange to insist that her death would be inconsequential than not.

Re: your edit. If I had to point to works outside of the Tarantino filmography in which the "push-pull" effect I'm talking about can be discerned, I would name The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe and Planet Terror.
Last edited by Foam on Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#47 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:32 pm

Mfunk, I don't understand your last point on All the Pretty Horses, didn't the Weinsteins force the filmmakers to cut an hour of that film out, i.e. The resultant film doesn't reflect the editor's intended work

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#48 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:40 pm


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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#49 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:42 pm

domino harvey wrote:Also, Sharon Tate's sister sez Jennifer Lawrence isn't "pretty enough" to be Tate
You heard it here first.

And I'll admit to not knowing that about All the Pretty Horses and using it as a cheap punchline. So you win there.

I agree 100% that she had a signature style in the Tarantino films she edited that was an asset to them, my question is how merely removing an editor from the equation (especially when that editor worked closely and collaboratively with the director, which would indicate that they agreed on many editing decisions made on those films) would result in a steep drop in the quality of work without her. I'm certainly not trying to say she was inconsequential, though I am wondering how consequential an editor can be to the overall picture of a film's quality even if that editor is the best in the business. It's obviously a sensitive subject because of how tragically Menke passed, and because of how much of a talent she was (so it isn't an easy "argument" to win insofar as it was ever an argument) but I found the idea that the newer films aren't good (or at least are worthy of one's ambivalence) merely because of the editing to be odd. It's not like they're riddled with continuity errors and baffling cuts mid-sentence or something. They're competently if not well edited films that are reflective of the final product that Tarantino was looking for (or why wrap post-production?).

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Re: Untitled Sharon Tate Project (Quentin Tarantino, 201X)

#50 Post by Foam » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:55 pm

I'll admit that there are other factors. I don't find Tarantino as convincing at the level of writing in the films starting with IB either.

I know I wasn't on the set of these movies and don't know who was in charge of each and every decision. I won't pretend to have access to that kind of information, even inductively.

All I can say is that for me it really is primarily the editing of Tarantino's films, in the years I mark, which is responsible for my continuing to love and rewatch them long after the more adolescent charms of the performances, jokes, and stories have worn off. It's possible that confirmation bias may be doing more work here than I'm willing to admit. But at the same time I do think I'm unusually sensitive to editing and so I hold those films in high regard for that reason in a way that I'll admit may have more to do with my own idiosyncrasies than my possessing some kind of special expertise.
mfunk wrote:It's not like they're riddled with continuity errors and baffling cuts mid-sentence or something. They're competently if not well edited films
Right. And maybe for me, the difference between competently edited and virtuosically edited films is greater than it is for you? The editing of Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, and Death Proof is at least 50% of why I, personally, watch and rewatch them.

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