The Hippie, the Cowboy, and the City:Aesthetic and Political Layers in Tarantino's Once upon a Time … in Hollywood

Deleyto Alcalá, Celestino Sigifredo (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Roche, Davd

Resumen: The movie follows the trajectories of three characters: up-and-coming and pregnant star Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) enjoys time with her husband Roman Polanski (Rafai Zawierucha), her friends, and especially herself, while fictional actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his friend and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) struggle with faltering careers in the television and film industry; their paths intersect when, after Cliff's first brush with the Manson family at Spahn Ranch, Rick and Cliff are attacked by three of its members, initially sent to murder the Tate-Polanski household. In these movies, Hollywood tends to provide its own self-critique (Cerisuelo 93), “simultaneously demystify[ing] and mystify[ing] their subject” (Ames 4) and yet “promulgat[ing] the Hollywood mystique” as a “brand shared by all studios” (Cohan 12); even at their bleakest, these movies often tell the story of how art ultimately transcends the lethal forces of capital, if only through the creative act that is the making of the movie itself (Roche, Meta 66). The opening scenes inform viewers that Rick Dalton did four seasons of the fictional Western TV series Bounty Law from 1959 to 1963, before starring in the equally fictional TV movie Tanner (1965), but his four-picture deal with Universal failed to make him a movie star, a disappointment epitomized by the rumor that he might have been in the running for the lead role in The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963). Tate and Polanski, whom Rick admiringly describes as “the hottest director in town right now, probably the world,” are the film's most visible embodiments of this moment; as friends of Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis), Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), and Jim Morrison and guests at the Playboy Mansion (a slight anachronism since the parties only started in the 1970s), the couple is thriving in Hollywood's network of confirmed or rising stars.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.5406/19346018.77.1.05

Año: 2025

Publicado en: Journal of film and video 77, 1 (2025), 47-60
ISSN: 0742-4671

Tipo y forma: Artículo (PostPrint)

Área (Departamento): Área Filología Inglesa (Dpto. Filolog.Inglesa y Alema.)