Alternate Universes
IF BRAD PITT DOESN’T break your heart in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film, nothing will. Pitt portrays Cliff Booth, the stunt double of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), the former star of the Western television series Bounty Law. Popular in the 1950s and early ’60s, Bounty Law was canceled because of Rick’s lack of any lasting allure. Now, nearly a decade later, it’s Cliff who holds together the chaotic pieces of Rick’s shattering persona, Cliff who “carries the load.” Rick’s driver’s license is suspended, so Cliff serves as his chauffeur—and his squire. But Rick isn’t much of a knight. Rather, he’s a crybaby wallowing in the tattered remains of his career. And Cliff is a complicated squire.
Unable to land a job—stunt coordinators don’t “dig the vibe he brings on the set”— Cliff is also rumored to have murdered his wife. Though never charged with that particular crime, he is still a pariah. “That’s the last cop’s jaw I ever broke,” he admits, remembering the two weeks he once spent on a chain gang. His violent streak often gets him into trouble, but his gallantry is of a kind seldom seen in Tarantino’s cartoonish male characters.
Cliff is the one legitimate hero in a landscape fraught with ambition, fakery, and horrendous evil. We’re in 1969, the year was filmed. In one spectacular shot, we see the clan members lined up like figures out of a lost Norman Rockwell painting, staring at Cliff with masked venom. Absent is that familiar Tarantino playfulness—we fear for Cliff’s life. He won’t leave the compound without first seeing George Spahn, the owner of the ranch, an old friend from the days of . In spite of the clan’s resistance, he does get to meet George (Bruce Dern), a blind man who loves to watch television, and like the squire that he is, Cliff has to battle his way out of the ranch.
