Quentin Tarantino, the masterful director known for Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds and Kill Bill Vol I & II just put out the trailer to his ninth movie called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino,and Damian Lewis. It is a star-studded affair and the trailer looks incredible.
But you might be surprised to learn that the trailer makes it seem like Tarantino is ripping Hollywood apart.
Quentin Tarantino is one of those unapologetic filmmakers who will go anywhere and do anything with his works. It’s his baby and people will pay him big money to make a project.
They didn’t just salivate over it, it wasn’t just highly coveted; people were blown away by it.
Studio executives from Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and other midland production companies gathered in his agent’s office to read his script. Considering what happened with The Hateful Eight – that script was leaked online without his knowledge – Tarantino is very secretive about his work.
A bidding war went down and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sold for a crazy $100 million to Sony (Columbia) Pictures. That’s when they snagged Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt for the starring roles.
Over a year went by and then we finally got the trailer. And what you would think was just another run of the mill celebratory evocation of Hollywood, turns out to be making fun of the industry.
You can watch this glorious trailer here and then you’ll understand why it satirizes the industry.
This project takes place in the summer of 1969 when Hollywood changed in a lot of ways. The first thing is that this was at a time when the Charlie Manson murders went down and actress Sharon Tate was murdered and the other thing is it was the end of an era. It was the end of the Western movie and the so-called “hippie” era.
In this trailer, though you get the likes of Bruce Lee, a formerly famous western star (DiCaprio) and his stunt double badass (Brad Pitt).
The opening of the trailer perpetuates the idolization of DiCaprio’s character and how his “stunt double” is just a small part of his greatness. DiCaprio’s character even claims that actors have to do a lot of dangerous things and Pitt is there to “pick up the load.”
But the tone of Tarantino’s scene suggests; who’s really the sidekick here?
It happens again shortly after when the Bruce Lee character in the film suggests that his fists are so dangerous that if he “accidentally” killed someone then he would go to jail.
That’s when Pitt’s character stops him in his bloviating track with “Anybody accidentally kills anybody in a fight, they go to jail. It’s called manslaughter.”
Cut to: Pitt’s character – pretty much – whooping Bruce Lee’s ass and what does not seem like a rehearsal, although clearly happening on a movie set. This suggests that Pitt’s character sees right through the garbage idea of celebrity and can hold his own against someone who is considered to be the greatest martial artist of all time.
Lastly, the trailer ends with an approximately-aged 10-year-old girl whispering in DiCaprio’s ear that “that was the best acting I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”
An emotional DiCaprio says “thank you,” and then suddenly, crying, cocks his PROP GUN like he’s Tony Montana in Scarface with “Great F—king note.”
That’s the whole point, something DiCaprio plays really well in it, that he’s on the joke that it’s making fun of the idea of actor “changing the world.”
It’s going to be great though.
