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

[The Narrator Returns]

His next film will be about the Manson murders and Sharon Tate in particular; Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence are in talks

[FrauBlucher]

Sounds like a sequel to Pulp Fiction.

[domino harvey]

Pulp Non-Fiction

[carmilla mircalla]

wow. I don't even anticipate what Tarantino's newest movies could be I just anticipate whatever the announcement could be. I wont waste any time by saying "he should have done this or a movie in this genre" but the man knows how to surprise people and the best thing is seeing his style applied to true crime.

[Werewolf by Night]

Really? A Tarantino movie about the Manson family seems like one of the least surprising things ever.

[mfunk9786]

Has met with Margot Robbie to play Sharon Tate

[knives]

Just as long as he doesn't ask Eli Roth to play Polanski.

[carmilla mircalla]

Just as long as he doesn't ask Eli Roth to play Polanski.

That would actually be perfect because Roth can't be any worse of an actor than Polanski was as the lead in The Tenant. He could just write it off as a meta-role.

[mfunk9786]

I’m confused by a good deal of the previous post

[domino harvey]

Pitt's gotta be Manson, right?

[carmilla mircalla]

Some places are saying he's actually being courted to play a detective

[mfunk9786]

Pitt's gotta be Manson, right?

Have a weird feeling that not only is DiCaprio going to be cast in this role, he’s going to win an Oscar for it, too

[domino harvey]

DiCaprio as Pitt as Manson would be Oscar-worthy

[FrauBlucher]

I can't wait to see what early 70s pop song he picks for the murders. Maybe "Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone.

[Roger Ryan]

This will actually be the first time a Tarantino film is set close to the era of the exploitation/grindhouse/martial arts films he slavishly pays homage to. Samuel L. Jackson's narration will finally feel "of the period" and the soundtrack selections might only be slightly anachronistic. I look forward to an elaborately-staged fight sequence between "Squeaky" Fromme and Leslie Van Houten, and Manson being ripped apart by dogs or something near the end.

[bearcuborg]

I can't say I'm excited to see something like this, considering the brutality of the crimes/being based on actual human beings. It feels wrong already... Still, I'm always hopeful that Tarantino and Richardson will make something equal to their work in the 90s.

I wonder how much of this project are ideas left over from what turned out to be Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.

[mfunk9786]

If there's any "true crime" that's already been commodified to the point of almost never having happened, it's this one. I'm sure that Tarantino will not be shy with this, but he's never had such a mean streak that this'll be some sort of unbearable glorification of Manson's actions the way it would be if, say, Harmony Korine (to name one morally ugly filmmaker who came to mind) were at the helm.

[colinr0380]

It's not too hard to imagine the Quentin Tarantino version of this. It'll be just like Snuff: 90 minutes of random scenes of people talking given problematic context by five minutes of senseless to the point of seeming to be tacked on carnage at the end!

But I'm sure that it will be a must watch, with only the best dialogue and carnage! There inevitably has to be a chase around the house at the end that will enable Tarantino to do his take on a horror film. And I agree with the above that being based on real events might somehow constrain the excesses a little, which could potentially be to Tarantino's benefit (after all this is one story that actually must end with a horrible massacre rather than it being manufactured for the purposes of closure).

If there's any "true crime" that's already been commodified to the point of almost never having happened, it's this one. I'm sure that Tarantino will not be shy with this, but he's never had such a mean streak that this'll be some sort of unbearable glorification of Manson's actions the way it would be if, say, Harmony Korine (to name one morally ugly filmmaker who came to mind) were at the helm.

We've also already had a kind of problematic 'grindhouse', underground take on this story by Jim van Bebber, whose whole transgressive career kind of built up to his 1997 film The Manson Family.

[domino harvey]

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

[colinr0380]

I've always presumed Jeremy Davies played some form of Manson in every film he appeared in. Even his role in Soderbergh's Solaris was disturbing and tic-heavy!

[warren oates]

One of the more interesting aspects of this narratively will be the way that Tarantino chooses to use the information that everyone in the audience already has about how the story will play out. He's shuffled up the structure of his narratives before to leverage dramatic irony in completely fictional worlds and he's totally veered into speculative fiction when not respecting the way history unfolded proved to be the most exhilarating choice of an ending for Inglorious Basterds. Somehow the grubbier smaller more personal and closer to home tragedy of the Manson murders feels like it'll almost demand more respect or more fidelity... But here's hoping he finds compelling ways to prove me wrong.

[domino harvey]

Variety sez Pitt is being courted to play Vincent Bugliosi, Robbie and Lawrence both vying for Tate

[mfunk9786]

I know that Lawrence is the bigger name (although it might be a coin toss now), but she looks so much less like Sharon Tate that I don't see how she's the choice there. Something tells me it's bad reporting and Lawrence is being considered for another role.

[Big Ben]

I'll dissent here and confess I just don't see how this will work for him unless he plays it straight or portrays the Manson family as beyond farcical. Having read the book Helter Skeltor (written by the man who prosecuted Manson) I just cannot fathom how Tarantino could make this work with his personal sensibilities. It was an absolutely disgusting crime instigated by an equally awful human being. A lot of people know surface details about Manson but a lot of people don't know about the pimping, the rape, the forcing women to carry to term. I just don't feel Manson's story is right for him. I will concede he made Inglorious Basterds "work" but I feel that that was bolstered by it's fictional scenario and it's knowledge of exactly what it was. But Manson? It just rubs me in all the wrong ways.

Am I overreacting?

[knives]

Personally I don't think he made IB work at all and carry some of the same reservations with this, but in the same breath I can see how he could make it work if he puts a ton of effort into the script.