Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is 'the closest to Pulp Fiction that I have done': Quentin Tarantino
For a film that hasn’t even begun production, Quentin Tarantino’s ninth full-length feature 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' has already amassed a lot of hype, and a lot of it is due to Tarantino himself!
Appearing at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday (April 23) night, the director likened his Charles Manson-inspired film as “the closest to Pulp Fiction that I have done.”
Pulp Fiction, of course, was Tarantino's magnum opus. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, the film is often regarded as a touchstone of post-modern cinema and carved a niche for Tarantino as an auteur filmmaker with a mastery of pastiche cinema.
Tarantino also said the film’s lead actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, make for “the most exciting star dynamic since Paul Newman and Robert Redford,” reports The Hollywood Reporter.
DiCaprio last worked with Tarantino on ‘Django Unchained’ in 2012, while Pitt last worked with the director back in 2009, on 'Inglourious Basterds,' but this is the first time they will be working together with Tarantino.
'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' is set in late 1960s Hollywood at the peak of the Charles Manson murders. DiCaprio will play the role of Rick Dalton, a former TV star, with Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) as his longtime stunt double. Dalton lives next door to Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) who was brutally murdered by Manson’s followers in 1969.
Leo, who appeared alongside Tarantino at the event, echoed the director’s sentiments. “It’s hard to speak about a film that we haven’t done yet, but I’m incredibly excited… to work with Brad Pitt, and I think [Tarantino’s] going to transport us."
"I’m a huge fan of 'Singin’ in the Rain' — movies about Hollywood. As an L.A. native, having read the script, it’s one of the most amazing screenplays he’s ever written, which is saying a lot, because he’s written some of the masterworks in cinema history. We are going to do our best job to make it fantastic,” DiCaprio added.
Despite these grand proclamations, Tarantino opted to keep the film’s plot close to the vest, saying only: “It’s very hush-hush and top secret. But I can tell you that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood takes place in 1969, at the height of the counterculture hippie revolution and the height of new Hollywood. Street by street, block by block, we’ll transform Los Angeles into the Hollywood of 1969.”
The film is set to be released on August 9, 2019 – the 50th anniversary of the LaBianca murders, and one day ahead of the 50th anniversary of Sharon Tate’s murder.
