A Tale of Two Cities

"ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD is a return to classic form."

I wanted to believe it.

I arrived in good faith, even smuggled some cans of celebratory Cheers into the cinema, and as those micro-sports cars whizzed around the Hollywood Hills all seemed well. Bikini-hippie-babes roller-skate along streets dazzling with post-LSD charm, but what, apart from 1969 nostalgia is really happening? Forty minutes into the film Leo sits down next to a young girl actress on a Western film set. He's reading a paperback novel. "What's the story about?" the eight year-old asks the jaded actor. Sitting in the fifth row I'd been asking myself that very same question.

Where is the story?  What is this about?  Which character should I be rooting for, and more importantly why? 

This is pure indulgence my friends, and without much in the way of narrative pay-off Quentin’s epic wanders elegantly all over tinsel town with no real sense of direction. We have little choice but to follow this tale like a dirty old man stalking an exotic woman around a decadent beach-side town. While the characters we meet are entertaining, the backdrop amazing, and the dialog razor-sharp, are we over-dosing on this trip? Shot by shot a masterwork in cinematography, casting, set-design, yet requires editing to be true to film format. A filmmaker has many aims - to have the audience's mind make cuts as the film plays isn't one of them. The narrative leans on an old technique to be fair. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD's form takes the shape of the picaresque novel - a Spanish literary technique developed by Cervantes in 1554 – a roguish yet appealing hero (or heroes in this blockbuster’s case) of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. Events unfold without a necessary narrative consequence and one wonders if this would have been better formatted as a television series. We are eventually brought to the Manson punch-line without ever having ever gotten to know the real motivation behind the event in the first place. Is this intentional? Probably so. Is it wise? Perhaps not.   

JOKER on the other hand is layer upon layer of narrative clues. Gotham City is experiencing a garbage strike and the rats have turned super. How about that for a set-up? When the garbage workers go on strike a city is really on it's knees. How socially and politically unstable have we become when we can’t even figure out refuse disposal? Our city is the equivalent of the angry teenager who’d rather play Far Cry than take out the trash. 

Joker, dressed as a clown, working for a clown agency, is humiliated and beaten up by a bunch of teenage thugs while hawking for a discount store, his mother is dying, he discovers he’s adopted, his pharmaceutical drug supply is cut off and he's alienated from his pals at the clown agency. His descent is perfect in structure - a mentally sick man slowly growing more insane in a decaying city. His co-worker hands Joker a gun to protect himself, but while performing at a hospital children’s ward the gun slips out of his clown suit and he loses his job at the clown agency. Joker decides (or does he decide – is he the victim of consequence? Pay attention Quentin, pay close attention, buddy) to take out his anger through the language of the Chekhov's gun handed him by his co-worker. He executes a bunch of Wall Street thugs on the subway consequently spear-heading a social uprising. Layer upon layer of urban commentary oozes through this motion picture while setting the scene for the ultimate pay-off. It's a dark, smart, and sultry bitch of a movie.   

Not since Clockwork Orange has the anti-hero stood so tall. Phoenix knocks it out of Gotham City park with a physical performance incorporating dance, comedy, drama, pantomime, and horror. This, my friends, is a moral tale, a meditation on gun control, civic duty, the pharmaceutical industry, social welfare, moral corruption, family values. In short this film shows us how we got to where we are. Tarantino’s film does that too, but more beautifully and from a picturesque abstract distance rather than an immediate dark present. 

Watch both if you can.