Quentin Tarantino Should Stick to Screenwriting
Spoilers ahead!
Quentin Tarantino’s novelization of Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood is very disappointing.. While the book retains a lot of the information given to us in the film, it adds unnecessary story beats and ideas that change the context of the story.
The story itself revolves around Los Angeles of the late 1960s, or rather Tarantino’s idealistic version of it. As the culture graduates from the Golden Age and into the American New Wave, we catch up with Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. An actor and his stunt double. Dalton’s reluctance to be ahead of the time is killing his career. The story focuses more on Dalton’s friendship with Cliff Booth, and his neighbor Sharon Tate.
The 400-page novel adds virtually nothing to the story we saw on screen. The film is a perfect slow burn. Everything leads to a climax brilliantly set up from the first few minutes. Everything has its place. But when Tarantino is giving us paragraph long descriptions of a woman pleasuring herself. It doesn’t matter if it’s in service of the character or plot, we didn’t pick up this book to read about that.
We didn’t come here to have Cliff Booth ruined either. In the book, it is made clear that Booth indeed killed his wife. There’s a chapter that details the incident, ruining the mystery. Tarantino doubles down on the Bruce Lee moment, saying that there was no way for him to win against Cliff Booth, and that Booth could have killed him because of his military background.
Tarantino’s voice is certainly present throughout the novel. His way of speaking and vernacular is present. He goes on tangents about Steve McQueen, Aldo Ray, and Akira Kurosawa many times. It’s almost as if he is letting his passion for film bleed all over the page. He writes these tangents through the POV’s of Booth and Dalton, and while it adds to the characters, it detracts from the main story.
Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood is a film that I hold in high regard, and the novel softens the impact that this film has. The film has a slow burn energy to it.” The three main characters — Rick Dalton, Cliff Booth, and Sharon Tate each have their own arc that culminates in a bloody climax at Cielo Drive. The climax was divisive among moviegoers, some seeing it as exploitative, others seeing it as “Tarantino being Tarantino.” However, the novel leaves the third act out altogether.
The novel ends in a much more subdued fashion compared to its counterpart. We can almost hear Miss Lily Langtry by Maurice Jarre playing in the final paragraphs of the book as you hear it in the final frames of the film. There’s something to be said for the aesthetic, and it transcends this story in both mediums. Unfortunately, Tarantino’s laidback style doesn’t work in long form, and the book ends rather anticlimactically because of it.
I’m a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work. I own his films, two of his screenplays, and the silhouettes of Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace doing the twist hang on my wall. Pulp Fiction was one of those movies I was forbidden to watch when I was younger, yet I couldn’t get enough of it. Tarantino is part of the language of filmmaking and he’s been a mainstay in the vocabulary of every film student in the past 30 years. He’s left a mark on our industry with his style, one that many have tried to replicate. Almost none have come close.
That’s where Tarantino’s strength is. In filmmaking, not authoring books. Especially ones that you already made as a film. Tarantino’s style as a filmmaker is unique. The way he frames his characters, and uses music to tell a story is purely his.
With the novel, you lose what makes Cliff Booth’s drive home so stylish. Two of the major elements being the soundtrack and the framing of LA in early 1969. While you can picture it, you can’t be immersed in it.
The film feels like the story he wanted to tell and the atmosphere he wanted to create. The film feels like a time machine to 1969 in every aspect. The soundtrack, art direction, cinematography and frankly some of the casting help this film stand on its own while still adding to Tarantino’s collection of characters and tropes.
Tarantino mentioned that he had written Once Upon a Time… as a novel to begin with, but it works much better as a film and doesn’t feel as self-indulgent. He has mentioned that there is one more film he wants to make before he calls it a day to write more books and plays. This is an extremely concerning statement he has made in the past, and the film industry as it stands today would be better served if he continued to give us more movies.
