Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I saw the film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood before reading the book. And I loved the film, one of Tarantino’s best, where – as in Inglourious Basterds – he uses fictional characters to create a world in which factual characters might exist, to the extent that the reality of the script and the reality of real life become inevitably intertwined, in ways in which reality can be distorted to a better end. This playing of fantasy and reality and the myths (the Once Upon A Time…) that storytelling can distort, is ably rendered by this book which I… show more.

I was obsessed with the 2019 movie, and now even more so with the book. Sure, it helps that my other obsession is late-1960s Hollywood, but Tarantino just colors the world so beautifully with his own inventions like Rick Dalton and his TV show Bounty Law and blends them seamlessly with Hollywood staples like Roman Polanski and Steve McQueen. Harkening back to the days of paperback novelized versions of popular films, Tarantino captures his own movie but adds extra scenes, more conversation between real yet obscure Hollywood movers and shakers, and evidently has a blast while doing it. His glee… show more.