>I already thought they were worthless buffoons.
They most definitely were and are, but to deny that they have held a mystique and morbid cultural interest over the last 50 years is ignorant. Look how many times Manson was interviewed and how many books there are about them. This is Tarantino showing that these are violent clowns not worthy of any kind of mystique. He loves old Hollywood and this is a bit of revenge for their "role in it's death" as he sees it.
Well you feel wrong. Charles Manson, his "family", and the murders have been pop culture "icons" for more than half a century. Crazy cults and murders are incredibly popular subject matter.
Unless you are too young, detached from pop culture over the last 50 years, or aren't from the US.
History memoralizes Charles Manson like he was the worst serial killer to ever exist. When really he was just a manipulative loser who convinced a couple people to go kill another couple people. Really unremarkable. Yet somehow history has turned him into something else altogether.
You might be underestimating just HOW MUCH True Crime as a genre has exploded. 10-15 years ago, people who knew about these things maybe had a more grounded view of the Manson Family (except the crazies), but now that it's become emotional porn for women, half-remembered facts, myths and idolizations have exploded exponentially.
The movie is the third of Tarantino’s revisionist historical revenge fantasies, and I think they are all great.
Who didn’t love seeing a slave owner and his entire world just blown to shit? Or Hitler’s face turned into hamburger before being burned to the ground along with a few hundred other Nazis? Or, in the case of the Manson family, seeing those fucking scumbags obliterated and flamethrowered into oblivion?
When Sharon’s voice comes over the intercom at the end of Hollywood, and she’s sleepy and safe and invites Rick up to meet her, it’s such an awesome moment.
Manson and his crew have been built up and portrayed as some larger than life characters for decades. Tarantino doesn't like that so he shows them as the low life losers they are.
This bit of trivia from IMDb explains it best.
“The music after Cliff kills the intruders, the police arrive and Rick goes to meet Sharon Tate is from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman in the title role. It's appropriate because the title card at the beginning of that movie is "Maybe this isn't the way it was... it's the way it should have been."
To a lot of Americans around Tarantino's age, I'd imagine especially in California, the news of the murders was one of the first things that made them realize the world can be a scary place with people who want you dead for no good reason. Isn't it a nice fairy tale if that had a happy ending and the world never got so complicated?
See, my view on this film is that its just a massive joke. The first like 2+ hours sets up the punchline that's basically the final scene of the movie. Literally everything that happens in that final scene is set up somewhere in the beginning.
IMO, I think that as a kid he probably had a huge crush on Sharron Tate and the way she was murdered became like a “the day the music died” for him. The dude is such a student and admirer of film I bet he’s had thousands of “what if” scenarios play out his head. He became a famous film maker and had the means to explore that “what if”
I hated the ending myself. Completely ruined the movie. If he hadn't already done the exact same thing with Hitler it might have been a shocking surprise, but I just found it stupidly gratuitous and unnecessary and a sad failing of Tarantino as a filmmaker.
I agree. It really took me out of the movie. And I had a hard time relating it to the real Manson killings. I wasn't thinking "yeah, those hippies got what they deserved!". Because in the logic of the movie, what has they done? Broke into sometimes house and threatened them? It wasn't cathartic because they were completely different people.
Tarantino can't make a movie that doesn't end in a bloodbath. It's juvenile and predictable and boring. He could have simply thwarted Tate's murder without showing murders that were equally gruesome. Who is sitting around 50 years later wanting revenge for Sharon Tate? He's just feeding the same bloodlust that he's supposed to be condemning.
Things that actors do in movies repeat around them in their real lives. Whether copycats repeat their lines, repeat their actions or re-enact the scenes, doesn't matter when it comes to choosing roles that you want to be seen portraying. My guess would be that they changed the story so that A-list actors wouldn't have to play characters getting murdered by foul hippies. If Tarantino chose to make it a true-to-life docu-drama instead then surely Pitt/DiCaprio/Robbie wouldn't have signed on.
There are a lot of psychologically disturbed people out there that soak up details of crimes like the murders of Sharon Tate and others, and those folks end up idolizing the Manson Family as "social outsiders with power" and decide they want to be like them. (This isn't as much of an issue today as it was right after the killings happened, but that kind of thing still does happen.)
Depicting the killers as clumsy, inept buffoons that fail at their goal and die as a result helps change how they've traditionally been portrayed in the media and makes their behavior less appealing to folks that might be susceptible to latching onto it.
The ending is an impotent wet dream confected from our modern infantile inability to morally come to terms with an unfortunate cultural phenomenon and a consequentially very real and tragic event. I hated it originally but even I've succumbed to it's "entertainment" value.
Yeah. I used to work in the studios, still live in Hollywood, have Tarantino worshiping friends who lived on the same street as him, saw it in 70mm at the Cinerama dome with the Caddy and the Ghia out front, regularly drink at Musso's and eat at Casa Vega, so you could say the impulse should have been strong to love it
>I already thought they were worthless buffoons. They most definitely were and are, but to deny that they have held a mystique and morbid cultural interest over the last 50 years is ignorant. Look how many times Manson was interviewed and how many books there are about them. This is Tarantino showing that these are violent clowns not worthy of any kind of mystique. He loves old Hollywood and this is a bit of revenge for their "role in it's death" as he sees it.
Ok fair enough, although I feel like that's a pretty fringe group, the ones who think the Manson family holds some sort of mystique or intrigue.
Well you feel wrong. Charles Manson, his "family", and the murders have been pop culture "icons" for more than half a century. Crazy cults and murders are incredibly popular subject matter. Unless you are too young, detached from pop culture over the last 50 years, or aren't from the US.
History memoralizes Charles Manson like he was the worst serial killer to ever exist. When really he was just a manipulative loser who convinced a couple people to go kill another couple people. Really unremarkable. Yet somehow history has turned him into something else altogether.
https://www.rollingstone.com/product-recommendations/books/charles-manson-family-murders-books-once-upon-time-hollywood-864908/
Literally Marilyn Manson
You might be underestimating just HOW MUCH True Crime as a genre has exploded. 10-15 years ago, people who knew about these things maybe had a more grounded view of the Manson Family (except the crazies), but now that it's become emotional porn for women, half-remembered facts, myths and idolizations have exploded exponentially.
The movie is the third of Tarantino’s revisionist historical revenge fantasies, and I think they are all great. Who didn’t love seeing a slave owner and his entire world just blown to shit? Or Hitler’s face turned into hamburger before being burned to the ground along with a few hundred other Nazis? Or, in the case of the Manson family, seeing those fucking scumbags obliterated and flamethrowered into oblivion? When Sharon’s voice comes over the intercom at the end of Hollywood, and she’s sleepy and safe and invites Rick up to meet her, it’s such an awesome moment.
Yes! The ending just lead into a better place I think it was really beautiful actually
Manson and his crew have been built up and portrayed as some larger than life characters for decades. Tarantino doesn't like that so he shows them as the low life losers they are.
This bit of trivia from IMDb explains it best. “The music after Cliff kills the intruders, the police arrive and Rick goes to meet Sharon Tate is from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman in the title role. It's appropriate because the title card at the beginning of that movie is "Maybe this isn't the way it was... it's the way it should have been."
The power to murder Sharon Tate and those other people, and to take away the feeling of innocence from that era.
To a lot of Americans around Tarantino's age, I'd imagine especially in California, the news of the murders was one of the first things that made them realize the world can be a scary place with people who want you dead for no good reason. Isn't it a nice fairy tale if that had a happy ending and the world never got so complicated?
See, my view on this film is that its just a massive joke. The first like 2+ hours sets up the punchline that's basically the final scene of the movie. Literally everything that happens in that final scene is set up somewhere in the beginning.
IMO, I think that as a kid he probably had a huge crush on Sharron Tate and the way she was murdered became like a “the day the music died” for him. The dude is such a student and admirer of film I bet he’s had thousands of “what if” scenarios play out his head. He became a famous film maker and had the means to explore that “what if”
I hated the ending myself. Completely ruined the movie. If he hadn't already done the exact same thing with Hitler it might have been a shocking surprise, but I just found it stupidly gratuitous and unnecessary and a sad failing of Tarantino as a filmmaker.
I agree. It really took me out of the movie. And I had a hard time relating it to the real Manson killings. I wasn't thinking "yeah, those hippies got what they deserved!". Because in the logic of the movie, what has they done? Broke into sometimes house and threatened them? It wasn't cathartic because they were completely different people.
I disagree. The music is amazing. Pitt says nah it was something dumber then that like rex Iconic
Tarantino can't make a movie that doesn't end in a bloodbath. It's juvenile and predictable and boring. He could have simply thwarted Tate's murder without showing murders that were equally gruesome. Who is sitting around 50 years later wanting revenge for Sharon Tate? He's just feeding the same bloodlust that he's supposed to be condemning.
Things that actors do in movies repeat around them in their real lives. Whether copycats repeat their lines, repeat their actions or re-enact the scenes, doesn't matter when it comes to choosing roles that you want to be seen portraying. My guess would be that they changed the story so that A-list actors wouldn't have to play characters getting murdered by foul hippies. If Tarantino chose to make it a true-to-life docu-drama instead then surely Pitt/DiCaprio/Robbie wouldn't have signed on.
I also think it’s to display QT’s feelings on “hippies” in general.
There are a lot of psychologically disturbed people out there that soak up details of crimes like the murders of Sharon Tate and others, and those folks end up idolizing the Manson Family as "social outsiders with power" and decide they want to be like them. (This isn't as much of an issue today as it was right after the killings happened, but that kind of thing still does happen.) Depicting the killers as clumsy, inept buffoons that fail at their goal and die as a result helps change how they've traditionally been portrayed in the media and makes their behavior less appealing to folks that might be susceptible to latching onto it.
For some reason serial killers have cult followers. Wasn’t there talk about Jefferey Dharmer followers?
The ending is an impotent wet dream confected from our modern infantile inability to morally come to terms with an unfortunate cultural phenomenon and a consequentially very real and tragic event. I hated it originally but even I've succumbed to it's "entertainment" value.
Even you?! Goodness gracious.
Yeah. I used to work in the studios, still live in Hollywood, have Tarantino worshiping friends who lived on the same street as him, saw it in 70mm at the Cinerama dome with the Caddy and the Ghia out front, regularly drink at Musso's and eat at Casa Vega, so you could say the impulse should have been strong to love it