Last night the 40th annual AFI Celebration held a special screening of “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” at the Chinese Theater with Quentin Tarantino in attendance. For the approximately 900 Tarantino fans who packed the house, watching the director’s 2019 crowd-pleaser on a giant Chinese screen followed by a lively Tarantino Q&A would have been enough – but then Quentin had a surprise for the audience.
At the end of a post-screening discussion with moderator Jacqueline Cooley, Cooley asked Tarantino about “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” the highly anticipated holiday release based on the life of “Once Upon a Time” stuntman Cliff (Brad Pitt) in 1970s Hollywood. Tarantino wrote the screenplay, but this time he is not directing, handing the script over to Pitt’s regular collaborator David Fincher. Tarantino gave an answer to Collie’s question about the new film that instantly sent Chinese audiences into a state of cinephile bliss.
“I can talk a little bit about ‘The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,'” Tarantino said. “Or…I can show you the first 17 minutes.” With that, the crowd went crazy, the lights went down, and AFI Fest attendees became the first audiences to see Tarantino and Fincher’s new masterpiece.
Based on the footage shown, “Cliff Booth” finds Tarantino returning to his roots; Like “True Romance,” “Reservoir Dogs,” and “Pulp Fiction,” it is a crime film heavily influenced by novelists like Elmore Leonard (whom Tarantino adapted for one of his best films, “Jackie Brown”) and Raymond Chandler. It presents an even darker Cliff Booth than what we saw in “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” who is closer to the more cold-blooded, almost sociopathic Booth introduced in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time” novel than the film’s affable (albeit wife-killing) partner.
When we left Cliff Booth at the end of “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood”, he was returning from a stay in Italy to visit his friend Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio); As the new film opens in June 1977, his primary connection to the film industry is a job as a projectionist at the New Beverly Cinema. (A funny joke that got a lot of laughs from the AFI Fest audience, most of whom were probably well aware that Tarantino now owns that theater.) Booth’s actual occupation appears to be a sort of shady bag man and fixer, though the 17 minutes we saw of Chinese weren’t enough to tell where the plot would go.
What it did give was Tarantino dialogue, notably in “Soul Brothers Die Hard,” a blaxploitation film-within-a-film starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (and possibly unrelated to the 1973 film “Brother on the Run,” which was released in some markets under the alternate title of “Soul Brothers Die Hard,” though with Tarantino you never know what kind of underground connection might exist. is). There’s also a promising relationship between a pawn shop owner Cliff and his father, played by Peter Weller, and enough period-accurate production design and pop culture references to assure audiences that “Cliff Booth” will be as rich with the nostalgic pleasures of the late 1970s as “Once Upon a Time” was for the late 1960s.
The Q&A with Tarantino that preceded the “Cliff Booth” footage didn’t contain much new information (especially for those who have read Jay Glenny’s coffee table book “The Making of ‘Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood'”) but was still fun, thanks to Tarantino’s characteristic eloquence and Cooley’s thoughtful question-and-answer style. Tarantino leads the way in a film packed with stellar performances. revealed the most personally meaningful part of the casting – including supporting roles by many of the actors (Austin Butler, Mickey Madison, Sidney Sweeney) who have made waves over the seven years.
Tarantino said, “The casting that was most meaningful to me was not in the movie,” recalling that Burt Reynolds was originally cast for the role of George Spahn. “He said yes, and we became friends, but he passed away before we made the movie. But we got a chance to rehearse with him and read the script with him, so that was actually the last time Burt Reynolds performed as George Spahn at the script reading.” (Bruce Dern would eventually play the role in the finished film.)
Tarantino also referenced some of the many Easter eggs in the film, such as the fact that the voice of the Pan Am flight attendant who waited on Rick Dalton’s return flight to Italy was Margot Robbie – a nod to her early work on the short-lived television series Pan Am. Tarantino also provided a detailed history of the “Canadian tuxedo” worn by Brad Pitt, often identified as an homage to Tom Laughlin in “Billy Jack”. However, according to Tarantino, the reference goes way Deeper.
“It doesn’t just look like Billy Jack’s costume; it’s Billy Jack’s costume,” Tarantino said, explaining that in the mythology he created for “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” Cliff was working as a double for actor Jeff Cooper in “Born Losers,” the first film in which Tom Laughlin appeared as Billy Jack. In Tarantino’s backstory, Laughlin’s stunt sprained his ankle, and Cliff took his place for the last week of shooting – and for his work, he was given the Billy Jack costume he wore in the film, plus 25 bucks.
It was clear from Tarantino’s deep dive into the thinking behind elements like this costume and set decorations in Cliff’s trailer (most of which, like many other items in the film, came from the director’s own personal collection), that behind every detail is a wealth of creation that never makes it to the screen.
“The thing is, I have nothing but investment in this mythology,” Tarantino said. “I invested in it before I did the movie, and I’ve invested in it for many years since I have done the film. The audience doesn’t need to know everything. but it’s good if I Know everything.”
afi fest Runs through Sunday night in Hollywood. “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” will debut theatrically on Netflix on November 25.