Andy Hageman
Jay Glennie’s new book, The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood gets my top recommendation. Glennie delivers a sustained account from many members of the cinema dream team that made the film. Of course, readers hear from Tarantino, DiCaprio, and Pitt–-all at the top of their performances. Yet, their voices are fully in conversation with insights and anecdotes from career-ascending actors like Margaret Qualley before The Substance, Mikey Madison before Anora, Austin Butler before Elvis and Dune Part II, and Margot Robbie before Barbie.
Add to the mix editor Fred Raskin, production designer Barbara Ling, set decorator Nancy Haigh, costume designer Arianne Phillips, among other all-star professionals and you get a comprehensive account of the labor and love that went into the film. Glennie’s writing on its own is exceptional. The images elevate the book still more as they are as creatively curated as they are gorgeous on the truly massive pages.
The longer version review that follows explores Glennie’s book from several angles to inform your decision to check out this new addition to the library of making-of cinema books. As a film professor and fan, I read a lot of making-of books to learn more about the people and processes behind significant films, from iconic Hollywood studio pictures to mid-budget indies. I hold in high esteem Max Evry’s A Masterpiece in Disarray on David Lynch’s Dune and Todd Melby’s A Lot Can Happen in the Middle of Nowhere on the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, and David M. Lubin’s Ready for My Closeup on Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard to name just a few. The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time is among, if not, the very best of these books.
One reason that the book pops is that Glennie clearly connected with interviewees and then synthesized his interview and research materials. Some making-of books present transcript excerpts. Others feel like mashups of disparate chapters without a book-level arc. Glennie crafts a narrative flow that uses interview excerpts naturally and powerfully.
Early in the book, we learn how Tarantino wrote the film over a relatively long span of time while working on other films. Later, the production designer and set decorator explain how they assembled period-appropriate and character-textured places, from home interiors that convince us the characters have full lives outside of the moments on screen to the streets of Los Angeles that needed to be turned back in time. There are alternative casting choices and screenplay choices that are truly exciting to consider, and Tarantino has an infectious openness about thinking through the multiple iterations of the film that might have been. After all, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is about forking paths and alternate outcomes.
Time with Tarantino
Film directors are often depicted, in cinema and nonfiction, on their sets, adjusting props, discussing lighting, talking with actors about motivations and marks for the next scene, and the like. What’s cool about this book is that it takes us into less familiar areas of Tarantino’s work to make a film.
Tarantino addressed the Hollywood City Council in person to bolster the chances of getting traffic closure accommodations to film in the city. The director’s enthusiasm for this film plus his love of Hollywood history persuaded the City Council to approve his request despite the disruptions it would create. Similarly, Tarantino charmed the management of Musso & Frank Grill, the homeowners of the location for the fictional Polanski and Dalton residences in the film, and let him make this film in practical rather than digital ways.
Commenting on these meetings, David Heyman told Glennie, “Look, Quentin is not a wilting flower. He is someone who is prepared to go in there and have the conversation. He doesn’t need the producer to have these conversations. He wanted to get the permission to film on Hollywood Boulevard himself, and he did.”
In addition to showing Tarantino aiding production meetings, Glennie affords a close look at Tarantino the writer.
It turns out conversations with Kurt Russell on the set of Death Proof sparked ideas about stunt professionals. A decision to write a separate book, The Films of Rick Dalton, proved to be a key step in developing the protagonist’s character. And when Tarantino found himself at a film festival event with Roman Polanski, he used the opportunity to learn daily life details of Sharon Tate.
Later in the film process, Tarantino was so happy with the Spahn Ranch set that he quickly penned more scenes to make use of the production professionals’ magic. Glennie goes into detail on all of these moments and many more as he thoroughly tracks the script’s developments from first sketches through the post production. To see these and other screenplay moments connect the dots with Tarantino’s growing reputation as a writer via his Cinema Speculation book and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood novelization.
At one point, Glennie quotes Tarantino saying, “You know, my goal is that everybody on my films has such a fucking great time that their next job sucks!” What’s impressive is that the myriad of cast and crew accounts allow readers to consider how this talk gets walked when it comes to the actual making of the film.
Cast Perspectives
Among the exclusive anecdotes that cast members shared with Glennie, Margot Robbie’s interactions with Sharon Tate’s sister, Debra, stand out. Robbie speaks in the book about the ethical questions and considerations she engaged regarding the film and how she thought of them as the work proceeded. She recounts forging a relationship with Debra that enabled her to ask questions about Sharon as a person so that she could honor and celebrate her on the big screen. There’s also a particularly fascinating exchange that involved Debra giving Robbie a personal item that belonged to Sharon Tate along with a moving reason for doing so.
Another cast element that Glennie documents is the complex set of moving pieces in casting the roles of Pussycat (aka Kitty Kat) and the other young women living on Spahn Ranch as the Manson family. This part of the story is rich with speculative versions of the film since there was a lot of fluctuation in who was selected and for which roles. Glennie prompts readers to re-imagine the film with multiple combinations of actors, plus, he includes the experiences and thought processes of the actors involved as they saw the opportunity to add even a smaller role in a Tarantino film to their résumés.
Obviously we are going to hear from Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. With both of these actors, they often frame their memories and reflections in conjunction with fellow cast and crew members. They both were blown away, for instance, by Julia Butters, who played the child actor, Trudi Fraser, who in turn played Mirabella Lancer in the Lancer tv series inside of the film. In addition to praising the youngest cast member, DiCaprio and Pitt also delight in the rare privileges of collaborating with Hollywood predecessors Burt Reynolds, Al Pacino, and Bruce Dern.
All of the actors interviewed exude positivity for a film that they believe will live on as a classic. They contribute smart and specific commentary on the performances that came together to create one of the last major films to hit big screens before the pandemic closed cinema doors and made cinephiles wonder if the cinema experience would be consigned to history.
Crew Creativities
Readers will likely appreciate how Glennie did not produce a Quentin Tarantino monologue. Instead, he recognizes the top tier crew that conjure the world of Hollywood and the characters that we see and hear on the big screen in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
The renowned costume designer, Arianne Phillips, is rightly featured for assembling what will live on as genuinely iconic outfits. Phillips describes auditioning for the position by hitting flea markets and making a mix-CD to present together in a box to Tarantino for him to see and feel her conceptual vision while listening to tracks that she paired with the clothing and accessories. Phillips also takes us into the fitting sessions with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio to witness what it was like to collaborate with them in choosing their looks to match and refine the characters who they were still feeling their ways into at that point of production.
There are revealing, and often funny, memories of Marty “The Cobra” Kitrosser, Tarantino’s script supervisor, intervening during shoots. We learn the origin of Kitrosser’s nickname and how his script supervision shaped pivotal moments when Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood might have taken different twists and turns.
With the award-winning set decorator, Nancy Haigh, Glennie takes care in unpacking a situation where she and Tarantino did not have a harmonious vibe on set. To Glennie’s credit, he doesn’t sweep this friction under the rug, and neither does he exploit it as a gossipy controversy. We learn about the nature of the disagreement and what factors likely contributed to it. Then the book moves on to laud Haigh’s work across subsequent chapters. Making a huge film is complicated work where not everything will go smoothly, and the dynamics between Haigh and Tarantino are told within that professional register. This section helps illustrate Glennie’s masterful approach to capturing experiences without bending them to fit another agenda.
Stunning Visuals
So far, this review has focused exclusively on Glennie’s writing. The reason behind that is that the book as a physical object is so beautiful that a person could mistake it as merely a glossy coffee table album. The writing alone makes this book a cinema masterclass worth adding to your library, and the images make it a visual treasure that will invite lots of return exploration. Do note: this book is unusually large; it’s less coffee table than research library table.
When it comes to the visuals, Glennie outlines the unique process that Tarantino employs with his set photographer, Andrew Cooper, when it comes to documenting the making of a film. From there, the book proceeds with a plethora of enthralling images. We see a mix of posed and candid shots of Tarantino interacting with cast and crew on set. Other pages feature deleted scene stills, alternative angles of scenes that did make the film, a sweet shot of Burt Reynolds as George Spahn, and a peek at documents like the cute note that Julia Butters wrote to Leonardo DiCaprio after the first table read.
As a way to wrap up this review, I found myself transported back into the characters and setting of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood so compellingly that I pulled up the film on my laptop and would pause my reading regularly to rewatch scenes with new appreciation.
Glennie has given us a powerful way to get more time with Sharon, Rick, Cliff, and all of the others in this creative rendering of a bygone Hollywood. If you loved the film, you will love this book. And even if you’re not especially smitten with the film, you’ll get a deeply detailed account of a contemporary dream team doing their part to create cinema art.
