What makes a great movie? This question seems to be so commonly known, yet so hard to pinpoint. A crowd of movie-goers exiting a theater is always ready to condemn a film as being a horrible waste of the ten dollars and two hours they just spent; however, this same crowd is also willing to acclaim their time in a dark, cold room full of strangers as an incredible journey, the likes of which they have never before conceived. But when asked for the specific reasons for their criticism, many draw a blank and offer crude cliches in an attempt to explain what they so loved or hated. Whether the key to making a good movie is writing great dialogue, camera work, an intricate plot, or simply keeping the eyes of the viewers “occupied”, few writers and directors throughout history, let alone in the modern era, have figured out how to consistently put masterpieces on the big screen. One of these few, who has now consistently crafted movie masterpieces for over twenty-five years, is none other than Quentin Tarantino. Whether you are a fan or not, you cannot deny his amazing ability to score the praise of critics and fans alike again and again, and his ability to stick to a general theme for over two decades while also exploring mountains of diversity has been matched by few. Starting out as a high school drop-out video store clerk with a simple idea for an Indie crime thriller, Tarantino was an immediate success (at least in his first stint in the public eye). His release of the film Reservoir Dogs in 1992 made people turn their heads, and, coupled with his Cannes Films Festival winner Pulp Fiction two years later, Tarantino had been solidified as one of the great modern directors. Characterized by whimsical and relatable dialogue, eccentric and loveable characters, out-of-order sequences, and, of course, over-the-top violence, “Tarantino” became a genre of film in itself, and the director would go on to explore topics ranging from crime-ridden 90’s Los Angeles to a frenzied Europe in the midst of the second World War.

This past summer, Quentin Tarantino came out with his ninth film, entitled Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. This newest edition to the director’s superb resume takes place in 1969 Los Angeles during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood cinema, and it follows the stories of fictional western television actor, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), and real-life actress, Sheron Tate (Margot Robbie). This story was the most meaningful to Tarantino out of all his films, as he grew up in Los Angeles during this era, making the film a nostalgic window into his past. With this said, one would expect Once to be one of the director’s most thoughtful and beautifully written stories yet. However, many did not see the film as all it had been cracked up to be, and instead saw Tarantino’s newest work as heavily overshadowed by his past accomplishments. Though it was received well by critics, many audience members had a couple of problems with the film. Number one, it was too long. The movie runs for two hours and forty-one minutes, which was simply too long to be invested in one story, some viewers felt. Number two, there is no distinct plot. Once tended to jump around from situation to situation, neither running as a sequence of events leading up to a climax nor focusing on the conflicts experienced by one main character, and many audience members did not buy into this. Despite what many viewers of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood may think, I assert that this film was nothing short of another Tarantino masterpiece.

To address the problem of the length and the lack of a typical plot, I believe that people’s disapproval is due to their finding these aspects “missing” (that is, a uniform flow of events that leads the story toward a climax and resolution in a timely manner). However, concerning these aspects of the film, I believe that viewers are not simply looking for something that isn’t there; I believe they are looking for something that shouldn’t be there. It was not simply a mistake that Tarantino crafted a roundabout plot that did not land on any specific character or scenario, nor was it a result of the director simply trying to include too many aspects, leading to an accidental lack of focus. I believe that Tarantino’s goal was not really to “tell a story”, per say. Rather, I believe his intention was to “give us a taste” of the golden age of Hollywood cinema, an era like none other that was on the verge of extreme change. How did Tarantino intend to do this? He simply “showed us around.” Throughout the course of the film, we see clips of old Western and detective television shows, meetings of actors and directors in old-fashioned trailers and cigar-smoke filled bars, hippies wandering the busy streets hitching for rides, and much, much more. When considering this new light of “getting a glimpse” of Hollywood, Tarantino certainly does a wonderful job. The audience is made to feel completely immursed in this world, and though we have never witnessed anything like this before, we are made to fully believe that this is what Hollywood in 1969 was. The beauty of this movie does not lie in a wonderful, crazy story that features scene after scene of chess match ending in a shootout or sequences of engrossing and hilariously dark dialogue that ends with one person outsmarting the others. This is what most Tarantino films are like, and this is why I think many viewers were disappointed with the director’s newest edition. Though we as an audience don’t get what we might have intended from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, we get something else that is truly fantastic and, in many ways, better than the typical brilliantly-crafted plot. We are allowed to see through a window into an entirely new yet old world, and this not only provides the audience with feelings of nostalgia and connectedness, but it evokes a pure feeling of captivation, and that, in the end, is what makes a great movie.