Footnote on Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate and Margaret Qualley as Pussycat

in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

Quentin Tarantino's penchant for bare female feet in his films has been well-documented - one might think of Uma Thurman, as Mia Wallace, in Pulp Fiction (1994), or Bridget Fonda as Melanie in Jackie Brown (1997) - and for those who share this particular fetish Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) doesn't disappoint.    

There are multiple foot shots and both Margot Robbie, as Sharon Tate, and Margaret Qualley as Manson Family member Pussycat [1], have their shoes off for a considerable amount of screen time (1 min. 26 seconds and 1 minute respectively).

 

Tarantino has naturally been asked about this and, in recent a GQ interview, said:

 

"I don’t take it seriously. There’s a lot of feet in a lot of good directors' movies. [...] Like, before me, the person foot fetishism was defined by was Luis Buñuel [...] And Hitchcock was accused of it [...]” [2] 

 

It's interesting to discover that Tarantino doesn't take accusations of being a foot festishist seriously - which isn't quite the same as denying his podophilia. And he's right to point out that other directors have also been accused of the same thing.  

 

I think film critics who complain that Tarantino's shots of feet don't serve any narrative purpose, either don't know (or don't understand) the history of cinema and its inherenty kinky aesthetic (founded as it is upon exhibitionism and voyeurism, for example). 

 

Nor might they know that the real Sharon Tate loved going barefoot in public and when she went to restaurants where this might be a problem, she would put rubber bands around her ankles in order to create the illusion that she was wearing sandals.  

 

And so, to suggest that Tarantino just includes these shots for his own sexual pleasure is, therefore, ignorant and insulting to him as a director. 

 

In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, for example, the scenes in which Tate puts her bare feet up on the back of the seat in front of her at the cinema and Pussycat puts her bare feet up on the dashboard of the car being driven by Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), tell us something significant; namely, that whereas Tate has successfully stamped her mark on the silver screen, Pussycat and her fellow Manson Family members will merely leave a nasty stain on popular culture, like the mark left by a squashed bug on a windscreen.

 

As to why it is that the soles of Tate's feet are dirty, whilst the soles of Pussycat's feet are clean in comparison, well, I'm no Christian Metz, but perhaps Tarantino is suggesting that the former will have her sins forgiven and her feet washed clean by the tears of love and laughter she inspires in others [3], whereas Pussycat, who has deliberately chosen to take the path of evil and follows in the devil's footsteps, is deceptively clean and attractive on the outside, but corrupt of soul and filthy of mouth [4].     

Notes

[1] The character of Pussycat is a composite figure inspired by several of Manson's real followers, including Ruth Ann Moorehouse, whom Manson frequently sent into the city to entice men with money back to Spahn Ranch, and Kathryn ('Kitty Kat') Lutesinger. 

 

[2] See the interview with Tarantino by John Phipps in GQ magazine (3 Sept 2021): click here. 

[3] To watch the scene with Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate at the movie theatre in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), click here. 

 

[4] To watch the scene with Margaret Qualley as Pussycat hitching a ride from Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), click here. 

 

 

In Praise of the Bob

Louise Brooks with trademark shingle bob 
in The Canary Murder Case (1929)

As is evident throughout his work, D. H. Lawrence had a decided preference - I wouldn't quite say fetish - for long hair and beautiful women who liked to sit and brush their flowing locks in the sun: an action in which, according to Lawrence, we glimpse something divine; a manifestation of god, with the latter defined as a great creative urge towards being incarnate.   

Not surprisingly, therefore, Lawrence didn't approve of the fashion for bobbed hair. Not only were such cuts at odds with his sexual politics, but they presented him with theological problems too. Which is a shame, as the bob remains, in my eyes at least, one of the wonders of the modern world. Always contemporary and liberated-looking, the bob is sexy, stylish and subversive in its atheistic chic.    

Post-War, although still seen by many within the older generation as a sign of immorality and decadence rather than youthful independence, the bob became increasingly popular thanks to society beauties such as Lady Diana Cooper, trendsetters like the dancer Irene Castle, and, of course, movie stars, including Mary Thurman, Colleen Moore, and the iconic figure of Louise Brooks (everybody's favourite flapper).

By the mid-1920s, the bob in all its numerous versions, including my personal favourite, the so-called shingle bob - a cut that is tapered very short at the back thereby exposing the hairline at the neck, whilst the sides are formed into a single curl or point on each cheek - was the most sought after female style in the Western world (and beyond), as women everywhere signalled their modernity and rejection of traditional roles, norms and values.

As Coco Chanel once said: A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.   

 

Since then, the bob has passed in and out of fashion - but never out of style. In the mid-1960s, for example, Vidal Sassoon gave us his distinctive take on the cut. Whilst Uma Thurman's character, Mia Wallace, in Tarantino's 1994 cinematic masterpiece, Pulp Fiction, will forever be remembered for her ankle-cropped black slacks, crisp white shirt, and beautifully bobbed hair; she looks clean, she looks sharp, and she looks powerful.

In a word, she looks perfect ...         

How Winston Wolf Lost His Bite

Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf, courtesy of Miramax,

in a Saatchi and Saatchi ad for First Direct (2014)

There are many great performances and many unforgettable characters in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction: John Travolta as Vincent Vegas, Samuel L. Jackson as Jules, Uma Thurman as Mia ... Even Bruce Willis as Butch manages to stop smirking long enough to concentrate on his acting.

But for many fans of the film, it's Harvey Keitel as tuxedo-clad problem solver Winston Wolf who manages to steal the show. The Wolf is one of those rare characters who actually has character and is a man to whom self-respect and the respect of others clearly matters.

Unfortunately, twenty years on from the making of the movie, the same cannot be said of the now elderly actor happy to trade off past glory by prostituting Tarantino's Wolf character as part of a £40 million advertising campaign by Direct Line, one of the UK's  leading insurance companies, thereby causing no little distress amongst those of us who held him in high regard as an artist and loved his performance in the film.
        
I don't know why he did it. Presumably, not because he needed the money. Perhaps he simply thought it was a fun idea. But it's a shame. And whenever the ad comes on TV I find myself having to look away. I want to remember Winston Wolf in his prime - barking orders to gangsters and speeding off for breakfast in his silver Porsche accompanied by Monster Joe's daughter; I don't want to think of him as a silly old fool selling insurance to middle-class homeowners and guaranteeing them an instant replacement for their stolen goods.

Of course, Harvey Keitel is not the first Hollywood star to sell out and violate the memory of a beloved on-screen character and he won't be the last. But this doesn't make it any easier to accept.

One wonders what Quentin Tarantino thinks of it all ... Or am I simply being naive to ask this?