Intervju / Intervi ew 34 | Holivud » Hollywood staying true to themselves. Among the interlocutors was one Quentin Tarantino, the director who followed up his latest very successful filmby writing a novel of the same name (published in Serbia by Laguna) and discussing it… Your new novel, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is based on your film of the same name. Did you start by writing the script for the film, or did the novel, which both echoes and vividly departs from the movie, come first? “I wrote an opening chapter for OnceUponaTime inHollywood called “The Man Who Would Be McQueen,” 14 years ago during my press tour in London for Death Proof. It was a history of RickDalton’s career. [Dalton, a fictional TVactor fromthe ‘60s, would eventually be played by Leonardo DiCaprio inTarantino’sfilm.]Thatwasmy favourite thing I’d ever written.Then I was like, Okay, who am I kidding? I’m going tomake this into amovie just so I can shoot the movies that Rick Dalton did! So I can shoot those clips and make those posters and do all those marquees. I then spent two years trying to figure out how to turn my little cinema book chapter into the movie.” You won a Golden Globe for the script, and the movie was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. What made you go back to the novel? “The script was the outline, but it was one of those things where I had a ton of material. I wanted to learn about the Hollywood of the ’60s. I just wrote, wrote, wrote. There was also the idea that the book is the bookandthemovie is themovie, and I want the book to work like a novel and do the things a novel can do.” You consistently play with reality. For instance, did Sharon Tate really snore? “I don’t know!Thatwas a character touch of my own—the idea that this sleepingbeautyhada snoringproblem. I thought that was a charming thing.” Was her dog really named Dr. Sapirstein after one of the devil worshippers in Rosemary’s Baby? “Yes, that was the name of the dog. That’s in her husband, Roman Polanski’s, autobiography. My greatest hope is actually that you cannot tell where the real stuff starts and the alternative history begins. That it’s all a jumble.” I’ve always felt that one of your talents was in naming things, like Bounty Law, Rick Dalton’s TV show in the novel and the film. “It’s a very dark show, darker than they probably would have allowed in 1959, when it supposedly aired. I think I specialise in coming up with names. My reason to write is almost to name towns, bars, restaurantsandthemovies my characters arewatching.Whenyou see movies about Hollywood, the fake titlesoftensoundfraudulent.ThePickle That Ate Pittsburgh or something like that. Even when my titles are strange, like The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey, that does sound like a World War II bunch of guys on a mission movie, circa 1966. When my friend read the script, he said, “This is pretty good, but what Iwant to see isTheFourteenFists of McCluskey!” Unlike the film, the novel has sex scenes. Were they fun to write? “Yes. I’mnot interested inshooting naked people in a movie. I don’t want to have to convince actors to do things they might be uncomfortable with. I mean, look, if it were 1971, I’d probably feel differently about it. But ever since I’vebeenmakingmovies, it’sbeen an uptight issue. But with a book, I’m not degrading anyone; they’re just figments of my imagination.” What are your favourite films of the late ‘60s, when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is set? “Head, starring theMonkees—the script is cowritten by Jack Nicholson! And Yellow Submarine. I’m not a big Beatles fan; you’re either an Elvisman or aBeatlesman, and I’manElvisman. But sometime in 1999, my then girlfriend and I watched Yellow Submarine, and we loved it. After seeing Yellow Submarine, there finally was one thing about the Beatles that I had tremendous affection for.” The story of Rick, Cliff, Sharon and Charles The novel brings the story of Rick Dalton, who once had his own TV series, but is now a washed-up villain who drowns his sorrows in whiskey sours. Cliff Booth, Rick’s stunt double and the most infamous man on every movie set. Sharon Tate, who left Texas to chase a dream of becoming a movie star and succeeded. And Charles Manson, an ex-con who convinced a bunch of hippies that he was their spiritual leader, but who would have gladly traded it all in to be a rock ‘n’ roll star Klasični Tarantino kod koga sve pršti od eksplozivnih dijaloga ispunjenih mešavinom uličnih i književnih kadenci. Čita se kao da slušate nečiju dobru priču, piše Vašington post Classic Tarantino, in which everything bursts with explosive dialogue, with its blend of streetwise and formal cadences. It reads like listening to someone’s good story, writes the Washington Post
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