An Analysis of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood

Abstract

This article analyses Quentin Tarantino’s 2021 written work Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as a novelization of the 2019 film Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, directed and also written by him. The main research questions driving this study inquire about whether the novel captures that late 1960s Hollywood zeitgeist in the same way or whether it ultimately has the same purpose as the film. This essay also examines if the novel tells the same story, or perhaps narrates more or fewer events, whether characters are constructed differently, or if the novel makes the same references to popular culture. Furthermore, this study also considers how aspects of the film’s narration (namely the use of a narrator) are verbally transposed to the novel. This paper offers a comparative analysis of the film and the novel in order to prove that Tarantino had different purposes for the film and for the novel as an answer to my research questions. On the one hand, the film focuses on three main characters (Rick, Cliff, and Sharon Tate) and a fourth character, the late 1960s Hollywood. But most notably, it is aimed at providing an alternative ending to Sharon Tate’s real tragic story. On the other hand, the novel puts the characters in the background and only uses them as a thread in a Hollywood retrospective, thus Hollywood becomes the main character. This conclusion is drawn from the differences between the film and the novel on the basis of plot and structure, characterization, intertextuality and narratological aspects.