Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Part 2

[Umbelina Baublitz]

Factand fiction have a complicated relationship in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Invented characters rub shoulders with people who really lived (and live). Non-existent movies and genuine (cheekily re-cast) TV shows co-exist. And on at least one occasion, real-life history swerves off into an entirely fantastical alternate universe. Here's Empire's guide through the highways and byways of Tarantino's freewheeling imagination.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood takes place in 1969 between February and August. In the real world, this is the period that marked the dark end of the swinging '60s, leading up to the nights on which the Tate-LaBianca murders were committed.

The Tate-Labianca murders took place across two terrible LA nights in 1969. Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger and Steven Parent were all brutally murdered in a home invasion by Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel at a house on Cielo Drive on 8 August. The killers were acting under the influence of self-styled counter-culture guru Charles Manson, leader of the so-called Manson Family. The following evening, six more Family members, this time actually accompanied by Manson himself, butchered Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary at their house on Waverly Drive.

Along with the infamous Altamont Free Festival the following December (a chaotic counter-cultural music event during which several deaths occurred), these events marked a sour endpoint to the swinging '60s, particularly since Manson and the Family seemed to be part inspired by lyrics from The Beatles' White Album (the Family were preparing for an apocalyptic scenario that Manson dubbed "Helter Skelter"). There's been a morbid fascination with Manson and his Family ever since.

The clue is in the "once upon a time" of the title. As well as tipping a stetson to Sergio Leone's equally mythic Once Upon a Time in The West and ...in America, Tarantino is presenting a version of Tate's tragic story with a fairytale happy ending. His fiction is a correction of the horrible reality: a fantasy in which Tate's murder is simultaneously avenged and averted. Tarantino's Manson family are stripped of any dark power they hold in the popular imagination, and reduced to gullible, pretentious fools who fail in their ghastly mission and are ridiculed while doing so. And very aggressively punished.

Cliff recognises Tex and asks to be reminded of his name. "I am the devil, and I come to do the devil's work," says Tex (Austin Butler): a famous line genuinely attributed to the killer. "No," says Cliff, "it was something dumber than that." That utterly unimpressed dismissal harks back to another Brad Pitt line in another serial killer film 22 years ago: "You're no messiah. You're a movie-of-the-week. You're a t-shirt at best." The message, not to put too fine a point on it, is "Fuck the Manson Family". The end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Tarantino putting reality to rights. This fiction, he's saying, is the true and correct version of events. If only.

Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate, the actress who lives next door to Rick Dalton. Tate was, in real life, a model and actress who appeared in shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and The Man From UNCLE, and in Roman Polanski's gothic horror spoof The Fearless Vampire Killers in 1967. Tate and Polanski married in 1968, the year she filmed the Dean Martin spy-comedy vehicle The Wrecking Crew. She was eight months pregnant when Manson's droogs murdered her on 8 August, 1969.

Like Sharon Tate and Bruce Lee, several other characters named in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are instantly recognisable as having been drawn from real life. Damian Lewis pops up as the iconic star Steve McQueen, for example, and we also meet Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) and, briefly, Charles Manson (Damon Herriman, who also plays Charlie in the second season of David Fincher's Netflix series Mindhunter).

Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch) was a Hollywood hairstylist, friend of Steve McQueen and former boyfriend of Sharon Tate. He was murdered at the same time as the actress, as were her friends Abigail Folger (Samantha Robinson) and Wojciech Frykowski (Costa Ronin). In the film, they all live.

Of the Mansonites, Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) is fictional, but "Tex" Watson (Austin Butler), Susan "Sexy Sadie" Atkins (Mikey Madison), Linda "Flower Child" Kasabien (Maya Hawke), Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel (Madisen Beaty) and tyre-slasher "Clem" Grogan (James Landry Hebert) were all real, as were a dozen a more of the others. And George Spahn (Bruce Dern) really was a blind ranch owner who rented his land to studios for Western locations. Manson and the Family really did live on Spahn's property for a time.

Wayne Maunder (Luke Perry) was the real-life star of the real-life Western TV show Lancer, to which Tarantino actually bought the rights. James Stacy (Timothy Olyphant) was also a real-life Lancer cast member. And Sam Wanamaker (Nicholas Hammond) really did direct Lancer. The actor-turned-director mostly worked in the UK having fled America during the McCarthy hearings, but he undertook the Lancer gig during one of his occasional forays back to the US. He also directed Maunder in Custer.

And Al Pacino plays Marvin Schwarz, Rick Dalton's agent. This is seemingly a fictional character, but there was a real Marvin Schwartz (with a t) who produced some films at around the time of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, including Burt Reynolds' 100 Rifles. Interestingly, Schwarz/Pacino is careful to spell his name out loud on screen, as if to make sure the difference is clear.

In the capital of Agrabah, Jasmine grows concerned for her father, the Sultan, after he gains a new adviser, Jafar, who is corrupt and delivers unnecessary harsh punishments to the common people. She gains the help of an infamous thief, Aladdin, to defeat Jafar by finding a weapon called the Diamond in the Rough at the Cave of Wonders. By this time, however, Jasmine already has suspicions that the weapon is actually Aladdin. On the journey to the cave, Jasmine chastises Aladdin for thinking about going on a treasure hunt in the cave, instead of being concerned about the kingdom's people. Aladdin points out that people have been suffering for a long time now, even before Jafar took over, and that she's only decided to get involved now after her family is affected. Despite their differences in opinions, Aladdin earns a smile from Jasmine by offering her an apple. After getting into the cave, they find the diamond on a sword, and to prevent a trap from triggering, Aladdin places a monkey ornament of equal weight on the sword before taking the diamond. The diamond unexpectedly crumbles into ash, just as a quake occurs, with debris falling around the pair. As Aladdin shields Jasmine from a collapsing pillar, he accidentally uses magic to pulverize it. Jasmine reveals she knew the Diamond in the Rough was actually him, and this proves he is a Savior and can defeat Jafar. Aladdin, overwhelmed by this, asks to be left alone, which Jasmine agrees to do, but not before giving him the royal scarab of Agrabah as proof of her belief in him. She then leaves to go home and take her father to a safer location, only to be intercepted by Jafar, who traps her in an hourglass as it fills up with sand. Aladdin, embracing his role as savior, uses magic to snap Jafar's staff in half, which also lifts Jafar's spell on the Sultan. Sometime after Jafar is gone, Jasmine provides a new lead on the sorcerer's whereabouts in the eastern provinces. Aladdin decides to go there and pursue Jafar, and he invites Jasmine to come with him, however, she resolves to put her duty first by staying in the capital and work on improving the kingdom. ("Street Rats")

As the capital is still under threat by Jafar despite the Sultan regaining power, Jasmine walks in on her father attempting to sway several princes with the Crown Jewel of Agrabah, a dowry gift he promises to whoever marries his daughter. When she bluntly declares that there will be no engagement, the Sultan sympathizes with her wish to marry for love, however, he tries to persuade her to do her duty because they need a prince with an army to protect their land from Jafar. Jasmine insists what they need is a hero such as Aladdin, to which Jafar strolls in, implying that Aladdin has already been broken from too many battles and no prince can ever match up to him. Jasmine and her father are shaken by Jafar's display of power when he morphs one of the princes into a staff, and are left with fewer choices after he demands Jasmine's hand in marriage by sundown or he'll destroy Agrabah forever. Later, at the local market, Jasmine sees a hooded thief whom she believes is Aladdin and follows along as "he" is pursued by a vendor for stealing. Instead, she discovers the thief is a woman, Ariel, whose true form reverts to that of a mermaid after the vendor takes the girl's necklace. Upset at hearing the man call the woman a monster, Jasmine flicks a coin at him to make up for the stolen item before coldly telling him to get out her sight. She learns Ariel is visiting Agrabah to look for the man she loves, Prince Eric, and decides to help her find him so she herself can possibly gain aid from Eric's army to defeat Jafar. As the women ride on the magic carpet in search of Eric, Ariel spots her prince's caravan flag through a spyglass. Ariel is worried Eric will reject her since they only met once at a ball, but Jasmine believes the connection she and Eric have is true love and tells her not to pass up on the opportunity or she may regret it. Despite Ariel's happy reunion with Eric, the man reveals himself to be Jafar in disguise and presses Jasmine again to accept his offer before sundown. As time runs out, Ariel shows Jasmine a powder she stole from Jafar, which is the same kind the sorcerer earlier to turn a prince into a staff, and encourages her to be brave and use it on Jafar. However, Jafar teleports Ariel back to the sea, leaving Jasmine to face him alone. Jasmine grudgingly agrees to marry him to save Agrabah and gives him the ring, but Jafar admits he never intended to marry her or destroy Agrabah and instead he wanted the ring to break the protection it holds over Agrabah. She watches, powerless, as Jafar takes Agrabah away, not knowing he has trapped it inside the ring. ("A Wondrous Place")

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