The influences behind Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

2019

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Film by Quentin Tarantino

Contemporary Hollywood. United States. In English.

Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film follows a fading TV western star, Rick Dalton, and his stunt double, Cliff Booth, through Los Angeles in 1969, alongside their neighbour Sharon Tate, and ends by rewriting the Manson murders. It is built from the westerns, spy films and war films of the period it depicts, filtered through Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time' fable framing.

Where it came from

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1966

Django

Film by Sergio Corbucci

Spaghetti western. Italy. In Italian.

A gunman dragging a coffin through the mud enters a border town divided between a racist gang and Mexican revolutionaries. It is one of the most violent of the Italian westerns.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Direct source, well documented.

Pacino's agent Marvin Schwarz pitches Rick on going to Rome to work for Sergio Corbucci, director of Django. Rick's Italian films, such as Nebraska Jim, are imagined as Corbucci productions. Tarantino had already titled Django Unchained after Corbucci's film.

Where it came from

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari), film by Sergio Leone 1964

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1964

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari)

Film by Sergio Leone

Spaghetti western. Italy. In Italian.

A nameless stranger plays two rival families in a Mexican border town against each other. Its success launched the Italian western.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Leone developed in his Dollars films the style he brought to Once Upon a Time in the West. That style includes extreme close-ups alternating with vast wide shots, long silent standoffs and Morricone scores cut to the action.

To Django (1966)

Structural model, well documented.

Corbucci's film repeats Leone's premise of a lone gunman entering a town split between two factions and playing them off. It pushes Fistful's violence and mud-caked look further.

Where it came from

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1746

The Servant of Two Masters (Il servitore di due padroni)

Carlo Goldoni

Venetian Enlightenment. Republic of Venice. Written in Italian.

A comedy in which the servant Truffaldino secretly works for two employers at once and plays them off against each other.

What it handed down

To A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) (1964)

Disputed link, probable.

Leone claimed the story of a man serving two rival masters at once came from Goldoni's comedy, which he said underlay Kurosawa's film too. Many treat this as a defence during the Yojimbo lawsuit rather than a real source.

Where it came from

The line stops here: its roots lie in the largely unscripted commedia dell'arte stage tradition.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)

To Django (1966)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) (1964)

Where it came from

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