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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1968

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

Film by Sergio Leone

Spaghetti western. Italy. In English.

Leone's slow, operatic western about a widow, a harmonica-playing avenger and a railroad baron's hired killer. It was written as a mosaic of quotations from American westerns.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Direct source, well documented.

Tarantino took his title and its fairy-tale framing from Leone, signalling a fable rather than a history. Rick Dalton's career runs through the Italian western Leone defined, and Tarantino has named Leone's film among his favourites.

To Inglourious Basterds

Structural model, well documented.

Basterds opens with the title card 'Once upon a time... in Nazi-occupied France'. Its first chapter, a long, tense visit to an isolated farmhouse, is built like Leone's slow-burning set pieces. Tarantino also borrowed Ennio Morricone music for the film.

Where it came from

Find “Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)” on Amazon

1953

Shane

Film by George Stevens

Classical Hollywood. United States. In English.

A mysterious gunfighter defends a homesteading family against cattlemen and is watched throughout by the family's young son.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West) (1968)

Direct source, probable.

The McBain homestead and the young boy who witnesses the violence recall Shane's farm family. Commentators on Leone's film, notably Christopher Frayling, list Shane among the westerns deliberately quoted.

Where it came from

Shane, Jack Schaefer 1949

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1949

Shane

Jack Schaefer

Postwar American western. United States. Written in English.

A boy narrates the arrival of a stranger who helps his family stand against a cattle baron.

What it handed down

To Shane (1953)

Direct source, well documented.

Stevens's film adapts Schaefer's novel closely. It keeps the stranger who helps the Starrett family and the son Joey through whose eyes he is seen.

Where it came from

The Virginian, Owen Wister 1902

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1902

The Virginian

Owen Wister

Progressive Era. United States. Written in English.

A novel about a laconic Wyoming cowboy, his courtship of a schoolteacher and his showdown with the villain Trampas. It fixed many conventions of the western.

What it handed down

To Shane (1949)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Schaefer's quiet stranger with a code, who intervenes in a range conflict and ends in a showdown, belongs to the line of western hero Wister fixed in The Virginian.

Where it came from

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1485

Le Morte d'Arthur

Thomas Malory

Late medieval England. England. Written in Middle English.

Malory's English prose compilation of the Arthurian legend, from Arthur's birth to the fall of the Round Table.

What it handed down

To The Virginian (1902)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

In his essay 'The Evolution of the Cow-Puncher' (1895), Wister presented the cowboy as heir to the medieval knight. The Virginian's code of honour and single combat draw on that Arthurian image of chivalry.

Where it came from

Lancelot-Grail Cycle (Vulgate Cycle), Anonymous c. 1215-1235

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c. 1215-1235

Lancelot-Grail Cycle (Vulgate Cycle)

Anonymous

High Middle Ages. France. Written in Old French.

A vast cycle of French prose romances covering Lancelot, the Grail quest and the death of Arthur.

What it handed down

To Amadis of Gaul (Amadís de Gaula)

Structural model, probable.

Montalvo's Amadis takes its knight devoted to a lady, its quests and its enchanters from the French prose Arthurian romances. Amadis and Oriana are modelled on Lancelot and Guinevere.

To Le Morte d'Arthur (1485)

Direct source, well documented.

Malory's chief sources were the French prose romances of the Vulgate Cycle. He condensed them into English for the Lancelot, Grail and Death of Arthur sections.

Where it came from

Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, Chrétien de Troyes c. 1177-1181

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c. 1177-1181

Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart

Chrétien de Troyes

High Middle Ages. France. Written in Old French.

A verse romance in which Lancelot humiliates himself and risks everything to rescue Queen Guinevere.

What it handed down

To Lancelot-Grail Cycle (Vulgate Cycle) (c. 1215-1235)

Direct source, well documented.

The Vulgate prose Lancelot expands Chrétien's story of Lancelot's love for Guinevere and his rescue of her from Meleagant. It reworks the cart episode directly.

Where it came from

Roman de Brut, Wace 1155

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Roman de BrutWace

1155

Roman de Brut

Wace

High Middle Ages. Anglo-Norman England. Written in Anglo-Norman French.

A verse adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's history. It first mentions Arthur's Round Table.

What it handed down

To Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (c. 1177-1181)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Wace's French Brut gave courtly audiences Arthur's court and the Round Table. Chrétien sets his romances in that court and names the Round Table knights.

Where it came from

The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae), Geoffrey of Monmouth c. 1136

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c. 1136

The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)

Geoffrey of Monmouth

High Middle Ages. Anglo-Norman England. Written in Latin.

A legendary history of Britain from the Trojan Brutus to Arthur. It made Arthur a European figure.

What it handed down

To Roman de Brut (1155)

Direct source, well documented.

Wace's poem is a free verse translation of Geoffrey's history into French. It adds details such as the Round Table.

Where it came from

Find “The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)” on Amazon

19 BCE

Aeneid

Virgil

Augustan. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

An epic of the Trojan Aeneas's wanderings and his war to found the Roman people in Italy.

What it handed down

To The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) (c. 1136)

Structural model, probable.

Geoffrey's Britain begins with Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas, whose exile, prophetic dream and sea voyage to a promised land are patterned on Virgil's epic.

To On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Gildas quotes and echoes Virgil in his Latin. This shows the Aeneid's place in the schooling that carried classical narrative into the earliest British history.

Where it came from

Argonautica, Apollonius of Rhodes c. 250 BCE
Odyssey, Homer c. 700 BCE

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c. 250 BCE

Argonautica

Apollonius of Rhodes

Hellenistic. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Written in Ancient Greek.

A Hellenistic epic of Jason's voyage for the Golden Fleece and Medea's love for him.

What it handed down

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

Virgil modelled Dido's passion for Aeneas in Book 4 on Medea's love for Jason in Apollonius's Book 3. Ancient commentators such as Servius already noted the debt.

Where it came from

Odyssey, Homer c. 700 BCE

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c. 700 BCE

Odyssey

Homer

Archaic Greece. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

The epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy and his revenge on the suitors.

What it handed down

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The first six books of the Aeneid are Virgil's Odyssey: a hero's wanderings by sea, a tale told at a foreign court and a descent to the underworld. All of these are modelled on Homer.

To Argonautica (c. 250 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

Apollonius built his voyage epic in Homeric hexameters and diction. He reworked Odyssean episodes such as the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Phaeacians.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

To Inglourious Basterds

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West) (1968)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Shane (1953)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Shane (1949)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Virginian (1902)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Amadis of Gaul (Amadís de Gaula)

To Le Morte d'Arthur (1485)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Lancelot-Grail Cycle (Vulgate Cycle) (c. 1215-1235)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (c. 1177-1181)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Roman de Brut (1155)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) (c. 1136)

To On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

To Argonautica (c. 250 BCE)

Where it came from

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