There's something mercenary, a bit unseemly, about many Oscar campaigns. Nobody should be slighted for campaigning too hard or for showing they want the award too much, of course -- that's not what we're saying (no Hathahating here). Still, studio's FYC ads tend to feel pushy, more interested in vacuous hyperbole than a genuine celebration of any film's particular merits.
All of that said, sometimes a campaign hits the nail right on the head, negotiating the needs of clever promotion and cinephile wonderment with utmost ease. Such is the case of Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood's latest ads. As the final Oscar voting starts, Sony has played its last card in the campaign game. It's a rather simple one, focused on special screenings and a bunch of traditional paper ads as well as some internet banners. Their genius lies in the simplicity of it all, avoiding incomprehensible lists of critics' prizes in favor of a simple powerful message...
Because you love movies."
There's certainly no other Best Picture contender so openly enamored with the art of making movies and the capital of the American film industry.
When the future of Hollywood feels so uncertain and the winds of change have turned into a hurricane that's impossible to ignore, a song of nostalgia for days gone by might be just what the Academy voters need. Tarantino's flick is both a bold rewriting of History as well as an elegy for the joys of the cinematic experience.
Upon seeing these ads I couldn't help remembering my favorite parts of the movie. They sparked like fireworks erupting in the night sky, painting the dark with blazing color.
As when, during the second act, the camera follows Sharon Tate during an afternoon errand, watching on as the starlet decides to see her latest picture on a whim. The Wrecking Crew is nothing to write home about, but this ode to the possibilities of moviegoing is a miraculous thing. Scored by the ever-rarer rattling of a projector, the scene's a collection of silent reaction shots as the movie's Sharon basks on the luminous magnetism of the real Tate. So often the power of Art is expressed with tears that it's refreshing to see it illustrated through the wide smiles of Margot Robbie.
And then there's the other stand-out moment I can't get out of my head since first watching Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. It happens as the sun sets on August 8th, 1969 and the city goes to sleep. Or maybe it wakes, every sign lighting up across the boulevards. Maybe it's all a dream, an oneiric reverie of alternative history where this famous night ended like many a fairy tale, the evil monsters slaughtered and the princess safe in her castle high on the hill. Either way, the montage is a delight, euphoric and sad in the same gesture, a happy song playing during a memorial.
Whether the characters know it or not, this Hollywood of '69 is dead already, lost to the past. More importantly, the tinseltown of big studios and star-making empires is a fetid corpse, killed by a new modernity way before we ever set eyes on Rick Dalton. It wasn't Charles Manson who did it, it was Time.
Perhaps the Hollywood of today is also seating into rigor mortis, the first signs of decay near. One day, we might see another wunderkind director look back at this 21st-century iteration with melancholy. I wonder what the song for that eulogy will be. For Tarantino, it was The Rolling Stones' "Out of Time", a perfect choice for one the year's singular instances of cinematic perfection.
Maybe some Oscar voters will follow these ads advice and choose Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood because they love movies. Would you?