Quentin Tarantino’s brand new novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood contains an abundance of details not previously discussed in the film, adding major background for the characters. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Tarantino’s 9th film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt who previously participated in his movies Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds, respectively. The critical acclaim of the film was immense, garnering Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, with a win for Brad Pitt in Best Supporting Actor.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is another of Tarantino’s reimaginings of history, this time tackling the 1969 intersection of the infamous Manson murders on actress Sharon Tate and the end of Hollywood’s golden age. Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) is a Western character actor who is fading away after the end of his series Bounty Law, now hoping to find new roles with the support of his loyal stunt double and best friend Cliff Booth (Pitt). Right next door to Rick lives Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her husband, renowned director Roman Polanski, who Rick wishes he could get to know better to help his career. All the while, Rick and Cliff have several run-ins with members of the Manson family living on Spahn Ranch.
Tarantino announced shortly after the film’s premiere in 2019 that he would be writing a full novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, giving a deeper dive into the characters and story that serve as his own love letter to Hollywood. From stuntman Cliff’s mysterious background to Rick’s life after the murders, here’s a breakdown of the most significant new details in Tarantino’s novel.
Cliff Did Kill His Wife
Tarantino left Cliff’s actual backstory with his wife slightly vague in the movie version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In a flashback, Cliff is shown on a boat with his wife where she is seen yelling and nagging at him to his clear annoyance. Cliff has been holding a harpoon, which eventually goes off and is implied to have killed his wife. Most people who know Cliff in the movie think he killed his wife, but since he was never charged or convicted with her murder, can’t definitively declare it one way or another.
The new novel clears up this discrepancy with all the new details of Cliff’s backstory, revealing that Cliff did, in fact, kill his wife. Tarantino describes that Cliff murdering her was more of an in-the-moment instinct than an actual decision, but that Cliff obviously had a violent tendency. Considering Tarantino is notable for the gory violence of his movies, it’s surprising he didn’t include the actual murder and its aftermath in the film. In the novelization, Tarantino gruesomely describes Cliff murdering his wife with a spear gun as tearing her in half. Cliff instantly regrets killing her, then holds the two parts of her body together for seven hours until the Coast Guard arrives. Cliff and his wife recounted their entire relationship together during the time they waited, though she died once the Coast Guard tried to move her.
Rick Is Bipolar
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar-nominated performance as the aging actor Rick Dalton had him display intense mood swings and emotional highs and lows, which are now given more explanation by the novel. One scene in particular from the film displays his transitions of emotional polarity wherein Rick messes up a scene and yells at himself in his trailer. Rick goes from throwing objects and telling himself he’ll commit suicide, to calling himself an alcoholic before immediately drinking, crying, and calmly then aggressively telling himself to do better.
Tarantino reveals in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s novel that Rick actually has bipolar disorder, wherein he has unusual shifts of extremely depressive lows and manic highs. Tarantino's novel describes that since it takes place in the late 1960s, mental health awareness and diagnosing emotional polarities were both stigmatized and rarely achieved. As such, Rick’s involvement in the uncertainty of the entertainment business with undiagnosed bipolar disorder obviously contributed to his lack of emotional stability when losing out on Bounty Law and starting over. Had mental health services been more widely accessible and non-taboo at the time, Rick likely would have had more help adjusting to the unpredictability and stresses of acting.
The Manson Killings Make Rick Famous
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s film cuts after Rick and Cliff kill the Manson intruders and are either hauled off to the hospital or invited over to Sharon Tate’s home. The ending was ambiguous but hopeful in that Rick’s career may be salvaged with his newfound friendship with actress Sharon Tate and likely her big-time director husband Roman Polanski. The novel takes Rick’s aftermath a step further, discussing how the news of the Manson intrusion and his defensive murders made him even more famous.
After the killings, Rick became a regular guest on The Johnny Carson Show, a rite of passage for some of the most famous individuals in the entertainment business at the time. He explains to viewers that he hated hippies anyways, so becoming more famous by killing them was a plus. Rick then goes on to become a hero for Richard Nixon’s “silent majority,” leaving him as a political proponent in the early 1970s. Rick Dalton’s acting career only helped him ride the wave of the Manson murders, remembering every detail and knowing how to tell it with the right inflictions to entertain those at home.
Cliff Was A WWII Hero
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s movie explains that Cliff’s being a war hero helps him get jobs despite rumors of killing his wife, while the new novelization gives much more backstory on his war career. Cliff Booth apparently killed more Japanese soldiers in World War II than any other American soldier. Tarantino also explains that he won the Medal of Valor twice, giving him the title of a war hero back on the home front.
His valor in war may have made him a hero, but it also instilled a pattern of violent tendencies in Cliff that never really went away. After the war, Cliff brutally murdered his wife on the boat and gruesomely tells Rick that if he wants to know what it’s like to kill a man, he needs to grab a pig and slit its throat. Cliff explains that the number of Japanese soldiers he killed in war counterbalance the murder of his wife, so he can get away with what he wants. While Brad Pitt’s charm brings a certain level of likability to Cliff Booth, the revelations from the novel make him a much more unlikeable character.
How Cliff And Rick Became Friends
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood may be one of Tarantino’s best buddy-cop type films where an unlikely best friend duo fronts the plot thanks to the close friendship of Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth, amongst others on the stacked cast. When the film begins, Cliff is understood to be Rick’s best friend, stunt double, and paid driver. Rick even sticks up for Cliff to get hired as his stunt double even when directors don’t want to hire him for his colorful past. Tarantino’s new novel reveals that Rick and Cliff first became friends on set when Cliff saved him from a fire. While Rick was frantically worried about catching fire, Cliff told him, “Rick, you’re standing in a puddle. Just fall down.” From then on, the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood duo became buddies instead of just coworkers on Bounty Law.