The Adventures of Cliff Booth

 

Who is (was) Cliff Booth? And why does it matter?

Quentin Tarantino. You love him or you hate him. Whichever side of that divide one finds themselves on, a consensus is easily formed to say that the man and his work are controversial. It would also be fair to say that much of this controversy stems from the Tarantino hallmark of gratuitous violence. Only those who are uninitiated to the Tarantino film have any right to be outraged at the content. If you have already seen a Tarantino film, then there should be the expectation of over-the-top gore and brutality. Tarantino's career has elevated this type of film to create a genre, bearing the name of one of his most famous films, Pulp Fiction. The thing describes itself.

Now... apologies for the lengthy preamble. It needed to be said before I might continue. Speaking for myself, I am not a fan of most Tarantino films. Just not a fan of the genre, generally speaking. There is one notable exception: 2019's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. No matter what else is ever said about this film, we can take comfort in the fact that we'll always have the flamethrower.

I went to see the film at the theatre. I had never gone to see any Tarantino film at the theatre in my life. I went expecting that it would be filled to the brim with blood and guts, yet I went, nonetheless. The reason for this is uncomfortable, yet undeniable. Like every other American alive at the time of the Manson Family murders, our lives are inescapably marked by this event. We are driven as a moth to the flame, to anything even adjacent to one of the ugliest episodes in our history. With equal parts shame and morbid curiosity, we can not look away from it. I can admit it. This is what made me want to see this film.

What I witnessed in the theatre had enough of that raw and gritty edge to it, as to clearly identify it as a Tarantino film. Despite this, I was seeing the most un-Tarantino film the man has ever made. This was a rich and brilliant period piece. Most people have this image of the sixties as all peace, love and hippies. It wasn't. 1969 was an exclamation point, viciously slashed upon the portrait of a decade marked by intrigue, assassination and war. That is just the American experience. The average American today could not fathom the horrors of Mao's China during the sixties. This was a violent, ugly decade. Juxtaposed upon all these social paroxysms, there still existed that southern California of the Mamas and Papas' California Dreamin'.  The film captured this dichotomy, subtly and, in true Tarantino fashion, sometimes not so subtly.

When I learned that there was to be a sequel, to be titled The Adventures of Cliff Booth, I was hardly surprised. This didn't seem to be a film upon which one might build a franchise. The choice of Cliff Booth instantly changes this. Brad Pitt's character from the first film was the only one you could really give a shit about. The DiCaprio character, Rick Dalton, was just a dick. I will admit a certain bias with regard to the performers, but if you saw the film, you know what I mean. So, if there was any sequel to be made, I can see no other direction to take it.

I will now attempt to convince you that Cliff Booth's story is a story worth telling. And why. Let's begin with who this man is. Some say the character is inspired by Hollywood stunt legend, Hal Needham. There may be some truth in that, but the character represents so much more than this. Although the little back story we are given for this character is vague, we are at least told that Cliff Booth was a decorated WWII veteran. From this we can piece together that he would have served in the years 1942-45. That would likely place his date of birth somewhere around 1925. That makes the Cliff Booth character of 1969 a man in his mid-forties. More importantly, it places him in that generation of young men who flocked to southern California in those post-war years.

One of the main reasons that this peace and love mythology of the sixties survives, is that the story of the period is given to us solely as a narrative of it's youth. Somebody gave birth to those brats. Somebody housed and fed them, educated them and then turned them loose on the world. That somebody would be Cliff Booth's generation. Even though Cliff doesn't have any children of his own (that we know about), it is Cliff Booth's generation of young men that fathered those hippies. They tried to provide a good upbringing to those kids, there in that southern Californian oasis they had forged with their own hands.

The modern Los Angeles we see in Once upon a time was built by these men in the post-war years. They built the homes and subdivisions; the schools and strip malls; they built the highways, the phone lines, the electric grid. They came for the climate and the pretty girls. And the work. They stayed for the careers, the mortgages, the marriages good or bad. They built much of the modern infrastructure, but more than this, they built a culture that became a beacon to youth for a generation to come.

The image of those men shines to us in celluloid; the sandy-haired, rakish rogue, rugged and self-reliant. A memory of what we used to be. Cliff Booth would almost certainly be dead today. Probably even fifteen years ago. What has died with him is that California of legend that we know from film and song. The hippies and seekers that Cliff Booth's generation spawned, grew into the seventies' "me generation", then later morphed into what Thompson aptly tagged "the generation of swine". The southern California of today is the kingdom of swine, ruled by the children of swine. I'm glad old Cliff isn't around to see it.

The legacy of Cliff Booth's California is not to be found in anything that exists today. Today, roughly a year after the Palisades fires, the legacy of Cliff Booth's California is to be found sifting through the ashes there. Provided one can obtain "permission" to enter.

I am looking forward to the film. I hope that it does not disappoint. I would encourage others to go see it. Or watch it on Netflix, whatever they are doing with the release. That seems a bit unclear right now. I encourage people to see this film for the same reason I would encourage a time traveler to visit 1662. Be sure to see the Dodo before the last one is gone.