"- And the Oscar goes to...
Brad Pitt."
Quentin Tarantino's "Once
Upon a Time in Hollywood"
is a film packed with
memorable scenes.
But if one were asked
to pick out the sequence
with the most tension
many would choose the scene when
Cliff Booth arrives at Spahn Ranch.
And takes a long walk
through suspicious territory.
All he wants to do is to make
sure of his friend George is safe.
"- Well, is there anything wrong with
me saying hello to an old friend?"
But Cliff Booth just might
be stepping into a trap.
Tarantino used many directing
techniques to craft this tension
and we'll highlight
them in this episode of
"The Director's Playbook."
♪ The Director's
Playbook Intro ♪
The suspense in the sequence is
relatively light on dialogue.
"- Come on."
And heavy on visual
storytelling.
P.O.V.
Screen direction.
Framing.
Camera angles.
"- Came a long ways.
Don't know when I'll get
back this way again."
And sound design.
If you're planning a scene with
elaborate blocking and staging,
it's helpful to use a
storyboard to map it out.
We're going to use StudioBinder
to map out highlights of
the Spahn route scene.
"- Ready when you are."
Let's take a stroll
with Cliff Booth.
To keep the audience
in step with Cliff
Tarantino uses P.O.V.
throughout the sequence.
This P.O.V shot establishes
the house as his goal
through its dead center framing.
He is suspicious
from the very start
and we are meant to
share this suspicion.
The stretch of dusty land
provides the perfect opportunity
to slow things down with a
long walk up to the house.
Something's off
about this situation.
"- Come on."
Cliff's first steps
towards a house
are framed in an
extreme wide shot
making him smaller and
vulnerable out in the open.
Screen direction has a strong effect
on an audience member's subconscious.
And in this section,
the camera jumps across
the 180-degree line.
Changing the screen direction
keeping us ever so
slightly disoriented.
"- Where the hell is everybody?
Hey, where's Gypsy?
- She's down by the chop shop.
- Thank you for giving our
precious Pussy a ride home.
- Think nothing of it.
- We love Pussy.
- Yes, we do."
After some pleasant conversation
with a couple of new characters.
"- Come on over here
and say hi to Cliff.
- Howdy, Cliff. - Tex.
- What part of Texas you from?
- Oh, a place you never heard of.
Copeville."
Cliff attempts to resume
his track to the house.
"- Hey, does George Spahn
still own this ranch?"
Tarantino features the
house in the background,
center-framed to keep
our goal in mind.
The house is also
included in the reverse
on the Manson girls.
In these matching profile shots,
their defensive alignment
visually communicates
their opposition
to Cliff's goal.
"- Does he still
live right there?
- Yeah."
As the conversation becomes
more of a confrontation.
"- Well, is there anything wrong with
me saying hello to an old friend?
- You can't see him right now."
Tarantino changes up the shots.
Instead of profile views,
we see our opposed
characters head-on.
The shift is dramatic and
inherently more aggressive.
All of the empty
space behind Cliff
is now filled by a large bus
and more Manson
followers who box him in.
His reluctant hosts fill in
the bottom half of the frame
slowly swarming like zombies.
Cliff finally makes
it to the front porch.
"- You the mama bear?
- Can I help you?
- I hope so.
I'm an old friend of George's.
Thought I'd stop and say hello.
- That's very nice of you,
but unfortunately,
you picked the wrong time.
George is taking
a nap right now."
But then a short
interrogation begins.
"- What's your name?
-Cliff Booth."
And once again Tarantino
marks this shift in tone.
We jump to tighter dutch angles,
which accelerates the
tension even further.
"- How do you know George?
- I used to shoot Westerns
here at the ranch.
- When was the last
time you saw George?
- Oh, I'd say about...
eight years ago.
- Oh.
I'm sorry I didn't realize
the two of you are so close.
But when he wakes up,
I'll let him know you came by.
- Look, Red,
I'm coming in there.
With my own two eyes,
I'm gonna get a good look at George.
And this...
ain't stopping me."
And when Squeaky
snaps open the door
listen carefully to
the sound design.
"- Okay.
Suit yourself."
The environment, the
wind, the television.
Without a word spoken
the sound in these moments
enhances the tension.
We return to Cliff's
point of view
for slow shots that linger
over the filthy interior.
We may as well be
in a horror movie.
And the captured mouse is a
perfect metaphor for Cliff
walking into his own mousetrap.
Squeaky changes the TV channel
to a program with ominous music.
Tarantino borrows this cue from
the master of suspense himself
Alfred Hitchcock's
"Torn Curtain."
"- He back there?
- Door at the end
of the hallway."
♪ John Addison -
"The Radiogram" ♪
Once Cliff enters the hall
Tarantino keeps the
camera behind his back.
The vast open and bright
exterior of the house
has been reduced to
a dark cramped space
with nowhere to run.
♪ John Addison -
"The Radiogram" ♪
"- George, you awake?"
Finally,
Cliff reaches the bedroom.
"- George?"
And despite all the
evidence to the contrary.
George is alive and well.
"- Hi, George.
- Uh... Who are you?
- It's Cliff Booth.
Just stopped in to say hello
and see how you're doing.
- John Wilkes Booth?
- No, Cliff Booth.
- Who's that?
I used to shoot Bounty Law
here, George."
When creating suspense
in your own work
a good suspense sequence isn't
about what happens in the end.
"- What the fuck is
the matter with you?
First, you'll wake me up
and now you're pretending
that I didn't tell you
I was fucking blind!"
It's about getting there.
What might happen will almost
always be more interesting
then what does happen.
"- Tarantino, you are original.
You are one of a kind.
And I love ethos you
gave Cliff Booth."
Tarantino threw a lot
into the sequence.
He used P.O.V to keep
us tied to Cliff.
He broke the 180-degree
rule to disorient us.
He used framing and composition
to keep Cliff isolated
and outnumbered.
He followed
dialogue-heavy moments
with ominous and
detailed sound design.
He used production design to saturate
the interior with foreboding details.
All to keep us on the
edge of our seats.
For the complete storyboard
including shot specs,
follow the link in the description.
What did we miss in our breakdown
of the Spahn route sequence?
Keep the conversation
going in the comments.
And don't miss out on the rest of
"The Directors Playbook" series.
Watch how Coppola pulled off this
iconic moment from "The Godfather."
Or how Scorsese
blocked and staged
this long take in "The
Wolf of Wall Street."
Make sure to subscribe
to be kept in the loop.
And we'll see you
in the next one.
♪ ♪
