Let’s talk about that one scene...
… in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you know that one with Bruce Lee that is stirring up a lot of controversy?
Now, before I get into the actual meat of this post, I want to preface a few things:
I am not coming to either parties’ side (Tarantino or the Lee estate) in regards to this matter
I will speaking about the scene itself, the context and my interpretation on it
This is just my interpretation, I am not going to pretend like I know how Bruce Lee really was outside the public light or how he would feel about this scene if was still with us today. This is merely my opinion and you are entitled to respectfully disagree with it.
With those things prefaced, allow me to get into my interpretation of the scene in question.
First, a scene summary (Since I refuse to link pirated footage of the scene):
We are introduced to the scene in question with a lone Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who has been out of work for the better part of a year, beginning to reminisce over his exceptionally brief stint on the set of The Green Hornet (1966-1967).
In this flashback, we are introduced to Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) giving a rather true to form speech about the nature of combat and his respect for boxing greats like Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston. Lee then begins to talk about martial art tournaments and how he feels they deny the true essence of combat.
After this rather awesome speech, a random crew member asks him “What would you do if you fought Ali?” to which Lee responds “That would never happen.” the crew member insists, “Yeah, but if it did happen, what would you do?” the marital arts icon proceeds to give in and answer the question by saying "I’d have to cripple him.”
This comment causes Booth to scoff quite loudly, a gesture that Lee waste zero time in calling out by asking him what he thinks is so funny. The stunt man at first shrugs Lee off; upon his consistent pushing of the question Cliff calls him out and says Bruce is full of shit. It’s this comment that prompts Bruce to issue the following challenge to Cliff:
A friendly competition, two out of three falls, no punches to the face, no real hurting anyone, just knocking someone on their ass.
Deeming it a good idea, Booth accepts and the two soon begin their bout, Lee quickly scores the first point with a flying kick that sends Cliff on his ass. Cliff tells Bruce to try that again, which causes the prior to easily throw the latter into a car door and denting it.
It’s around this time, that the stunt coordinators for the show, Randy (Kurt Russell) and Janet (Zoe Bell) come across the scuffle and are quick to break it up; infuriated with Booth for “beating the shit out of Bruce” despite Lee confidently saying that “No one beat the shit out of Bruce.” Randy and Janet swiftly fire the stuntman and send him packing.
We shift back into the present (1969), where Cliff takes a long drag of a cigarette and chuckles with the comment “Fair enough.”
End scene.
After watching the scene myself, I respectfully saw how at first glance it could be labeled as a mockery of the legend that is Bruce Lee; however, that is not how I interpreted the scene.
I see the scene, not as a mockery of a legendary man (which I admit, I felt bad seeing people in my theater laughing at the scene.), I saw it as rather a very faithful and non-Tarantino historically accurate representation of later 60′s Hollywood.
Bruce Lee, like many a person of color in that time, was not seen in a positive light by that of white people with status (of course that still rings true to this very day, but that is a story for another day.). They were not taken seriously by the then dried out genre of Westerns and the white males that starred in them; Cliff, already struggling to find work as it is with rumors circling around that he killed his wife, no doubt sees the rising star as a threat to his already dying livelihood.
The entirety of this flashback is a dramatization of what Booth thinks happened that fateful day 2 years prior which pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of his stunt career. Naturally, he paints himself to be the good guy because in his mind he probably blames Bruce for his current state of unemployment (I know he is an errand boy for Rick at this stage, but that has to pay even less than being a stuntman.).
While others see this scene as a insult to Bruce Lee, I see it as an insult to Cliff Booth; the scene absolutely paints him to be a total asshole and idiot which I think was the point (I refuse to go along with the notion that the scene was “ needed” to make Cliff look like a badass, because how much of a “badass” do you really have to be to kill three drug tripped hippies?)
How do I feel the actual (fictional) event went down? I feel like it honestly ended with Cliff flat on his ass but still getting fired for picking a fight with one of the star talents on the show. Do we get to see that on screen? Sadly no, in fact, I am mostly disappointed that we did not get a scene set in 1969 where Lee and Booth cross paths once more and we see both accounts of the story played back to back. That’s at least how I would have done it.
Do I believe this movie made a mockery of Bruce Lee? No, in fact I was touched by the scene later in the movie that features Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her account of training with Bruce for the film The Wrecking Crew (1969). This scene paints what I feel is a much more true to form depiction of the real Bruce Lee as a whole, where we see him as a supportive mentor and friend.
TL;DR:
The scene doesn’t paint Bruce Lee to be a laughing stock, and instead actually gives a window (a disappointingly small sized one) into the adversity he faced as a rapidly rising star in Hollywood. Could of it been written slightly differently so that it didn’t get so lost in translation? Absolutely.
That’s all I really have to say on the matter, if you’ve made it this far thank you for reading and have a lovely day.
