MovieChat Forums > Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019) Discussion > Significance of Kurt Russell being the ...

Significance of Kurt Russell being the narrator?

posted 5 years ago by BurningSun (717)
25 replies | jump to latest

Why is it that Kurt Russell narrates the movie? His character bares very little significance to the plot and is only in the movie on screen for about five minutes. I love Kurt Russell but I feel like there should be a reason as to why he serves as the narrator. I feel like it would make more sense for Brad Pitt or Margot Robbie to be the narrator, or for the narrator to be it’s own character played by an actor who does not have another role besides just being the narrator.

[–] Redsfan001 (6158) 5 years ago

Good question.

I don't know if I would look for some deep significance in the choice of Russell as narrator. It might simply be that QT felt bad about his small role in the movie and compensated Russell with the narrator job.

[–] TandyMan (11119) 5 years ago

Don't know. I wasted some time thinking about it but I couldn't connect the dots. Having an actual character from the movie do the narrating isn't random. There must have been a reasoning behind it. I don't know if i'll ever bother watching this again to find out.

[–] bop101 (148) 5 years ago

Hell, I don't remember hearing it.

[–] L1 (1316) 5 years ago

I DIDNT SEE

[–] RickGee (265) 5 years ago

Maybe because he has a good voice for that sort of thing and is just cool.

[–] TheArgentinian (7108) 3 years ago

/thread

[–] phifty2 (141) 5 years ago

Kurt Russel lived and acted through that period of history in Hollywood. He was a child actor and was featured in many films and TV shows of the time. That's enough for me to provide a link to justify his narration.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I don't know if I would look for some deep significance in the choice of Russell as narrator. It might simply be that QT felt bad about his small role in the movie and compensated Russell with the narrator job..

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That strikes me as a good possibility.

QT used these narrators in these two films:

Inglorous Basterds: Samuel L. Jackson in two segments: telling the backstory of the serial killer Nazi killer (Hugo Schtiglitz); and giving us background on how old fashioned nitrate film burns(with images from an old 30's Alfred Hitchcock movie to illustrate -- yes, QT meets Hitchcock, right here.)

The Hateful Eight: QT himself. Again, two segments. Once after the intermission(laying out the poisoning of the coffee) and once later on when some bodies are thrown into the well.

So it looks like this time, QT felt that neither Jackson nor QT would "fit" quite right. Why not use Russell who -- by the way -- has a great, grumbly, crisp voice(its part of the hidden reason for his stardom, and it usually sounds a little pissed off.) Russell is a character in the story, and as such, a Hollywood colleague of Leo and Brad.

[–] Bobbiejean (20) 4 years ago

I agree... Kurt Russell was around Hollywood in those days. He was part of the Nostalgia !!! I loved him being a part of it. You pick up on these little things when your older and remember.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I agree... Kurt Russell was around Hollywood in those days. He was part of the Nostalgia !!! I loved him being a part of it. You pick up on these little things when your older and remember.

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Yes..Kurt Russell noted that, as a child actor heading into teen stardom, he was around in 1969 and that his father Bing Russell, worked a lot in those TV Westerns, too.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that Kurt Russell also lent his crisp, snappy voice to something on the OATIH DVD extras: A "Red Apple Tobacco" commercial. It just sounds like him. He snaps off the phrase "low tar" with panache.

[–] raymondoz2007 (2098) 4 years ago

Sam Elliott was busy?

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Ha. When will he do HIS QT movie?

There's supposedly only one left....

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21539) 4 years ago

Speaking of that, there is an Italian crime film called Battle of The Godfathers (1973) that has an opening monologue, spoken by Henry Silva, that sounds a lot like the one in OUATIH. I’m betting QT has seen it before.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

hat has an opening monologue, spoken by Henry Silva, that sounds a lot like the one in OUATIH. I’m betting QT has seen it before.

--
One of the things I find interesting about QT is that while evidently he's "borrowing" all these scenes and dialogues and "bits"(like how a character gets shot through a flower pinned to his chest in Django)...

...whereas there are always experts out there who can find the "originals," for about 98% of the rest of us...we just didn't know this.

Its why I can't get angry at QT as a plagiarist. Its not like he's borrowing some famous Hitchcock scene that everybody knows. He's sharing things with us that otherwise we'd never know(like, say, some lines from an episode of The Virginian)...and usually putting a "spin" on them that is his very own.

Another expert revealed that a lot of the plot of The Hateful Eight can be found in an old episode of the Nick Adams TV series "The Rebel" -- I trust that QT had to PAY somebody for the use of that TV show.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21539) 4 years ago

I absolutely adore his “homages” and I find new ones in obscure film all the time. I really should start writing them down. 😋

[–] ATG6 (3000) 3 years ago

Plus he's a supernatural being called Ego who could alter reality to change the timeline.

[–] spurtle467 (1549) 4 years ago

I didn't understand it either but it still sounded better than Tarantino doing the narration in The Hateful Eight.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Well, they sure are different voices...Russell, a bona fide movie star, has a movie star voice. (And its always had a bit of John Wayne in it...and in Death Proof for QT, Russell DID a John Wayne impression, and in The Hateful Eight , the character sounded pretty darn close to Wayne.)

So..narrators in QT movies:

Kurt Russell: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
QT: The Hateful Eight
Samuel L. Jackson: Inglorous Basterds.

Anyone else?

[–] Zinger (2364) 3 years ago

His narration was the only thing that felt jarring and out of place.