Traditionally a novel has a good story and good ideas, but such a simple structure is a bit conventional and many writers have tried to drop out the plot. The result often is a novel that consists of many at least seemingly separate parts that may fit to each others in many ways, leading to the idea that the reader is allowed to find an interpretation that the author never meant. This works well e.g. with Gogan’s painting: they have a magical atmosphere and it is symbolism, but what exactly is symbolized is anybody’s guess.
But already for some decades a more popular way to write a story with seemingly unrelated parts is to compose the story so that everything fits together at the end. When the interpretation is found, all parts become understandable. In this structure there is only one way to interpret the story. As an example we can look at Tarantino’s Once upon time in Hollywood.
The name points to Sergio Leone and of course the name also must fit to the interpretation. The story tells of a movie star, a cowboy hero played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who has a stunt man played by Brad Pitt. DiCaprio is apparently paying Pitt and wants Pitt to be with him and taken to a movie even when not needed. He is to be taken in case DiCaprio falls from a horse. DiCaprio cannot find a role in the US and has to play in spagettiwesterns. He used to be the good guy, but now he plays the bad guy. In the role of a bad guy he has kidnapped a young girl. A bit earlier DiCaprio has met this girl reading a book and sits down with her and reads a western. The western is a story of a man who once was the best but fell from a horse and is no longer the best and thinking of the story DiCaprio cries. In filming episode DiCaprio as the villain throws the girl to the floor. Meanwhile Prad Pitt meets a hippie girl and visits the hippie community run by Charlie (Manson). Sharon Tate is shown walking, going to a movie to see herself, and being pregnant. She lives in the house next to DiCaprio. Then the movie shows days and time, something must happen soon. Polansky is somewhere in Europe in that night and four hippies go to kill pigs, actually one of the four chickens out but three continue. They visit DiCaprio’s house and all get killed. DiCaprio burns the last one with a flamethrower that he had saved in his home from some past movie. Brad Pitt takes a bullet and is taken by an ambulance. In the final scene Sharon Tate, living next door, invites DiCaprio for a visit to meet her friends. There is some scary music, but DiCaprio only meets some Polish friends, not hippies. So, what is the intended interpretation?
It is not especially difficult to find. Simply, all parts must fit to the explanation, if they do, then it is the intended one. It is unlikely that they all would fit to several interpretations. We know that pregnant Sharon Tate was killed that night. Had she been killed by hippies, we would have been shown how the cowboy hero DiCaprio, who just burned one hippie, fought these other hippies. How could the director not have shown the final fight? Of course should have, therefore DiCaprio killed Sharon Tate and her friends.
Everything fits to this explanation and becomes understandable. The name of the movie points out that the idea of a spagettiwestern is the key to this movie. Spagettiwesterns are famous for changing the good guy to a bad guy, so DiCaprio was a good guy but was changed to a bag guy. He played a villain role where he throws a child on the floor: just a guy, who could butcher a pregnant woman. DiCaprio cries when reading a western of a man, who used to be the best, but fell from a horse and is not good anymore. The western story must show his own story: he “fell from a horse” already once and now has Brad Pitt watching over him that he does not fall from a horse. The movie shows the history of DiCaprio and nothing in this history is so tragic as to make him cry: he cries for his deeds that were not shown in the movie. Brad Pitt is his guard, to stop him from getting crazy. That is the only explanation why he wants Pitt next to him: the movie has DiCaprio marrying a woman to make clear that Pitt and him are not lovers. Pitt gets wounded and DiCaprio is free to go to “visit” Sharon Tate in the night. The fact that DiCaprio kept the flamethrower in his house shows that he had fantasies of killing people. There is nothing more to explain in this movie.
You may naturally argue that this may not be the only explanation and who knows what the director intended to say, if he intended anything. The director may even publicly deny that this is the explanation. But why try denying. Many separate parts do not naturally fit to most explanations and they all fit to this one, and if there is no interpretation intended, then it is also very improbable that there exists an interpretation that fits to all parts.
If there is no intended interpretation, then a small part fits to some explanation and much of the story becomes gibberish. This is occasionally the case with texts that intentionally have been hidden into a cover text, but this kind of hiding is mostly found in esoteric texts. My favorite examples of hiding are Idra Rabba and Idra Zuta in the extended Zohar: the works describe e.g the parts of the beard of God and what could the meaning of that be, but there are also references to sacrifices and drinking blood, which is a tabu in Judaism, and that the kings of Edom (i.e., Christian kings) are to be destroyed. Notice that the cover text has a purpose: this way of hiding a message has the property that the message can always be denied. If everything would become understandable when the message is guessed, then the existence of the message could not be denied, but here it can: the cover text remains without any explanation and serves to deny that the explanation is intended.
Anyway, Tarantino’s movies are not hiding the meaning. They do not have any meaning which might cause being burned at the stake, there is no need to have full deniability. There is an intended meaning, and it can be fairly easily found and I will not accept any denial that it is not the explanation.