The Hateful Eight
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Demían Bichir, Bruce Dern, James Parks, Channing Tatum
Western - 187 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 20 Dec 2015
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Demían Bichir, Bruce Dern, James Parks, Channing Tatum
Western - 187 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 20 Dec 2015
I look forward to Quentin Tarantino films as much as Star Wars fans used to line up for days in front of a movie theater to buy a ticket. I count three things I know I’m going to get from Tarantino. One, the film will be an homage to cinematic history. Name your genre and I guarantee you Tarantino absorbed its entire canon and knows how to celebrate and translate it in the modern age. Two, while reveling in the past, Tarantino will create a film that feels edgy and new. How a director can bring the past into the future and make it feel like nothing you have ever seen before is well into the realm of genius. Think about Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Django Unchained for a second. These three films are stuffed to the gills with winks and innuendo, but each of them feels fresh and original. Third, Tarantino will write dialogue for his favorite actors to chew on, roll around in the mouths, and deliver with gusto. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson talked about Royale with cheese and the audience couldn’t get enough of it. Well, The Hateful Eight takes these three ingredients and delivers.
The story, and let me tell you, it’s one hell of a story, is secondary to just how the hell Tarantino decided to shoot and construct his latest three hour epic. Being perhaps one of the world’s most famous film connoisseurs, Tarantino chose to shoot on Ultra Panavision 70, which has not been used since 1966. It produces a 2.76:1 aspect ratio, a widescreen format gone the way of the dodo in 2015. That means the movie screen is more than two and a half times as wide as it is tall. Considering the majority of The Hateful Eight takes place in one room, you can see everybody on the screen at once when Tarantino wants you to. That is a lot of movement to keep track of. If there is a slight of hand or some subtle skullduggery afoot, it will take a keen eye to catch it. Tarantino and Director of Photography Robert Richardson aim to recreate the epic widescreen masterpiece from the ‘60s, think Ben Hur. Richardson even dug out the old Ben Hur lenses from Panavision headquarters and had them reconfigured to mount on modern cameras.
The story, and let me tell you, it’s one hell of a story, is secondary to just how the hell Tarantino decided to shoot and construct his latest three hour epic. Being perhaps one of the world’s most famous film connoisseurs, Tarantino chose to shoot on Ultra Panavision 70, which has not been used since 1966. It produces a 2.76:1 aspect ratio, a widescreen format gone the way of the dodo in 2015. That means the movie screen is more than two and a half times as wide as it is tall. Considering the majority of The Hateful Eight takes place in one room, you can see everybody on the screen at once when Tarantino wants you to. That is a lot of movement to keep track of. If there is a slight of hand or some subtle skullduggery afoot, it will take a keen eye to catch it. Tarantino and Director of Photography Robert Richardson aim to recreate the epic widescreen masterpiece from the ‘60s, think Ben Hur. Richardson even dug out the old Ben Hur lenses from Panavision headquarters and had them reconfigured to mount on modern cameras.
Tarantino is also going rogue and ignoring standard distribution. Opening on Christmas Day, one can only see The Hateful Eight in a movie theater equipped with a 70mm projector; that means, it will only be on 100 screens. Don’t have an antiquated movie palace near you with one of those projectors? Then you’re going to wait for a digital transformation at your local multiplex in the weeks after Christmas. That also means you will miss Ennio Morricone’s overture, a standard epic feature now gone with the wind. Tarantino flew to Rome to personally plead with the composer of A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon A Time in the West, and about 500 other films to score The Hateful Eight. The resulting soundtrack escorts the audience right back to the glory days of the spaghetti western.
Standing in for Wyoming where The Hateful Eight is set, Tarantino chose to shoot in the high Rockies of Telluride, Colorado. Waist deep snow is alive and well in Telluride and the blizzard that overtakes and strands the disparate characters together in Minnie’s Haberdashery is a believable occurrence. It looks authentically bone-shattering cold when someone opens the door and attempts to venture outside. Why is it called Minnie’s Haberdashery? When Sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins, American Ultra) looks around the place he says, “Oh, I get it, it’s a joke.” Minnie’s is a way station on the way to the town of Red Rock. It’s a general store, restaurant, bar, stable, and probably even sells hats as well. It’s also a claustrophobic square of a room to flesh out the ins and outs of some characters that may not be who they say they are.
Part Alfred Hitchcock and part Agatha Christie mystery, the audience must accomplish some mental judo and guess who they think is on the up and up and who might be a shifty ne’er-do-well. I will skip the basic character descriptions on all the members who comprise the eponymous eight, but there are a few to highlight. Shepherding the audience from the beginning and through the mystery is Major Marquis Warren (Jackson, Avengers: Age of Ultron). A former Union cavalry officer in the Civil War, Major Warren is a bounty hunter wrapping up the local Wyoming scum and also doing a bit of hiding himself. In a three hour and seven minute movie, every character has more than a few facets to them and stories to tell. Most have a past incongruent with their present. Major Warren is merely one of the protagonists to sift through.
The second main character is John Ruth (Kurt Russell, Furious 7), a bounty hunter known as The Hangman, because the wanted poster’s declaration of dead or alive means nothing to Ruth. He always brings his prey in alive so they can hang for their crimes. Ruth’s current charge is the vile Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Daisy is rude, crude, and plainly guilty and unrepentant for whatever nastiness Ruth is bringing her in to hang for. With a $10,000 bounty on her head, Daisy makes not only an attractive target for any and all bounty hunters out there, but for any enterprising bandit who crosses their path. When the blizzard strikes, Ruth, Daisy, and Major Warren take shelter at Minnie’s Haberdashery and meet the fellows already there. Are they who they claim to be? Are they after Daisy; are they in cahoots with Daisy? The unfolding of who is what is the icing on the Tarantino cake.
Tarantino regulars, other than Jackson and Russell, introduce themselves. Michael Madsen is the cowpuncher Joe Gage, Tim Roth (Selma) is Red Rock’s British hangman Oswaldo Mobray, and Bruce Dern (Nebraska) is retired Confederate General Sandy Smithers. You can only imagine the verbal spitfire Major Marquis Warren unleashes upon the General. Another uncertain variable is Walton Goggins as Chris Mannix, a former South Carolina guerilla fighter during the war who now claims to be Red Rock’s new sheriff. Also, do not forget that Tarantino does not now, nor has he barely ever, told a linear story. The Hateful Eight takes a jump back in time, but not that far, because the entire story takes place in one day. That’s just what you get doing business with Tarantino.
In the end, The Hateful Eight is not Quentin Tarantino’s best film ever, but it is one hell of a ride and one of 2015’s most fascinating cinematic achievements. I love the widescreen, the leery score, the way Kurt Russell spits out the name Daisy Domergue, and the way Samuel L. Jackson sits down while reloading his revolver saying, “Let’s slow this down; let’s slow this wayyyy down.” Your main job as an audience member is first to track down a theater showing the 70mm print of The Hateful Eight the way it is supposed to be seen. Second, it is to sit back for about twice the length of your average Hollywood product and revel in another Tarantino triumph.
In the end, The Hateful Eight is not Quentin Tarantino’s best film ever, but it is one hell of a ride and one of 2015’s most fascinating cinematic achievements. I love the widescreen, the leery score, the way Kurt Russell spits out the name Daisy Domergue, and the way Samuel L. Jackson sits down while reloading his revolver saying, “Let’s slow this down; let’s slow this wayyyy down.” Your main job as an audience member is first to track down a theater showing the 70mm print of The Hateful Eight the way it is supposed to be seen. Second, it is to sit back for about twice the length of your average Hollywood product and revel in another Tarantino triumph.
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