I need to talk about this movie.
The Hateful Eight is a very good movie that is also - secretly - kind of a disappointing movie. It's a movie with two slow, solid, hours of buildup and one chaotic hour of...confusion. Not viewer confusion - well, that too, but that's not unexpected - but confusion on the part of Quentin Tarantino, who seemed to have run out of steam by the third act of his film. It's two hours of certainty followed by an hour of "maybe if I throw in some plot twists and make everything EXTRA violent people won't notice that I forgot to write an ending!" We know from Reservoir Dogs that a good ending CAN involve everyone dying. But everyone dying is not what makes it a good ending. Everyone dying here did not make it a good ending.
It makes me kind of sad that Tarantino pulled out so many stops. Panavision, yes, but a lot of other ones, too. The whole roadshow presentation (which, granted, was super cool), plus bringing together ALL of his alums, plus pulling Ennio Morricone out of retirement (at least as far as Westerns are concerned), plus all of the drama that surrounded the whole production - the online leak, the hissy fit, the production, the advertising, the number eight being plastered all over everything just to make sure we KNOW that this is The Eighth Film by Quentin Tarantino. It was like frosting a cake made of cornmeal. He put all the bells and whistles on the wrong movie.
And his concept for this movie was, granted, super cool. To jog your memory: "You would pass halfway through the show [this is in reference to classic Western TV shows like Bonanza] to find out if they were good or bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed. I thought, 'What if I did a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, no Michael Landons. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens."
Super cool premise. But at the end of the day, what are you left with? Everyone is terrible. We know going into the movie that everyone is going to be terrible. How possible is it for an audience to connect with a film that has no protagonist, no audience surrogate, no one to identify with? Whom do you ally yourself against? Whom do you root for? Is this just an exercise in letting your audience figure where their morality lies, letting them watch themselves instinctively side with some characters over others? By the end of the film, I was certain I was supposed to side with Daisy; my dad was certain he was supposed to side with Samuel L. Jackson. Was I siding with Daisy because she was the only woman? How did Tarantino want the audience to FEEL walking out of this movie?
(Side note: I know some people like to disregard director intention - once the movie is released, all that matters is the audience - but I think it makes all the difference in the world. That's a different essay. But Tarantino's intentions matter to me.)
And I'm not saying that I didn't like this movie. I did. A lot. Even though most of the film takes place inside, the outdoor shots DO deliver (if you have the opportunity to see it in Panavision, there is no other option). The performances are consistently solid. Some people complain that the first third is TOO slow, but if you have the patience for it I think it's a necessarily slow build. The dialogue is good and clever. If you appreciate graphic, graphic violence (and, since you're here, you probably do), you won't be disappointed (lesson learned: puking is the most cinematic when the characters are projectile vomiting blood). The social commentary is solid (see more below). And, had the third act turned out differently, the first two acts are part of an excellent movie. Don't get me wrong, it's a GOOD movie. It's just also a disappointing one.
It feels like the only thing Tarantino wanted us to be sure about was the movie's stance on race relations. And maybe gender relations, but I'll get to that in a second. We don't know how we feel about any of the characters - true to his title, he really did try his hardest to make us hate them all - but at the very least we know that racism is bad. Which we knew already, but the fact that Major Marquis Warren's comments on his fake Lincoln letter are the most relevant in the whole film says a lot. Pretty cool of Tarantino to be one of the many voices shouting that racism isn't over.
As for gender relations: a lot of people complain that this movie is misogynist, and I'm still deciding whether or not I agree. But one of my friends (hi, Daniel) makes an interesting point - partway through the movie, it switches from the n-word to "bitch" as its primary Bad Word. No matter where the characters stand on racism, they ALL hate women. It's the one thing they all have in common. Is it necessary to make Daisy the sole punching bag for most of the movie? Maybe if the point you're trying to make is that sexism also isn't over. In this film, it's as normalized as racism. Tarantino uses extremes to point out society's biggest issues. So maybe the aggressive character (not director) misogyny here is okay, then. Or at least somewhat more justified.
Go see The Hateful Eight. It's a good movie, and Quentin Tarantino works really hard on it. He'll win some awards for cinematography, since, as my dad put it, he kind of gave the gift of Panavision back to the cinema (NO ONE ever tell him his work is a gift to the cinema - his ego will explode). It's funny, and it's gleefully disgusting, and it makes some good comments about some deeply messed-up pieces of our society. Its whole is no greater than the sum of its parts, but rather exactly as good as all of them put together - and the parts are good.
