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The Hateful Eight
Topic Started: Jan 3 2016, 08:53 AM (1,323 Views)
Russ
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Bark! Go away
I don't know if this needs its own thread, but I'm dying to read the thoughts of this film community on Quentin Tarantino's eighth film (especially Shay's).

I may have to wait for the home video release, as the ball and chain isn't too keen on QT's brand of justice.
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YancySkancy
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I had planned to see this January 1st, but I got sick. Other responsibilities look to make it hard to see this weekend, though tonight may still be a possibility. If I don't see it before the week is out, I'll bust.

I've seen everything from raves to pans for this, which worried me at first, until I realized that's been the case for all of his films. Remember how Inglourious Basterds got an underwhelming response at Cannes or someplace, causing some to write it off as an Oscar candidate, but then all of sudden the general critical consensus seemed to be that it was his best in years? That doesn't seem to be happening with The Hateful Eight, but I'm champing at the bit anyway.

I will say this about it, sight unseen -- despite every third review or comment questioning the "need" for it to be shot in 70mm because it's mostly in one room, "like a play," that's one of the main reasons I'm interested in seeing it. Assuming he didn't lock the camera down in a proscenium position, I'm pretty damn sure it's not gonna look like a play, 'cause editing and composition and music and close-ups, etc. Hitchcock's Rope isn't like a play either, despite the fact that its text is actually a play. Those who have this misconception probably also think that screenwriting is just dialogue.
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Russ
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YancySkancy,Jan 3 2016
05:55 PM
I had planned to see this January 1st, but I got sick.  Other responsibilities look to make it hard to see this weekend, though tonight may still be a possibility.  If I don't see it before the week is out, I'll bust.

I've seen everything from raves to pans for this, which worried me at first, until I realized that's been the case for all of his films.  Remember how Inglourious Basterds got an underwhelming response at Cannes or someplace, causing some to write it off as an Oscar candidate, but then all of sudden the general critical consensus seemed to be that it was his best in years?  That doesn't seem to be happening with The Hateful Eight, but I'm champing at the bit anyway.

I will say this about it, sight unseen -- despite every third review or comment questioning the "need" for it to be shot in 70mm because it's mostly in one room, "like a play," that's one of the main reasons I'm interested in seeing it.  Assuming he didn't lock the camera down in a proscenium position, I'm pretty damn sure it's not gonna look like a play, 'cause editing and composition and music and close-ups, etc.  Hitchcock's Rope isn't like a play either, despite the fact that its text is actually a play.  Those who have this misconception probably also think that screenwriting is just dialogue.

But editing, I'm hearing, is still lacking with the void that Menke's absence created. Hope those reports are wrong, as I'm loving everything else (the printed programs, intermission w/Morricone's elegy).

Not so sure about the "gruesome" violence (I'm such a wussy). Feel free to spoil away...
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Maxime G.
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I saw it projected in 70mm and it looked stunning. It gave it a vintage, found-object quality that perfectly fits Tarantino's sensibility. Not sure why the format couldn't be as effective to film a closed space, especially such a richly detailed closed space. Plenty of exterior shots and activity, anyway. The coach ride at the beginning is particularly gorgeous.

It does not feel like a play at all. Its mise en scène is just as detailed and composed as what we've come to expect from Tarantino; he directs with a precise visual plan in mind. It's cinema through and through; accusations of filmed theatre are, as they usually are, ludicrous.
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Shay Casey
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Blingin' for Our Savior
I'm still mulling it over. Upon first blush it feels like it's in the lower tier of Tarantino's filmography (which means it's still better than most). A bit too shaggy and over-stuffed. One thing I am certain about is that it's his least superficially entertaining work: it's a brutal and nasty film, something a lot of folks may not be prepared for when walking into the theater. As Maxime says, QT certainly does not skimp on his typical virtuosic use of cinematic language. It's just that here that language is employed in service of a darker message.

In this film there are no heroes. Tarantino takes great pains to remind you that every one of the main characters is a hateful piece of work, which in retrospect perfectly explains the film's title: it is a film about hateful people. Not charming anti-heroes, but people who are LITERALLY full of hate.

The film contains a lot of racial and sexual slurs, as well as a number of references to the American Civil War. I think therein probably lies QT's message: he's saying something about our culture's hateful nature, how we always find someone to turn our guns on (literal or metaphorical). Unlike his last few efforts, this isn't a revenge fantasy that turns the tables on the former oppressor (much to our delight) -- it's a more cynical message about how we don't learn our lessons. It will probably take another viewing to fully suss it out.
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Russ
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Shay Casey,Jan 3 2016
07:14 PM
He's saying something about our culture's hateful nature, how we always find someone to turn our guns on (literal or metaphorical). Unlike his last few efforts, this isn't a revenge fantasy that turns the tables on the former oppressor (much to our delight) -- it's a more cynical message about how we don't learn our lessons.

I haven't seen it, but it sounds like you nailed it. Film as a cultural mirror; the critical, and popular, aversion to the film may speak volumes more than the actual critiques it has engendered.

Mucho food for thought.
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Maxime G.
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It is very dark and cynical but its numerous grotesqueries are blown out of proportion and played for amusement. QT seems to revel in on-screen cruelty, making his handling of such somber material a bit hard to swallow for me. There's a strange interplay between the pitch-black worldview and the winky handling of the violence that I found hard to decipher. I had a hard time understanding what effects Tarantino was aiming at and how to approach certain scenes. I liked the first half a lot but then started feeling pushed more and more outside the universe that had been built, looking at pathetic cartoons getting offed by their sadistic, all-powerful creator. All-in-all, I'm perplexed but looking forward to a second viewing.

I had the same problem with Django but I think H8 is a lot more solid on structural and storytelling grounds.
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Maxime G.
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SPOILERS


One thing QT is incredibly deft with is building whole characters and milieus with remarkable economy, be it by hinting at them through dialogue or showing them in short sequences. A good example of that is the representation of pre-massacre Minnie's haberdashery in H8.

Sam Jackson, who knows Minnie and her place, keeps coming back to how things aren't how they usually are in there. He refers to precise, evocative character and setting details that has our imaginations running. Then we're introduced to the place via the flashback and it's not at all what we'd expected. We're shown a warm multiethnic utopia, the complete opposite of the universe we have been and will be bathing in for the rest of the film, but built with just as much care and just as plausible. Simplistically, we're shown the United States that could have been, if the bad guys hadn't taken over. In about five minutes.
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Continental Op
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I'll eventually add some actual thoughts, because I thought it was brilliant and riveting through and through, but Russ, regarding the violence:

Spoiler: click to toggle
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Guy
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Maxime G.,Jan 3 2016
11:37 AM
I saw it projected in 70mm and it looked stunning. It gave it a vintage, found-object quality that perfectly fits Tarantino's sensibility. Not sure why the format couldn't be as effective to film a closed space, especially such a richly detailed closed space. Plenty of exterior shots and activity, anyway. The coach ride at the beginning is particularly gorgeous.

It does not feel like a play at all. Its mise en scène is just as detailed and composed as what we've come to expect from Tarantino; he directs with a precise visual plan in mind. It's cinema through and through; accusations of filmed theatre are, as they usually are, ludicrous.

What Maxime said. (Also, Ennio Morricone’s score is fantastic.) The impression that this is a “play on film” or some such may partly be a result of the boatload of exposition that is delivered via dialogue.

It’s funny to read critics and other folks on the internets kvetching about how darn mean The Hateful Eight is, presumably in contrast to QT’s earlier, cuddlier movies. All of the worlds of QT’s movies have been mean; we just like the characters in them because they made us laugh.
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Shay Casey
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Blingin' for Our Savior
Guy,Jan 3 2016
04:32 PM
It’s funny to read critics and other folks on the internets kvetching about how darn mean The Hateful Eight is, presumably in contrast to QT’s earlier, cuddlier movies. All of the worlds of QT’s movies have been mean; we just like the characters in them because they made us laugh.

That's the big difference with this one: it doesn't have that central likable character the audience knows to root for. I think that's throwing people off.
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Continental Op
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Shay
 
That's the big difference with this one: it doesn't have that central likable character the audience knows to root for. I think that's throwing people off.


You're probably right...the film seems to ask you just relish in the badness of these folks as they go on their Agatha Christie-esque adventure...I know I didn't have a problem with that, merely fascinated by every character and how they were connected and what they were going to do next...plus:


Spoiler: click to toggle
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Shay Casey
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That's kind of true, but at the same time . . .

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Continental Op
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My rosy colored glasses took it more like...

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vornporn
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A Ryan Seacrest type.
This was the first Tarantino film I've ever been less than 'pro' on, and I left with the impression that I've heard enough from QT for quite awhile. It is, as expected, visually accomplished, but this time I found the dialogue to be more strained and arch than usual. The length and stateliness of the film imbued it with more pomp than pulp. And the gleefully sadistic violence undercuts any moral seriousness that was there. A very confusing experience for me, with QT seeming to work at cross-purposes with his own material much of the time. I loved Goggins though.
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