The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

[Oedipax]

Just found out that Jonathan Rosenbaum gave this an F, saying it was "repulsive on every level."

Er... where?

[bearcuborg]

Just found out that Jonathan Rosenbaum gave this an F, saying it was "repulsive on every level."

Er... where?

It says it on his indiewire.com page. However, I don't know how that's generated. Jonathan has never given movies a letter grade as far as I know, and he doesn't review new films anymore.

Given that Taranatino hasn't made a passable film in nearly 20 years by Rosenbaum's standard (see his reviews), I don't see him liking this one based on what I've seen. For me, if it wasn't 70mm - I doubt I'd be all that interested. It can't be any worse than Basterds. And yet as I type that, I can't help but think that I have little, to no regard, for any Tarantino film since Jackie Brown.

[hearthesilence]

Quite a few negative reviews pouring in now. Nick Pinkerton for Reverse Shot, A.O. Scott of the NY Times, Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal, David Edelstein of New York Magazine, Matt Zoller Seitz, and the head film critics for the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, etc. (most if not all of whom have been Tarantino fans in the past). Amazing when advanced word seemed to be mostly good.

[Finch]

So, I've seen Quentin Tarantino's new film, The Hateful Eight. I'll be careful not to spoil the plot, so I'll say this: I think Sally Menke's editing skills are sorely missed. I loved Django Unchained in spite of the flawed last 20 or so minutes and I will absolutely admit that the previous film already felt less well-balanced than the films Menke edited for Tarantino. Hateful Eight feels ponderous. Yup, the writing is good, the cast are strong and yet the film meanders a lot in the first half.

It does pick up when they get to Minnie's Haberdashery and I think, for about 45 minutes or so from that point, I started to appreciate what QT was attempting to do here. It plays like an extended version of Reservoir Dogs and the card playing in Inglourious Bastards but transposed to the Civil War, and a bit like a murder mystery. As usual, QT peppers his dialogue with the nigger word and people crying racism should pay good attention to a speech Sam L Jackson makes aroud the 75 minute mark.

So, yes, the movie's middle stretch really works for me. But then, after the intermission, Tarantino sticks in an all-knowing voiceover narration by himself for Chapter 4 (though weirdly, he only does it for that particular chapter) which took me out of the film. It felt gimmicky and unnecessary. He then inserts a flashback which adds a lot of exposition the movie mostly doesn't need.

I get that the film is purposefully claustrophobic and ugly. I like that none of the characters are entirely black or white. One person seems quite likeable, like a character we could root for. But then they do some things that my sympathies shift away from them again. I think, where the film is running into some difficulties is the treatment Jennifer Jason Leigh's character suffers at the hands of the men.

I'm not saying the film is definitely unambiguously misogynist. It'd run totally counter to how Tarantino has treated and written his female characters. Let's say that Jennifer Jason Leigh's character is more resourceful than her ties to Kurt Russell's character suggest. I do, however, think that Tarantino doesn't handle the ugliness towards her character all that well. Okay, some of the stuff that happens to her is over the top but then I think, if it's meant to be ugly shouldn't you be going for the tonal opposite? I mean, otherwise you end up diminishing what happens to JJL's character for the sake of a cheap laugh. Never mind that she is meant to be just as bad ass as the men. I'd be keen to hear what other people think. Again, I don't think the film is necessarily misogynist as such; some of the male characters may well be. But aye, it's an aspect of the film that makes me feel very uncomfortable, and right now, I don't know if that's the intended effect or something QT mishandled in the process, or maybe even a bit of both.

Apart from the cast and the middle section of the film, what else did I like? The score by Ennio Morricone. Tarantino used new cues and leftover music from Carpenter's The Thing, and it accentuates the deliberate ugliness of this particular film really effectively. Oh, and the Roy Orbison song over the end credits is a killer in the best possible way.

I probably need to see the film again at some point but initially, I thought it's a 7 out of 10 and only just about. Now I feel like, it's definitely more a 6. I like it better than Inglourious Bastards and definitely much better than Death Proof but if this is QT's third-to-last film, I honestly hope he knocks his last two out of the park. Jackie Brown still his best for me by some distance, Django Unchained in second (never cared much for Pulp Fiction although I want to watch it again) and the two Kill Bills combined in third.

[Finch]

Re the negative reviews which I haven't read yet, but wasn't Death Proof his least-liked film up till now?

[Trees]

Caption: "Hateful 8, heavy film. 35 minutes and 40lbs just for this reel."

[mfunk9786]

This was an endurance test of one's capacity for ugliness - it probably has the most in common with Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill as there is a lot of writhing around in a bloody mess and "no one can be trusted" going on here. It's a very clever stage play with elements of startling violence and deus ex machina that really is somehow best enjoyed in the grandeur of the cinema, taking in the gasps and startled moans of your other patrons as the reels unspool. This isn't the most profound or complicated thing Tarantino's done by a long shot, but I haven't gotten such sheer enjoyment out of one of just watching the gears of one his films work in a while. If someone donated an oil tanker of blood to the production of Hitchcock's Rope, maybe it would've looked a little more like this. Really great stuff in my book. The most fun going on at the movies this week.

[beamish13]

This was an incredible experience. Easily Tarantino's most political and zeitgeist-bound work, and this imbues it with a vitality that so many other American films in recent years lack. The closest parallel I can think of is Robert Aldrich's Twilight's Last Gleaming, which is also about desperate people trapped together and reeling from the impact of a hugely divisive war that has left America in shambles.

[movielocke]

might as well repost my thoughts:

No problems at tonight's screening. It is the greatest role / performance of Samuel l Jackson's career and I hope he gets an Oscar for it. Incredible morricone score as well. Pre intermission it's flawless and completely flew by for me, methodical, tense, akin to Melville throughout. Then there's escalation in the second half and it's so intense I'm still digesting my reaction, but this is the closest film to pulp fiction he's done, and probably my second favorite. JJL equally phenomenal, probably will win an Oscar for it.

Edit I'll try to keep this broad and thematic but sort of spoilerish in principle if not in specific details

Spoiler

Most of tarantinos films have gleefully celebrated cinematic violence as thrilling and shocking, his films are often a sort of home run derby of violence for fans of said. That is true here as well, but something is different, profoundly, and it is true and continuous throughout the film. Shortly after the first violence of the film, the knife suddenly twists and suddenly the way the follow up was handled/escalated left me suddenly analyzing MY own reaction from moments earlier, and I think the audience was as well, as the positive audible responses die off around the same time. This pattern repeats throughout the film, and actually sets the template for the severe escalation of the second half, so by the time you reach that point you've been repeatedly primed to think about how you are reacting to the violence portrayed. And for me at least this increased the impact of the second half much more. It is insane, it is stomach churning, it is entertaining, it is horrifying, and I'm mostly horrified at myself. It makes me think about violence and question the senseless casual violence and the film mediums embrace of violence as acceptable, preferable entertainment in a way tarantino's films never really do. The ending is particularly dehumanizing and leaves me recalling really only one film experience I would consider similar: Salo.

To say this film is going to be divisive is understating it quite a lot, the misogynistic attacks are going to be especially severe. The controversy is about to explode I think, natural born killers style. And artistically, I think it might be his strongest work of his career, because it is grappling with these issues so directly and is also directly forcing the audience to confront these issues rather than be merely entertained.

It's intimate, hard hitting violence undermined by a representation of comic grotesque that I think will be the breaking point in audiences hating or loving it. or more controversially rather than describing this as "undermined" you could interpret this as an escalation made as a deliberate critique on the glorification of violence, cinematic or otherwise, in entertainment as embraced by audiences. I think Tarantino wants audiences to be profoundly uncomfortable with themselves watching this film, my takeaway was that he doesn't want an easy watch

[Drucker]

Just got back from a great screening at AMC Lincoln Square in NYC. I have to say I'm mostly in the positive camp about the film. I appreciate what Matrix had to say and read Nick Pinkerton's article and agree with a lot of the sentiment. But I've come to a point with QT's films where I just sit back and enjoy. I don't expect them to be profound or even daring. I'm at the point where I think I can mostly enjoy them

That's not to say they are perfect. Though I need to rewatch them all, they all certainly have moments which kill momentum for me. And I think I've finally figured it out that what drives me crazy is something else a friend of mine and I often discuss about a lot of entertainment which is the need to explain everything sucks a lot of the mystique and often energy out of the show/movie. Two examples that come to mind are Darth Vader in Star Wars and later seasons of Venture Brothers. The former becomes a pathetic character once we get too close to his origins. And the latter, through its first two seasons, builds up a hysterical world of nonsensical super science, only to spend the next few seasons taking that fantasy literally, and in many cases providing unnecessary origin stories to its best bits.

And with that in mind, the big flashback at the second part of this film is unnecessary. At this point in the film, with most of the protagonists developed, explained, and enjoyed, we do not need to know

Spoiler

where there enemies have come from! Especially since it sounds like Samuel L. Jackson has pretty much mostly figured out their whole scheme. If you make it so he knows who every bandit is, rather than using it as a plot device to give Goggins second thoughts later on, you keep their mystique, you keep the fantastic momentum of the film in place, and the runtime goes down a bit.

I'm also a bit surprised some people here are saying the second half of the film is where the film came alive, because I think the entire pre-intermission film was really the most masterful part of it. The time flew by, the landscape shots were gorgeous, and the chemistry between the three leads before they reach the cabin was superb. As the film was building up, I was enraptured and absolutely in love with it, and actually wondered if the payoff would be as great as the res of the film. To me it wasn't, but the first half was absolutely superb. Hell, if it had been the whole film, I would have thought it to be nearly perfect (though

Spoiler

the climax of the story Jackson tells to get Dern's character to shoot was really childish.

Lastly, the film did look beautiful. Interiors and exteriors. The former had plenty of amazing scenes in the cabin with characters comfortably hanging out, biding time, and filling the room out. The compositions were noticeably detailed and intentional, and so a lack of exterior shots was no big deal to me.

This is all to say: Bruce Willis' watch; Mr. Blonde's time in jail after being arrested...for me these parts of these films are absolute momentum killers, that could probably have been done way more efficiently and still had the same effect.

[criterion10]

Movielocke brought up, to me, what is the most interesting aspect of the film: the portrayal of violence. I have to second almost everything he remarked. The Hateful Eight is such a brutal, ugly, and graphic film, so utterly despicable and violent, that for once, it seems as though even Tarantino does not intend for us to sit back, relax, and enjoy ourselves in the way that we might have enjoyed watching The Basterds scalp the Nazis or Django kill the slave owners. I dare anyone to watch that final, climactic moment (brilliantly matched with Ennio Morricone's masterful score) and not look on completely disturbed and horrified.

Though I am at a loss to determine whether or not this violence is merely Tarantino looking to make us suffer or illustrate some greater thematic point. Much has been written about the film's political undertones, but I fail to find much else other than that the (rather simplistic) implication that America was founded upon a racist, misogynistic ideology that has yet to change since the beginning of history. There's a part of me that feels the message (and the development of the story, for that matter) is essentially one, long shaggy-dog joke.

Nonetheless, I did mostly enjoy myself and the 70mm experience, which was mostly projected correctly (the major downfall was that the 2.75:1 aspect ratio was projected within a 1.85:1 frame, thus leaving a large amount of black space at the bottom of the screen). The first half zips by, and I was surprised that it's lengthy, dialogue driven scenes never really felt indulgent to me. (Every cast member is phenomenal by the way, with the highlights being Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and my personal favorite, Walton Goggins.)

Definitely a film I'll need to see again. The highest praise I can give it for the time being is that it does feel like Tarantino is attempting something new and different here than with his past works, and I applaud him for that (especially after the lackluster Django Unchained -- I'll take The Hateful Eight any day of the week over that mess!).

[hearthesilence]

It's odd how a good number of fans of the film here have put forth two polar opposite reactions towards the violence. As I mentioned before, this isn't the first film where Tarantino's violence has become so problematic for me, more like fifth film in a row with The Hateful Eight being the absolute nadir. I'm not really convinced Tarantino's making a statement about the abhorrent nature of this violence - it's possible he's doing so in certain moments, but those feel undermined by too many scenes in this film that derive a lot of gleeful pleasure from physical harm. And as I alluded to before, the same argument could be applicable to much of his recent work. Again, Inglorious Basterds is the first that comes to mind as there were moments where the revenge fantasy was more about matching the Nazis' level of sadism. Then again, that also brings up the greater issue of whether there is really any value in violent revenge, and I've been less and less of a fan since so much of his recent work seems to revolve around the belief that there is.

[criterion10]

I'm not really convinced Tarantino's making a statement about the abhorrent nature of this violence

Spoiler

If he is making a statement, it seems to come together rather fittingly with the reading of the "Lincoln Letter" at the films finale, implying that this endless cycle of violence and revenge that the characters take pleasure in will only further prevent America as a nation from ever achieving a reasonably peaceful society. Note the line in particular in which "Lincoln" praises Jackson's character as being a righteous man, one whom he hopes others will follow in his path. It's obviously meant ironically, given the horrific actions we've seen Jackson commit throughout the film, even more so considering that he fought against the confederacy for obvious reasons. If anything, The Hateful Eight is the first of his films that argues there is no value in violent revenge. (I still need to see the film again to confirm/deny this theory.)

And for the record: I found none of the violence to be even remotely enjoyable -- just think about how awful that flashback sequence is, watching all those innocents killed mercilessly.

[hearthesilence]

Spoiler

If he is making a statement, it seems to come together rather fittingly with the reading of the "Lincoln Letter" at the films finale, implying that this endless cycle of violence and revenge that the characters take pleasure in will only further prevent America as a nation from ever achieving a reasonably peaceful society. Note the line in particular in which "Lincoln" praises Jackson's character as being a righteous man, one whom he hopes others will follow in his path. It's obviously meant ironically, given the horrific actions we've seen Jackson commit throughout the film, even more so considering that he fought against the confederacy for obvious reasons. If anything, The Hateful Eight is the first of his films that argues there is no value in violent revenge. (I still need to see the film again to confirm/deny this theory.)

Spoiler

Bear in mind they also believe that the right thing to do is to hang Jennifer Jason Leigh, a moment that visually is grotesque to look at, even as the two dying men smile in pride of what is supposed to be a killing that honors Kurt Russell's character - a man who makes a living hunting down criminals to be executed. Execution/the death penalty, it's far more about revenge than justice, especially when you look at how it plays out today. That cannot be a sign of a peaceful, civilized society.

Spoiler

And for the record: I found none of the violence to be even remotely enjoyable -- just think about how awful that flashback sequence is, watching all those innocents killed mercilessly.

I wrote about that scene in my previous post, focusing on how it was that repugnant and how it's very problematic partly because the editing (mainly the chronological placement within the story) creates a dubious purpose for it.

[flyonthewall2983]

[Lars Von Truffaut]

My thoughts on this film are most comparable to those of hearthesilence and Finch overall, it being my least favorite (or at least down there with Death Proof and Django Unchained) of Tarantino's films. Like Drucker though, I thought the first half was definitely the highlight. From the opening moments, with the gorgeous cinematography and rich Morricone score, I felt myself hanging on each word of dialogue. The carriage sequence not only worked as great exposition, but had some of the best humor, which flew off the handle in the second half.

Spoiler

One of my favorites being the sequence where Major Warren smiles as he meets Daisy for the first time, spitting off the side of the wagon... setting up her reaction to the Lincoln letter.

Once we got to Minnie's Haberdashery, things simmered but the tension kept my interest until the closing payoff leading to intermission. While there were a few great lines delivered that seemed to touch on the themes of justice in the first half (especially from Tim Roth, who gave my favorite performance), by the second half all of what's built in the first seems to be thrown out the window.

I expected JJL, who I thought gave a very committed performance in an underwritten role, to rise up and show some sort of strength...

Spoiler

Instead, she is a woman who is constantly abused. A woman who is first portrayed as a bad ass outlaw... who is really just one of many bandits in her brothers gang. A woman who needs someone else to save her. A woman who's price on her head is the least amount (ok, the same as John Gage) of any of the others present. Perhaps this is Tarantino's commentary on the female role in society

I expected SLJ to show some depth...

Spoiler

There were a few quieter moments, but by and large Jackson never escapes the intense vs. wisecracking moments that weigh him down here (and that he consistently and effortlessly has displayed in every role since the mid-2000s). I am shocked to hear people talk of this as a career role or the best of the year. I don't think it's the best in this film or his best in a Tarantino movie. By the time his balls were shot off I felt bad for him. Not because of the plight of his character, but because I knew that this may end up being the role for which he is best remembered. After so many films together, I hoped that Jackson's first starring role for Tarantino wasn't one tethered to race and the color of his skin. And if it had to be this way, that QT gave him a multifaceted character with much to say on the subject. It appears some on this forum got that. Sadly, I did not.

I expected Tarantino to finally break through with the form he began tinkering with in Inglorious Basterds & later Django Unchained...

Spoiler

Instead, this felt like a de-evolution. He continues to be the worst actor in his films, this time without even being a physical presence. The flashback sequence is completely unnecessary and undercuts the momentum that has come before. The explosion of blood and vomit rises to the surface, as whatever remnants of potential political/social commentary gets eschewed for gags, guts, and gore.

I'm glad the film has champions in movielocke and criterion10. Reading some of these comments is veering me in the direction of wanting to take another look at this film, which after my first viewing didn't seem like it was in the cards. I also find it interesting that your theater experiences involved feeling disgust and contempt for the violence being shown. I saw this at the Music Box in Chicago. The reception there was vastly different. Lots of laughing and cackling throughout, especially for some of the most grotesque sequences. By the end most people were giving a standing ovation! And here I sat, one of maybe 3 or 4 people of color in a sold out theater... What was the rest of the audience getting out of H8 that I wasn't? Was this Tarantino's intention? It wasn't the ugliness that affected me, as some of my favorite films are those by Pasolini, von Trier, Bertolucci, Stone, Haneke, etc. The difference was in those films I never felt I had to question whether the social implications were intended. They just existed in the flow of the film.

The first 70 mm film I saw at Music Box was The Master. QT has often said that he has no peer, but the closest thing would be his friend, PTA. Like H8, there are parts of Anderson's film that were confounding and made me aware that I would likely be struggling with long after the movie had ended. But unlike Tarantino's film, I was captivated throughout. I could see what Anderson was aiming at with his commentary and his characters motivations. His musical set piece, for instance, did not seem obtrusive.

Spoiler

(What was JJL playing guitar and singing her song if not navel gazing? Did QT himself not explicitly just state what had/was going to happen? Like we weren't aware of the depth of field without all the added focus ins and outs or the eventual 2nd verse stating the obvious...)

"Slow Boat to China" was a kick in the gut, powerful and unsettling, a master stroke by a master filmmaker.

[BrianInAtlanta]

Looking over the reviews and some of the discussion here, I'd say defenders of The Hateful Eight" are seeing messages that seem a stretch considering what's on the screen. A bit of wishful thinking, perhaps? ("a great filmmaker can't do all this great filmmaking just to wallow in a shallow bloodbath, can he? It must mean something?").

I know it's a cliché, but I couldn't get out of my head afterwards the thought that if Jason-Leigh, instead of being covered in blood and gore, had had a couple of dollops of semen on her face, the movie would have been considered too offensive to be shown.

[Ribs]

Okay but that didn't happen because it would have been too offensive to be shown and also because it didn't happen. The above statement is true about every movie. If The Prince of Tides had ended with Barbra Streisand covered in Semen it too would have been considered too offensive.

The idea of deriding Tarantino for making a deeply, intrinsically meaningful film for the first time since (possibly?) Pulp Fiction is ludicrous. This is a message movie, through-and-through, and that's to be admired for somebody who's made good albeit upsettingly slight films for several decades since he rose to prominence.

I think the violence and inherent sexism does go a little too far but I absolutely do not think it's meant to condone it nor do I think you're meant to think it was still right to have happened come the film's conclusion.

[oh yeah]

I know it's a cliché, but I couldn't get out of my head afterwards the thought that if Jason-Leigh, instead of being covered in blood and gore, had had a couple of dollops of semen on her face, the movie would have been considered too offensive to be shown.

Okay, I know I'm contributing nothing to the discussion here but I just have to say that this is definitely a contender for post of the year... and it's January 1.

[mfunk9786]

And I would say that Ribs' reply was better than that.

[DarkImbecile]

The idea of deriding Tarantino for making a deeply, intrinsically meaningful film for the first time since (possibly?) Pulp Fiction is ludicrous. This is a message movie, through-and-through, and that's to be admired for somebody who's made good albeit upsettingly slight films for several decades since he rose to prominence.

Tangential to the much more compelling conversation re: Hypothetical Semen on Film, but Inglourious Basterds has many intrinsically meaningful points to make on political and personal violence.

As for this film, as usual, I enjoyed much of the aesthetics and style Tarantino brings to The Hateful Eight, especially the exterior cinematography and score, but found the thematic value to fall somewhere in between Basterds on the high end and Django on the low end in this period trilogy. There are definitely some salient points being made around the Lincoln letter and the palpable post-war tensions, but the radical shift in tone after the first half (which I also found excellent and superior to what follows) was distracting enough that I wasn't able to process these to the extent others here were able to, it appears. I also agree that the flashback was overly disruptive to the narrative and only useful in giving background to justify the presence of an actor who doesn't appear in the first half of the film. Overall, though, the film was definitely engaging and entertaining enough to return to in order to revisit and tease out some of the more problematic and/or subtle elements, and packed with entertaining actors tearing into Tarantino's always rich dialogue.

[criterion10]

Inglourious Basterds has many intrinsically meaningful points to make on political and personal violence.

I'd argue -- at least evident with the progression of his career -- that these points were included unintentionally. (Though whether or not this matters is an entirely separate matter.)

[Ribs]

I think I can say pretty uncontroversially that the "possibly" was referring to Inglorious Basterds primarily with the possibility of Jackie Brown as another message movie (in that case, one way more subtle than this or Pulp Fiction, if so, mind). I think it's really clearly a very important movie to Tarantino but I personally don't really take any grander ideas away from it. Totally just me, though.

Both Hateful Eight and Pulp Fiction hit you over the head with it in their closing sequence(s), which is totally fine. Django also has a message pretty clearly in its closing act at the least but it's not exactly an elaborate one so I can't really place it on the same level of Tarantino's greater works.

For what it's worth I was mildly disappointed with the second half of this one as well but it's absolutely improved in the few days since as I've thought it over in my head. I haven't disliked a Tarantino yet and I'm not totally sure of my final thoughts on this but I think it'll be placed somewhere in the top half.

[How rude!]

Inglourious Basterds has many intrinsically meaningful points to make on political and personal violence.

I'd argue -- at least evident with the progression of his career -- that these points were included unintentionally. (Though whether or not this matters is an entirely separate matter.)

Totally agree. I've given up hope of Tarantino maturing as a filmmaker. Technically, no doubt. He can be a clever writer, but all of his self-penned films have all been film-fan love-ins. He 'borrows' so much that I now just prefer to just watch the original. Inglourious Basterds was the last straw for me. An awful film, apart from the opening scene. Haven't seen the latest, but when you lose patience with an artist you once admired, you quite often have to draw a line in the sand. Law of averages dictate he must 'reinvent' the sci-fi genre next.

[oh yeah]

And I would say that Ribs' reply was better than that.

Oh yeah, I'm with you. Sarcasm over the internet and all that... I'll butt out of here now.