H8ful Eight does not disappoint

It’s that time of year again: the time when you absolutely resist putting on clothing warm enough to brave winter’s breath and step outside for anything other than necessary, until you’re either too hungry or too late for class to keep stalling. The ONLY thing that makes January a month worth recognizing is the movie scene, because you and I both know you’ll go to a place that is warm and serves food.

Wouldn’t you like to see a movie worth watching for all that trouble? Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” falls outside of the major blockbusters of the Christmas season. It doesn’t appeal to children. Your grandmother probably wouldn’t find it amusing And it certainly doesn’t come with its own Disney-inspired merchandise.  Tarantino’s eighth film, ‘Hateful’ began as a simple live reading performed one evening in the L.A. hills, and struck a chord so hard the director began the two-year process of making it into what it is now: a masterpiece. He and his crew took on the monster task of resurrecting 70mm Ultra Panavision film, a very rare and exceptional format of camera that captures an incredible aspect ratio of 2.76:1. Ultra-Panavision 70 provides a much wider and more detailed image, and it has been defunct in Hollywood since the wide-screen movies of the 1960s.

I was lucky enough to catch the ‘Roadshow’ in Portland – the movie’s promoters are hauling that behemoth projector and screen all over the country at certain stops, so that a select few diehards (like me) may watch it in its original state. I have to tell you, I’ve never seen a screen any bigger. Tarantino uses every inch of it  to tell the story – a group of travelers with different missions who all end up in Minnie’s Haberdashery, a bleak little cabin in a raging Wyoming blizzard, circa 1870. Explaining more would feel like I’m giving away secrets. The script is tight here, with only a few characters and more than enough dialogue to keep you quoting certain points of the story long after. Classic Tarantino style dictates that the mystery evolves slowly, and the director himself is actually in the film, in some fashion.

There are few great Westerns these days with a score so haunting – normally you’d end up with Spaghetti-Western type music, an overload of gunshot sounds, and an overarching feel that ‘Western’-type movies are now just parodies of Western-type movies. Ennico Morricone, legendary maestro, took on ‘Hateful’ after a 40-year break of doing Westerns, perhaps just for that fact. A bright, crisp and non-sentimental score adds richness to the wintry backdrop of Minnie’s.

The experience of seeing a film, really appreciating its history and the effort it took to create, lent even more of my respect to Tarantino, a man whose crazy visions happily turn themselves into reality for the rest of us to devour.

A fair warning to those of you brave enough to watch: You will not be able to ‘un-see’ the scenes you will see. Tarantino is known for his violence! You will picture the most poignant parts of the film – you may thank the crispness of Panavision – when you least expect it. My stepmother, God bless her, has a little Bible school nursery rhyme she’d like to sing about the devil, how he likes to get into our heads through what we witness. ‘Be careful, little eyes, what you see… there’s a Father up above, and he’s looking down in love, so be careful, little eyes, what you see…’ .

Advocate Staff