If you’re lucky enough to live around one of the 100 theaters showing the limited-run 70mm print of Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” don’t miss it. It’s something that hasn’t been done in over 50 years; an extended version of a film before its wider theatrical release in a presentation that’s the best kind of Christmas present for a die-hard moviegoer.
Without boring you in explaining the technological benefits of 70mm film with the added visual and sound elements we’re accustomed to missing in our evolving digital age (sharper detail, wider framing, additional audio tracks), watching this exclusive engagement of “Eight” subconsciously reminded me of what I’ve also missed- going to a movie theater and feeling like I was actually attending a theatre: no preamble of previews, just an OVERTURE red-and-black frame of a stagecoach in front of mountains playing Ennio Morricone’s musical score to announce the start of the picture; after about 90 minutes and “Eight’s” first outburst of violence, a neat segue into a 15-minute INTERMISSION concluding with Morricone’s music signaling people back to their seats for the second-half of the movie. While cost-cutting measures and outdated equipment seemingly had this formatted-style of exhibition lost forever, Tarantino and the Weinstein Co. have lovingly recreated it to make this a truly special event. Of course, all of this praise would be irrelevant if “The Hateful Eight” wasn’t a good movie. For Tarantino fans, it doesn’t disappoint. In this special 70mm presentation, the experience makes “Eight” great.
The story of “The Hateful Eight” begins with a six-horse stagecoach outrunning a blizzard sweeping across a snowy post-Civil War Wyoming wasteland. Aboard the coach is bounty hunter John “Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) escorting his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the town of Red Rock for Ruth to collect the $10,000 bounty on murderous Daisy’s head. The stagecoach’s path is blocked by three dead bodies, neatly stacked and topped with a saddle upon which sits another bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson). Warren and Ruth have met before and differ on their methods of capturing fugitives ‘dead or alive:’ Warren prefers them dead; “Hangman” Ruth takes them alive to watch them swing. Protective of his bounty, suspicious of Warren, and hampered by the blizzard’s onslaught barring safe passage to Red Rock, Ruth strikes a tenuous bargain with Warren: he’ll safely bring Warren to an outpost en route to Red Rock- Minnie’s Haberdashery- in exchange for both men protecting each other’s bounty. Striking a deal and loading Warren’s bountied bodies atop the stagecoach, Warren, Ruth and Daisy find another stranger along the way, the newly-appointed sheriff of Red Rock, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). They have to take Mannix aboard the coach also- as Red Rock’s sheriff, he pays Ruth’s bounty.
Tensions quickly build within the confines of the coach: Warren is a black Union officer; Mannix a white Confederate soldier. In addition to the obvious conflicts of race and divided loyalties, Mannix reveals to Ruth that Warren himself has a bounty on his head for setting fire to a West Virginia POW camp- in wanting to see some rebels burn, Warren accidently killed some Union men as well. As Ruth wonders how newly-realized war criminal Warren can carry a personal handwritten letter from Abraham Lincoln, his paranoia in protecting his bounty on Daisy quickly escalates. When the group arrives at Minnie’s, Minnie is conspicuously absent; in her place are four men: Minnie’s caretaker Bob (Demien Bichir), Red Rock hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), and Joe Gage (Michael Madsen). Already shaken in his dubious knowledge of Warren, Ruth must now try to figure out the real identities and motives of the four men at Minnie’s- are they random refugees from a raging snowstorm or deliberate strangers placed to spring Daisy? To protect his bounty, Ruth needs answers fast. Just as the innate conflicts between Warren and Mannix threaten to turn Minnie’s into a potential powder keg, dread slowly begins to take hold as the first basic question needs answering – where the hell is Minnie?
All is slowly revealed with “Eight” and it has all the hallmarks of what you love about Tarantino’s work: good actors playing interesting characters (Leigh as Daisy is particularly impressive bringing emotion to Daisy’s evolution), intriguing subplots, clever dialogue and trademark surprising shock-fueled violence. Watching people vomit blood or having their faces blown off from gunfire isn’t for everyone but, for Tarantino fans, it’s that macabre, grotesque humor that keeps us coming back.
But it was really the experience of watching this 70mm presentation of “Eight” that was the standout for me- it’s a cinematic structure rarely seen and a gift you shouldn’t deny yourself.