A spoiler-free thematic analysis

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2016)

There is a scene near the beginning of, The Hateful Eight, where, to prevent one of our intrepid anti-heroes getting lost if it became necessary to venture from the relative safety of the building in which they are holed up to the outhouse—which was some distance away—a "rope line" was made between them because of the ensuing white-out conditions of the on-going blizzard. This consisted of a man laboriously pounding stake after stake in the snow and threading a rope through a loop at the top of them. The scene is several minutes long. And Tarantino uses the epic scope of Ultra Panavison and his razor-sharp 65mm lens in an intimate manner, putting us right in the snow with the character. We feel the freezing wind sting our faces and sweat under our parkas. Narratively, though, the scene seems wholly unnecessary. We do not need to see the rope line built to know it has been. And neither it, nor the outhouse, really figure much into the rest of the story (not to say they don't at all). Nonetheless, beyond even helping establish the fierceness of the storm, the building of the rope line is one of the most important scenes in the film. It serves an essential purpose. In fact, if one fails to understand the significance of it, a full understanding and appreciation of the film on a thematic level is not possible—regardless of how much one actually enjoys watching it.
There is a temporally long, but slow-moving tack and pan that opens the film. This establishes a non-static image which rhymes thematically and visually with an image near the film's conclusion. And there is something very significant about the samenesses and differences between the foregrounds and backgrounds of those two shots. Similarly, as in the previous example, if one does not grasp this, one really cannot fully understand the film thematically, if at all. Oh, sure, you can still enjoy the it. If you've liked Tarantino's previous work, odds are you will enjoy this, too. However, it could get a little draggy for you if you don't have a good feel for why we are, basically, spending three hours in a room with a bunch of people who, for most of the film, just do a lot of talking.
In this analysis, I am endeavoring to only say things not mentioned by others so, for example, I am not going to mention things like Ennio Morricone's wonderful score, or Robert Richardson's dazzling cinematography, or Courtney Hoffman's sumptuous costuming—except in passing. . . Now, without giving anything away, over the course of the film, several people enter a room that is emblematic of a world where there is no moral compass. (Did it ever have one? Was it lost? How?) At the film's conclusion, one has been forged. The problems along the way are uniquely American, as is their ultimate solution. Issues like race, identity, the nature of history of truth, of performance, etc. are encountered along the way.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell you why the opening and closing images are so important, nor why the rope line scene is so key, without spoiling the film for you—or, at least, without imposing my own interpretation. Bu trust me. They are. Tarantino certainly thinks so. He appears twice in action as a director in the large, glorious theater program that one receives if one attends the "roadshow" that is showing the film's 70mm print. In the two page image one encounters upon first opening the program, he is shown filming the rope line scene. The last photograph in the program is of him creating the film's opening image, the one that was discussed. (He only appears one other time in the program, in a small picture of him talking to an actor.)
So you have your clues. Go be a sleuth—for art! Also, try to get to the roadshow. They have not made a 70mm Ultra Panavison narrative film in fifty years. Seeing it is, quite literally, the chance of a lifetime.