A Period Piece .... Ahead of its Hour; Psychosexual Inhibition vs. Quietistic Racial Prejudice

Rating: 8/10 (30 January 2016)

I've read just about every 1 star review of this film. Beside noting that most of them are from accounts less than a month old (as of January 2016), even more notable is their dearth of insight whatsoever. "Absolute garbage" they exclaim. "Smelly garbage" they bellow from behind thumbed noses in single-paragraph adolescence.
Even if you can't appreciate the subtler aspects of cinema, such as composition and use of color (no please, not the n****r word), surely these surly reviewers must've noted Tarantino's use of on-screen space, his blocking of actors, and the invisible in-character reactions they have to each small development. Easily more apparent; Quentin's film may be set at a single set, but it has more compositional variety than 19/20 movies made. Bar editing, composition is the most psychically evocative element of emotive visual storytelling. Quentin is a virtuoso in this department, never more palpably than with this film.
Most drone on about how the smart introspective dialogue drones on. They must prefer the ear-drilling tunes of clunk like "Directly under enemy scrotum" from Transformers X, or perhaps even "I like the way you die, boy" from Tarantino's precedent masterpiece, which they can quote the next day at work even without context.
Consider the verse "Considering all the things I done for money, I ain't one to judge but...don't you feel just the least little bad about hangin' a woman?" Chris Mannix. OR " Ain't you got mixed emotions about bringin' a woman to a rope?" Major Warren.
Those two lines betray the deep, multi-layered irony in the final shot of the film.
It's Tarantino inviting us to inspect the apparent misogyny the film is deceptively wrapped in. The responses to both characters, from two others (Ruth and Mobray) relay the head and tail of the same misogynistic beast; To Ruth, Domergue's lack of grace disqualifies her femininity as an emotive, self-restrictive tool. To Mobray, womanhood has no bearing on the gravity of an atrocity. She isn't a woman to Ruth, and Mobray couldn't care that she is. Mobray is the dispassionate of the two. But then again...there is no Mobray.
The "dispassion is the very essence of justice" monologue is another twist of the contemplative knife; it's the verbal setup for eventual situational irony, a reciprocal of Pulp Fiction's "Marsellus Wallace don't like to be fu*ked by anybody, except Mrs. Wallace." It's a continuation of the subtle thematic lifeline that runs through Quentin's filmography: He creates the characters, they write themselves a plot, he writes the Story--and the three elements never align, into a contrived Third-Act eclipse.
When a character gets his head bloodily brecciated, it's not only over-the-top Quentinry, it's a story-point. That's how elaborate the scheme is. The characters talk and talk and poeticize their pasts. Sure, it isn't as electric as Tarantino's former poesy (Come on, give the 1870s characters a break; they haven't heard 'Like a Virgin', been to Amsterdam or been in a pilot of Fox Force Five yet) but the film reaches a new laid back, naturalistic real-time feel to it. It's Quentin's coziest film yet.
The "beggin' for his life" monologue by Major Warren, too, is full of ingenious touches; "I grabbed me a handful of that black hair at the back of his head" is double-edged. General Smithers as objectively observed has a (genetic or geriatric) white head of hair, so it's a two-way bet on whether his son would be or wouldn't be black-haired. Then, phenotypically, most male, Black humans don't have a handful of hair at the back of their heads, so that dips the icy pin further in some thematic racial poison. Plus, it's full of the fanciful tautologies Tarantino is famous for: "When I knew me I had the son.....I knew me I was gon' have some fun." Smile.
To earn this monologue (and its aftermath), Smithers romanticizes his racism saying; "I don't know that n*g*er, but I know he's a n*g*er; and that's all I need to know." How many writers, from any epoch, in any medium, can pack so much character and so much of a character's world-view into such a neat, pithy epigram? A shortlist, with Tarantino close to its helm.
Basterds and Django were satisfying, even at first-watch, because of how exuberantly executed they were. Second-watch proved the films more ruminative. With The Hateful Eight....its most thought-provoking meta-aspect is witnessing all the under-observed wrawling of witling naysayers: "Ooh, it gave me crucifix-nightmares! Ultra-talky! Made me THROW UP! It's a snuff film!" They've accrued a blunting critical irony now. To quote Major Warren: "Hahaahahahaha, Whooo!"
It's a sad moment for filmmaking that this masterly mood piece gets vituperated not out of objective outrage, but because The 8th film by Quentin Tarantino doesn't have the epic chic nor end with a fiery explosion in the tradition of his 6th and 7th. When my grandkids ask I'll tell them.... I'll tell them the story of how Grande Cinema died. It wasn't due to dumb directors telling silly effects-stories, no. It was a murder committed by impatient audiences.
A warm kiss, and a loving 8/10 for The Hateful Eight.