Sadly, we cannot undo the unconscionable acts propelled by racism and sexism throughout our history. A large part of fixing these problems is coming to grips with what actually occurred. Viscerally experiencing the shameful humiliations is a good start. In The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino, never one to shy away from harsh realities, holds a mirror to some of the crassest and most unmerciful forms of denial of human dignity.
Draping his hate-filled, postbellum tale around a classic Western genre, Tarantino intensifies the proceedings with glorious Super Panavision 70mm cinematography and a score from spaghetti western veteran Enrico Morricone. The Hateful Eight is meant to be seen on the widest screen possible. Ironically, much of the film takes place in one room, Minnie’s Haberdashery, a roadside rest stop set amidst a Wyoming blizzard.
Samuel L Jackson, in his strongest role in many years, stars as Major Marquis Warren, a former Union soldier and now bounty hunter. Kurt Russell also portrays a bounty hunter, John Ruth, who, at the film’s outset, is taking prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Red Rock to be hanged. A stranded Warren wants a ride on Ruth’s stagecoach. Pretty soon Chris Mannix (an excellent Walter Goggins), who claims to be the incoming sheriff of Red Rock, also wants to hitch a lift.
Once inside Minnie’s they are joined by a grumpy Confederate general (an intense Bruce Dern), a prideful Mexican named Bob (Demian Bichir), a slick hangman named Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), and a quiet cowpoke (Michael Madsden). Leigh, who is riveting, does more with a wince than other actors do with pages of dialogue. A woman of few words, she cackles and taunts with as much menace as the gun-toting alpha men who surround her.
While film portrayals often detoxify racism, wrapping it in cliches and rendering it sanitized and meaningless, Tarantino tells it like it is. The rampant racism (and sexism) of The Hateful Eight is so startling and immediate that it retains its potency. Naysayers make the claim Tarantino is actually glorifying treachery. My thinking is that such an important subject begs the viewer to get down and dirty with it in order to come out of the other side of the film with an understanding of the depth of the problem.