The Hateful 8 Reel Deal: Movies that Matter Review

THE HATEFUL EIGHT director Quentin Tarantino  

THE HATEFUL EIGHT Quentin Tarantino’s 8th film which he shot in 70 millimeter is a heart stoppingly beautiful to watch and in many moments is horrifying to see. There is no question about  the filmmaking talent of Tarantino.  But I,  unlike so many of his fans, I can not distance myself from his brutal treatment of women. In the HATEFUL EIGHT Jennifer Jason Leigh is shamefully punched full frontal on the mouth complete with blood and teeth flying a number of times. While it does have the surface shock of say a Robert Crumb graphic comic, it still seems to me to say that Tarantino is still stuck in the emotional life of a smart 14 year old boy who simply is afraid of women and uses outrageous and violent humor to temper his anxiety, Misogyny has never been absent from any of his films. It amazes me how smart critics male and female are able to distant themselves from what is actually visually happening on the screen. Unlike the French art film The Ritual which explores sm consensual adult behavior (the physical behavior is modulated within very strict boundaries), Tolentino, no matter what the  positions he takes on police violence and institutional racism in the outside world, in his films I believe desensitizes the viewer to how sexism works by layering all his highly developed craft skills on top of physical violence towards women. THE HATEFUL EIGHT  in actuality is not a “snuff” movie, but it sets the stage for the continued acceptability of violence against women in a heightened dramatic and comic motif. This is not a spoiler but a warning that does not take away from Tarantino’s highly skilled  control of cinematic craft .