The Hateful Eight

This horse operatic Grand Guignol (aka splatter movie) opens on a snow-covered agonized wooden Christ and closes on Roy Orbison’s antiwar dirge, “There Won’t be Many Coming Home.”  That frame suits a story of damned souls in a nation still at war. 

In between, not only does everyone get killed but there’s a flashback where even more get killed. Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film plays at being hateful but it’s epic, bloody, dramatic, with a sense off fun and a reverence for pulp cinema. It’s about hate.

Specifically it’s about the racial divide still going strong long after the end of the Civil War. As peace-making Mowbray remarks: “Gentlemen, I know Americans aren't apt to let a little thing like unconditional surrender get in the way of a good war….” (That could be the slogan for the next Republican convention.) 

Only one of the main characters does not refer to the Samuel Jackson character as “nigger.” Even the characters who like and admire him do. The bounty hunter says “Now, girl, don't you know darkies don't like being called niggers no more? They find it offensive.”

This period piece actually reflects upon the racism still percolating through the United States — not just “despite” having the first black president but “in response to it.” “Give us back our country,” quoth Sarah Palin, in redneck code. This film is about racism now, not just then. You hear it when people of all stripes say “I just hate Obama” as if they disputed his policies. 

“The nigger in the stable has a letter from Abraham Lincoln!?!?!” The line is repeated, incredulous. He does have a letter and it works to disarm the supposedly superior whites. As Warren says, “The only time black folks are safe, is when white folks is disarmed.” And this letter has the desired effect. It gets him on the stage. But as he admits, the black man wrote it himself. A parting reference to Mary Todd is “a nice touch,” he smiles.
     But it works, like the 20th Century civil rights movement worked to legitimize black citizenship in America. But it didn’t work completely, as our continuing slaughter of black citizens daily proves. As the new white sheriff remarks, “'Cuz when niggers are scared, that's when white folks are safe.“

The white man’s sexual fear of the negro plays in the hero’s report of the southern general’s son’s death and in the hero later having his balls shot off. Here even the heroic and successful black man is ultimately emasculated. It’s the black guy, by the way, who has the logical and deductive skills to solve the mystery. In a delightful irony, the emasculated black hero ensures that the murderess is well hung. Well, “hanged,” properly speaking, but they do say “hung.”
     The story is told in chapters, with a narrator providing a flashback, to impose a formal rhythm on the unfolding carnage. It’s a bracing reminder of America’s unfinished business.