Tarantino’s ‘Hateful Eight’ an homage to cinema’s exhibition glory days

Quentin Tarantino is at it again with “The Hateful Eight,” his love letter to old westerns, out this week on DVD and Blu-ray.

When the film debuted in theaters in December, it arrived with all the subtlety of a nun at a Motley Crue concert. Much was made of the film’s presentation – it was shot in the almost extinct Ultra Panavision 70 format (meaning it has an ultrawide aspect ratio), something reserved in the past for epics such as “Lawrence of Arabia” or “Ben-Hur.”

Before the film’s wide release, it played in larger markets in a “roadshow” tour. That original version of the film was more than three hours long, started with a musical overture and included an intermission and even a souvenir program. It was Tarantino’s homage to the grand film exhibition style popularized during the 1950s and ’60s, when watching a movie was an experience.

Such a grand spectacle wasn’t surprising coming from Tarantino, who seems content to revel in cinema’s yesteryears, putting his own spin on spaghetti westerns, kung fu flicks and blaxploitation movies.

Much work went into shooting “The Hateful Eight” in Ultra Panavision 70 (actually shot with 65mm lenses, which are extremely rare). Panavision had a total of 18 Ultra Panavision lenses available, according to Wired magazine, of which only one was usable. The rest had to be painstakingly refurbished.

And then there was the problem of actually showing the film. Most theaters today have digital projectors. To show “The Hateful Eight” in Super Panavision 70 on actual film, 100 theaters had to install special projectors and perform special training for projectionists. (Technical problems were widely reported.)

After finally seeing “The Hateful Eight,” I have to wonder: Was it worth all the trouble?

But first, the film’s plot: The time is just after the Civil War in wintry Wyoming, where we meet a bounty hunter named Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), who stumbles onto the stagecoach of another bounty hunter, John “The Hangman” Ruth (an elaborately mustached Kurt Russell) and his fugitive prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh, sporting a nasty black eye) and asks for a ride. He hops on, and they try to find shelter from an impending blizzard. They stop at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a sort of “truck stop” for stagecoaches located on a mountain pass, and meet four strangers. Danger ensues.

The film certainly starts out picturesque, with sweeping snowy vistas (it was shot in Colorado) that lend themselves to the Super 70 format. But the majority of the film takes place inside Minnie’s Haberdashery. So why use 70mm?

Tarantino addressed that question at Comic-Con last year, saying he was “looking forward to my movie breaking that notion that 70mm is for travelogues. It’s to shoot ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ desertscapes and mountainscapes. No. When you shoot 70mm indoors, it’s more intimate. More vivid and vital. It’s not just for shooting scenery. It’s for shooting great drama.”

But is “The Hateful Eight” great drama?

There is a good deal of suspense, and it’s certainly well-acted (Leigh received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination). And typically Tarantino, it’s certainly brutal.

But it’s too long, even the theatrical version, which was trimmed down to a whopping two hours and 45 minutes from the roadshow version. It’s told in several “chapters,” and there’s a lot of talking, even for a Tarantino flick. It all seems a tad ... unfocused.

There are highlights, most certainly. The third act packs a wallop. But overall, “The Hateful Eight” lacks the urgency and energy of Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” or his magnum opus, “Pulp Fiction.” It’s not bad, mind you, just not great.

But in the end, I can’t really see that shooting it in Panavision 70 added that much to the film’s look. Most people won’t notice any difference. Director of photography Robert Richardson did receive an Oscar nomination for his work. He certainly lit Minnie’s Haberdashery beautifully with lots of glowing backlight, which is interesting considering the actual light source in the space would really come from just the fireplaces and candles.

I suspect shooting the film in Panavision 70 was more of a checklist thing for Tarantino, and he can mark that off now. Nevertheless, he remains an interesting filmmaker. You have to champion his spirit and love of cinema.

In that regard, I wonder what he’ll want to check off next.

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 9:18 AM with the headline "Tarantino’s ‘Hateful Eight’ an homage to cinema’s exhibition glory days."