proximoception (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
proximoception) wrote2017-01-25 11:17 am
proximoception) wrote2017-01-25 11:17 am
(no subject)
Watched The Hateful Eight. All comments on last several Tarantino movies still apply. He loves revenge, gross shock-violence, situations where it's unclear who will kill who first, the effect of suspense on how time's perceived, confident and eccentric posturing by armed people, overtly stealing from movies from 1965 to 1990 concerned with any of the above, shoutouts to other countries and their people, stereotypes and slurs, longwinded explanations, deliberately stupid humor, stories told out of order, highlighting the artificiality of filmmaking, and when racists and (very secondarily) sexists die horribly. And that is pretty much the extent of his interests.
He does seem to be offering some kind of moral hierarchy here. The evil gang cares only about one another and is fine with murdering strangers; Tatum embodies the family feeling aspect of this mindset, Leigh how uncivilized it is. We also learn the racist General (who broke treaties concerning the treatment of surrendered soldiers in his massacre of captured blacks) is pretty much on their page because he doesn't care about even the whites of Wyoming. Unrepentant tribalists, then. Jackson killed the white Union prisoners while saving himself and Goggins killed blacks in what his group considered an extension of the War, but both accept the need for the rule of law - in peacetime, people must not be punished for who they are or what they might yet do but only for what they have done. Russell takes this slightly further: those wanted dead or alive must be taken in alive, even if clearly guilty, so that a principle that guards the rights of the innocent is upheld. Roth's speech is presumably meant to show his contempt for the law on the grounds that it's arbitrary, but the point isn't for the hangman to be impartial but for those deciding on the punishment to be. The hanging of Leigh is conducted by two people agreeing why she's to be hung: because she's a "mean bastard," i.e. will characteristically hurt others regardless of their having done nothing to her. Tarantino loves hateful characters and racial stereotypes, given his dumb obsessions, so I guess this is his laborious way of separating out hate that can be endorsed and hate that can't. Since even modern Nazis like that guy who got punched tend to at least hypothetically accept equality before the law, though, I'm not sure who else but Tarantino this lesson is useful for.
He does seem to be offering some kind of moral hierarchy here. The evil gang cares only about one another and is fine with murdering strangers; Tatum embodies the family feeling aspect of this mindset, Leigh how uncivilized it is. We also learn the racist General (who broke treaties concerning the treatment of surrendered soldiers in his massacre of captured blacks) is pretty much on their page because he doesn't care about even the whites of Wyoming. Unrepentant tribalists, then. Jackson killed the white Union prisoners while saving himself and Goggins killed blacks in what his group considered an extension of the War, but both accept the need for the rule of law - in peacetime, people must not be punished for who they are or what they might yet do but only for what they have done. Russell takes this slightly further: those wanted dead or alive must be taken in alive, even if clearly guilty, so that a principle that guards the rights of the innocent is upheld. Roth's speech is presumably meant to show his contempt for the law on the grounds that it's arbitrary, but the point isn't for the hangman to be impartial but for those deciding on the punishment to be. The hanging of Leigh is conducted by two people agreeing why she's to be hung: because she's a "mean bastard," i.e. will characteristically hurt others regardless of their having done nothing to her. Tarantino loves hateful characters and racial stereotypes, given his dumb obsessions, so I guess this is his laborious way of separating out hate that can be endorsed and hate that can't. Since even modern Nazis like that guy who got punched tend to at least hypothetically accept equality before the law, though, I'm not sure who else but Tarantino this lesson is useful for.