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The Hateful Eight: Minnie's Haberdashery

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In The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino continues with his production of movies that yield high entertainment value through his visceral filmmaking style. Hateful’s plot structure and setting enables some of Tarantino’s most instrumental and signature traits to shine. The largely confined location, a stagecoach lodge in post-Civil War Wyoming, known as Minnie’s Haberdashery, creates an insulated atmosphere that places the entirety of the audience and film’s focus on the events occurring within the lodge. The emphasis on what takes place within the lodge necessitates that the actors create immersive characters. Tarantino’s need for compelling actors leads him to many fascinating casting decisions. In the eye’s of Tarantino, these casting …show more content…

The film is split into chapters, and in large part, those chapters focus on the occurrences surrounding Minnie’s. The introduction of the film does include a stage coach ride to Minnie’s, but ultimately, Tarantino’s intention was to tell a tale about, “Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room […]. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens” (Fleming). As a result, Hateful crafts a tense and intimate ambiance, that is the driving force behind the film. To further ensure that this mood is rooted throughout the film, Tarantino integrates frequent camera shots that serve to encapsulate the beauty, but also inherent danger and solitude of the mountainous Wyoming landscape. Tarantino uses the environment as both the catalyst to the film’s plot, and an inhibitor of any external forces, reinforcing the singular focus on what is happening within the room and between the …show more content…

Tarantino is known for his infusion of both character actors and personality stars into his films. The vibrancy and excess that is present both on screen and within the dialogue requires actors who can portray a wide spectrum of emotions and exuberance. Samuel L. Jackson, a personality star based upon his ability to convey machismo and passion, is a frequent presence in Tarantino film’s for this reason. Tarantino’s dialogue and scene setting enables the character’s personalities to thrive on-screen. For this reason, Tarantino will often use the same actors over the course of his career, as he is comfortable with their ability to add layers and intrigue to their characters. In Hateful, some of the actors that appeared in other Tarantino films include, Jackson, Kurt Russell, Michael Madsen, and Tim Roth. The repeat use of actors also allows for the potential of better cast chemistry, which can be incredibly beneficial to realistic, conversational dialogue between the characters. In the case of Hateful, this realism extends to the frequent usage of the n-word, although relative to his prior film, Django Unchained, the number would seem

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