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Forum namePass The Popcorn
Topic subjectthat was actually one of the smartest things about the film.
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=697555&mesg_id=706518
706518, that was actually one of the smartest things about the film.
Posted by dula dibiasi, Tue Dec-29-15 01:17 PM
>shooting in 70mm and having a movie be set largely indoors

inspired stylistic decision imo. the telegraph review nailed it, pretty much mirrors my feelings exactly: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/hateful-eight/review/

...

"The close-up was always Hollywood’s answer to the portrait, but the spaghetti western turned it into a landscape.

When Sergio Leone first zeroed in on Clint Eastwood’s narrowed eyes and gritted teeth in A Fistful of Dollars, he wasn’t just showing off his leading man’s face – he was revealing the craggy topography of his soul.

For the trick to work, you need time, the right cast, and some very wide-angle lenses to drink the details in – and the stately, imperious, pyrotechnically thrilling new film from Quentin Tarantino has all three in ludicrous supply.

When Tarantino announced that he would be shooting his forthcoming western, The Hateful Eight, in Ultra Panavision 70 – an arcane camera process last used in the Fifties and Sixties on horizon-stretching extravaganzas like Ben-Hur and The Fall of the Roman Empire – the last thing anyone imagined was that most of the movie would take place inside a shed. The format was built for lassoing entire mountain ranges.

And in fairness, Tarantino’s film does lots of that, particularly in its glorious opening act (all praise to his cinematographer Robert Richardson: the landscapes have a sculptural grandeur, and there is a sunset here that captures what I’m fairly certain is a previously undiscovered shade of pink).

But after around 45 minutes the film arrives at the cramped confines of Minnie’s Haberdashery, a general store on the road to the frontier town of Red Rock, and there it remains for most of the rest of its leisurely three-hour running time...

And this is where Tarantino’s absurdly wide shots become unexpectedly vital. As the characters gruffly suss one another out, realising that all is not what it seems, you find yourself scrutinising their faces, or raking through the background for clues, watching loaded, spotting alliances being forged and broken."