It always makes me sad when Quentin Tarantino talks about retirement. He is a filmmaker who changed my life, and I never want him to stop making films. Reservoir Dogs is why I am in film school. Now, I do not want to make films like his, but he grabbed my attention by showing me different ways stories could be told. Well, at the American Film Market, he asserted once again after his tenth film, he will be retiring from directing. His next film, The Hateful Eight, is his eighth, so that does not leave us all with a lot of time. I would not be surprised if he changes his mind, but if he doesn’t, it will be a sad day for everyone.
Speaking of The Hateful Eight, which is being shopped around at AFM for foreign distribution, he hopes the film will cause a halt in the digital takeover, making people realize film is not something you can get anywhere else.
If we do our jobs right by making this film a 70 mm event, we will remind people why this is something you can’t see on television and how this is an experience you can’t have when you watch movies in your apartment, your man cave or your iPhone or iPad,” Tarantino said. “You’ll see 24 frames per second play out, all these wonderfully painted pictures create the illusion of movement. I’m hoping it’s going to stop the momentum of the digital stuff, and that people will hopefully go, ‘Man, that is going to the movies, and that is worth saving, and we need to see more of that.
I admire his optimism, but I highly doubt most people will care. Personally, I will only want to see this film in 70mm, as it was intended to be seen. Having read the early draft of the screenplay that leaked, I could only imagine how terrific it would look with that large format celluloid. Not many filmmakers get to work with that size film anymore, and I cannot wait to see how Tarantino uses it.
If you care to know, here is the synopsis of The Hateful Eight:
In The Hateful Eight, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…
Original report from Deadline.
