"Eight Wicked Men" is a 2015 Western action film directed by Quentin, which is also the eighth work of director Quentin, who has promised to make only 10 films in his lifetime.
This film can be said to be the most characteristic work of Quentin's directorial career, but also the most special work of Quentin, in "Eight Wicked Men", Quentin willfully exerts his understanding and creativity of Western films.
Quentin is said to be the most characteristic of Quentin in "Eight Wicked Men", Quentin's signature words, sudden death, violence, black humor, chapter body film form and stunning soundtrack are all revealed, which is Quentin's film - even compared to "The Revenant", which also tells the story of the snowy mountains of 19th century Wyoming, "Eight Wicked Men" has a distinct quentin temperament.
Quentin's most special film is because it's different from the start. First of all, the script was leaked before it was turned on, Quentin was angry and even brought the lead actor to a script recitation, and finally it was his old friend Samuel Jackson who persuaded him, which led to the movie "Eight Wicked Men". In addition, in this movie, female roles are very rare, and Jennifer Jason Lee, who has more scenes, plays a fierce gangster, so there is no beautiful foot scene in the movie.
In addition, Quentin's previous film works have never invited professional soundtracks, and in "Eight Wicked Men", Quentin invited the legendary giant Enio Morricone to make a special soundtrack for the film.
The distinctive style of "Eight Wicked Men" is also a film with more plot, and the film does not appear in the conflict scene until an hour later, but the audience will always be in the tense atmosphere created by Quentin.
This is because Quentin laid a lot of details in the long early plot of the film, which either left questions for the audience, or laid the groundwork, or created a suspenseful atmosphere.
Quentin viciously trapped everyone in a cramped inn and created many opportunities for the group to contradict themselves.
Therefore, to understand "Eight Wicked Men", we must first understand the questions left by Quentin in the movie.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > why are they "eight wicked"? </h1>
In the movie, there are two layers of questions, one is which eight evil people are, and the other is why there are eight evil people (that is, what effect does the setting of the eight evil people have on the development of the plot).
Which eight are the eight wicked men.
In fact, the answer is very obvious, because Quentin has already said the answer in the movie poster. The reason for this question is that in the inn, in addition to the inn owner, 10 people appeared successively.
In addition to the 8 in the poster, there are O.B, the coachman hired by John Ruth, and Jody, the brother of the female bandit, so why doesn't Quentin count these two people among the eight wicked?
First of all, the eight wicked people are just Chinese translation, and the English name "The Hateful Eight" is not eight fierce people, but eight hateful people.
Therefore, O .B the coachman, is the most neutral of these ten people, and in the movie, he has not had an unpleasant affair with anyone, nor has he made a vendetta against any other nine people, so O .B. will not be counted among the "eight evil people".
The reasons why Jody, the younger brother of the female bandit Domergue, is not counted among the "Eight Wicked Men" are as follows:
One is that Jody spends most of his time in the movie hiding in the cellar, without direct intersection with the eight people on the floor, and is not a hateful person; second, Jody can be regarded as a foreshadowing for Quentin for the movie, and he forms a spatial and plot contrast with the other eight people in the movie.
In addition, this is also a bad taste of Quentin, who wants to highlight the word 8 on the movie poster, because this is his eighth feature film, so there will be the word "The H8ful Eight" on the poster.
Second, why should there be eight evil people in this plot setting.
This needs to start with the similar "Dragon Gate Inn" and "No One Survives". "Dragon Gate Inn" is the same as "Eight Wicked Men", the characters are trapped in a small inn because of extreme weather, and "No One Survives" is similar to "Eight Wicked People", people trapped in a small space, everyone has a secret behind them.
The most wonderful thing about this kind of film and television work is that it achieves the purpose of advancing the plot by making excellent personalized portrayals of limited characters. The attractive thing about the personalized portrayal of this character is that the story behind each person and the love-hate relationship between people are slowly presented step by step.
Moreover, the classic place of "Eight Evil Men" is that it can form a balance point of three-way wrestling just right, the three story lines intersect with each other, creating contradictions between characters at the same time, but also creating suspense and creating amazing reversals, and the advancement of the plot is quietly completed during the establishment of the character image.
Taking Xu Ke's "New Dragon Gate Inn" as an example, the film begins with a straightforward explanation of the two sides of the contradiction: the eunuchs of Dongchang who control the government and brutalize Zhongliang, and the righteous group headed by Zhou Huai'an, and the third party of the contradiction is the Longmen Inn force led by Jin Zhiyu.
The advantage of this three-party force structure is that the existence of third-party forces can make the contrast between the two sides of the contradiction on the scene produce great variables, and often the position of the third-party forces changes, which is also an extremely powerful propeller of the movie plot. Behind this three-way force, the relationship can also be intricate, and a good director can lay countless foreshadowings in these complicated relationships.
In "Eight Wicked Men", this change in the position of multiple forces is particularly critical to the promotion of the plot.
For example, the first half of the film, which takes place in John Ruth's carriage, is also a small space that acts as a miniature version of the inn. In this part of the plot, John Ruth and his prey, Domergue, and Colonel Warren and Chris Mannix sheriff who get into the car later form a four-way scene.
For example, in the beginning, there was only John Ruth and Domergue in the car, which was a single hostile relationship. Colonel Warren, who came later, because of his black relationship, formed a new kind of Domergue racial discrimination against Colonel Warren in the carriage, and Colonel Warren sympathized with Domuergue in terms of identity and gender. Meanwhile, while John Ruth did not discriminate against Colonel Warren, he was skeptical about the purpose of Colonel Warren getting on the bus.
When Chris Mannix, the new county sheriff claiming to be Red Rock, got into the car, the relationship and contradictions of the four people in the car changed again. Instead of antagonizing Colonel Warren, John Ruth took a cooperative approach against the newly boarded Chris Mannix, who was opposed to Colonel Warren because of his race and identity.
This kind of multi-line relationship and contradiction between people due to their different experiences and identities becomes more complicated with the appearance of the characters in the inn, and people with different interests and different positions will continue to change with the changes in interest relations. This is exactly where the movie "Eight Wicked Men" infinitely attracts the attention of the audience, and every sentence and every story of every person may produce new problems and lay new foreshadowing.
Therefore, through the character plot setting of "Eight Evil Men", Quentin perfectly solves the problems of lengthy plot and boring movies that are easy to bring about by the single narrow scene in the movie, and through clever lens arrangement and narrative techniques, the dramatic conflict is magnified to the maximum and many details are integrated into the plot, thus bringing a strong sense of identity and substitution to the audience.
Even in a single scene like an inn, the dramatic tension of the film is enough, and the story is complex and diverse enough.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > whether Lincoln's letter was true</h1>
In the movie "Eight Wicked Men", Lincoln's letter played a relatively important role in the process of plot promotion and the construction of the theme of the film. Therefore, whether Lincoln's letter is true or not has also aroused widespread discussion.
Of course, the cunning Quentin does not give a definitive answer in the film, and even though the film says through Colonel Warren that the letter is false, Colonel Warren's tone also makes many people suspicious.
As Sheriff Chris Mannix first questioned, President Lincoln could not have had correspondence with black men who had escaped from the Cavalry Regiment, or with people at Minnie Mouse's grocery store, let alone friends.
So from the source of the letter, Colonel Warren could not give a self-justifying reason, which is also an important reason to prove that Lincoln's letter is false.
As for why Colonel Warren lied, it was for an identity. As Colonel Warren said, without this letter, Warren would not have been able to gain John Ruth's approval and would not have been able to get on John Ruth's carriage. The effect of Lincoln's letter was exactly what Colonel Warren needed.
"Blacks are safe only when whites are wary of blacks."
In addition, Lincoln's letter was also his identification with others for Colonel Warren.
Why John Ruth could see the letter was essentially Colonel Warren's identification with John Ruth, and in his mind John Ruth was at least not against him, nor did he show discrimination against blacks. This is one of the reasons why Colonel Warren agreed when he proposed to get in the car that he disarm, knowing that John Ruth would not threaten his life.
So, when Domergue spit on the letter, Colonel Warren was very angry and gave Domergue a punch, not because the letter was true, but because the letter could prove his identity to the outside world and indicate to the inside who was a friend.
The letter had become a spiritual belief of Colonel Warren.
That is why, when Sheriff Chris Mannix wanted to take a look at the letter, Colonel Warren refused, because Warren and Chris Mannix did not recognize each other, and even the most basic identity and skin color were opposed.
By the end of the film, sheriff Chris Mannix and Colonel Warren have changed their minds about each other, and after living and dying together, there is nothing more telling of their relationship at this moment than having Chris Mannix see the Lincoln letter.
At the end of the film, when the two are dying, Chris Mannix reads the Lincoln letter, and after reading it, he comments with great satisfaction: "Old Mary Todd, this is really good." "
Instead of nodding his head in approval and praising Lincoln for his good writing, Colonel Warren said "thank you, as if his own composition had been recognized.
It is also one of the strong pieces of evidence that Lincoln's letter is false.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > how to survive to the end in Quentin's film</h1>
This is probably the question that most of the characters in Quentin's films are thinking about, especially in "Eight Wicked Men", at the end of the movie, all the people in the inn, none of them have a lifetime, including the guys who come to work.
This is where Quentin's films are most fascinating and refreshing: sudden violence, sudden death.
The "aesthetics of violence" is the most important symbol of Quentin's films and an indispensable factor in the great success of Quentin's early films. Violence is called aesthetics in Quentin's hands because Quentin reconstructed violence.
Quentin frequently uses postmodern techniques in his film works, decomposing the gunfights and fight scenes in the film into meaningless games and jokes, and decomposing them as visual and auditory aesthetic elements closely related to the content of the film.
This kind of violent aesthetics through the full of charm of the picture to show the violent side of human nature and violence, often sudden, no logic to speak of, is able to bring the audience a great sense of shock and satisfaction, so the audience is often amazed by the artistic form of expression, but can not produce discomfort with the content.
So you can't predict the moments of death in Quentin's films, especially in The Eight Wicked Men.
The innocent Minnie Mouse Inn crowd and coachman O .B. are lying guns, the former inexplicably shot, the latter drinking a cup of coffee and vomiting blood.
The veteran general Smithers was lying on the sidelines for no reason, but Colonel Warren suddenly ran over to him and told him a story about his missing son that he did not know whether it was true or not, and was killed by Colonel Warren.
John Ruth finished his coffee and spat out a lot of tomato juice, pawn.
Suspected by Colonel Warren of being the murderer of Minnie's family, Bob stood in the corner of the wall, before waiting to find out who had poisoned the coffee, before colonel Warren was shot dead.
Colonel Warren was lecturing on his brilliant reasoning and indulging in his own brilliant inferences when a sudden shot from under the floor hit a key spot.
In particular, in the movie, Jody, who has been lurking for more than an hour, the moment he comes out of the floor, the charming smile that turns to Domuergue, and the meaningful and victorious smiles of Domuergue and Joe Gage, it makes people think that Jody and his gang are hiding behind them, waiting for How Jody fights with Colonel Warren, and Colonel Warren solves Jody with a headshot directly from behind Jody.
This is Quentin, this is his aesthetic of violence, even if you already know his routine and are ready for all the characters to die at any time, you will still fall into his trap and wait for him to give you a gorgeous blow.
Just like the dentist in "Django Rescued", you think that Django and the dentist are ready to leave the manor, and the farmer offers to shake hands; you think that the dentist will take a step back and shake hands with him, and the dentist coldly pulls out his pocket pistol and directly kills the farmer; you think that after the dentist shoots, he will immediately go to find a bunker to prepare for a counterattack, but he stands there in a daze, waiting for the farmer's bodyguard to pull out his gun.
Of course, there are many questions in the movie "Eight Wicked Men" that Quentin throws out but does not give an answer, such as whether the 15 rescuers mentioned by the Domergue gang are true, whether Chris Mannix is the newly appointed sheriff, whether the story of the old general told by Colonel Warren is true...
The answers to these questions may have their own opinions, and it is precisely because there are so many foreshadowings in the film that the big cool film "Eight Wicked Men" has a deeper content.
"Eight Wicked Men" as a whole is a work full of rich western style, and it is also a film of Quentin's true temperament. This film not only gives you all the way you imagine Quentin, but also breaks the boundaries of Quentin's work in your heart.
The snow in the movie and the carriage inn in the vast snowy mountains create a near-perfect game space for the eight "evil people", and the whole movie is full of male hormones enough to make everyone's blood boil.