Quentin Tarantino on Race, Police and 'The Hateful Eight'

Though it is set some 150 years ago, Quentin Tarantino's latest movie can be seen as a microcosm for contemporary race relations. At least that's how many critics who have seen "The Hateful Eight" interpret it.

The acclaimed western tells the tale of seven men and a woman holed up in a cabin during a snowstorm, each paranoid of the other seven and for good reason. Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a wanted leader of a gang with a valuable bounty on her head that John Ruth (Kurt Russell) intends to claim. Some of the other parties include a confederate general (Bruce Dern), a union major (Samuel L. Jackson) and a newly appointed sheriff (Walton Goggins) enroute to the western town he's to work in.

The film takes place in the years following the Civil War when tensions between the regions and the races remain strong; so it is no accident that this western potboiler provides a forum for Tarantino to address contemporary racial issues.

"I actually like masking whatever I'm going to say in the guise of genre so I can say it with my left hand and with my right hand, [say] what the genre dictates," Tarantino said just as the film was to go into release. (It is currently being rolled out to theaters after premiering on Christmas in special roadshow engagements.)

Subtext rules

"However, in this instance, it's one of the benefits of the western genre. I think there's no other genre that deals with America better in a subtextual way than the westerns being made in the different decades; i.e. the '50s westerns very much put forth an idea of an Eisenhower America, the 'American exceptionalism' aspect of it. Where the westerns of the '70s were very cynical about America. (But) I do like putting scenario first. I do like putting story first."

Tarantino became embroiled in a modern day controversy last October when he spoke at a Black Lives Matter event and said: "When I see murders, I do not stand by... I have to call a murder a murder, and I have to call the murderers the murderers." In response, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch called for a boycott of all Tarantino films. Later, Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, went further and told The Hollywood Reporter his organization has something "in the works" for Tarantino. Does this rhetoric concern him?

"No, I'm not worried because I do not feel that the police force is this sinister black hand organization that goes out and fucks up individual citizens in a conspiracy kind of way," Tarantino said. "Having said that, civil servants shouldn't be issuing threats, even rhetorically, to private citizens."

Respects the police

Nor is the writer/director surmising just what Pasco had in mind for his 'surprise.' "I don't have any idea," Tarantino said. "The only thing I can imagine that they might be planning to do is picket one of the screenings or something like that. So no, I don't have any inkling and I haven't heard a whole lot about it other than Patrick Lynch is keeping the fire on simmer."

As for the police themselves, Tarantino feels his remarks were misconstrued, "I do respect the good work that the police do," Tarantino said. "I live in the Hollywood Hills. When I see a cop driving around there, I actually assume that he has my best interest at heart and he has the best interest of my property at heart." But as a Los Angeles resident, Tarantino has witnessed disparity in police policies between neighborhoods. "I think if you go to Pasadena they'd say the same thing and I think you knock on doors in Glendale and ask them, they'd say the same thing. If you go down to Century Blvd. and start knocking on apartment doors in Inglewood, they're not gonna say the same thing."

A complicated issue

It would be simplistic to attribute the disparity to simple racism. Tarantino believes it is a lot more complicated than that. He attributes it to decades-old drug policies that target people in low income areas.

"I think all that was put into place about 30 years ago when we declared a war on drugs and actually started militarizing the police force," Tarantino said. "You're not going to have the police force representing the black and brown community if they've been spending the last 30 years busting every son and daughter and father and mother for every piddling drug offense that they've ever done, thus creating mistrust in the community. But at the same time, you should be able to talk about abuses of power and you should be able to talk about police brutality and what in some cases is, as far as I'm concerned, outright murder and outright loss of justice without the police organization targeting you in the way that they have done me."

Perhaps Tarantino could address such issues in a modern day film specifically dealing with contemporary issues. That isn't his style though. "There's definitely a case where when you try to deal with prescient themes in the present," Tarantino said. That is what you're doing. That is the railroad you're building and that's where that train is going. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. That can actually be fantastic. We can all point at versions in cinema history that has been profound."

Addressing political correctness

Since his debut, "Reservoir Dogs," Tarantino has been lumped into discussions of violence in cinema. In subsequent films he's dealt with criticism about prolific use of the N-word, as well as violence against women. "The Hateful Eight" has come under fire for the abuse that Jennifer Jason Leigh experiences on the hand of her male captors. No that Tarantino is dismissive of those claims; rather he respectfully ignores them.

"One can be inclined to say, 'Oh, Fuck this political correctness. I don't have time for that,'" Tarantino said. "But in polite society there is such a thing as sensitivity to some issues as time has gone on. There was a time that we weren't politically correct at all and we all wince at moments when we look past and see that. I don't really know what the answer is as far as that is concerned. However, me as an artist, I don't really think about it at all. It actually is not my job to think about that. Especially in terms of with me as a writer, it is my job to ignore social critics or the response that social critics might have when it comes to the opinions of my characters, the way they talk or anything that can happen to them."

As for the violence that Leigh experiences, Tarantino sees it more as a matter of keeping his characters on a level playing field.

"Where I'm coming from, in that vaguely (Sam) Peckinpah-esque way to some degree or another, is anything can happen to these characters," Tarantino said. "Any piece of outrageous violence could happen to them. In that scenario, what, I'm going to make it that anything can happen to seven of these characters but when it comes to this eighth character, I have to protect her because she's a woman and they can't have the destiny that can happen to any of these other characters? No, that goes against the entire story. I'm not going to think like that."

"The Hateful Eight" is in theaters in roadshow and regular engagements. For more info visit the film's website.