Feature artwork by Kailyn Boehm (Purchase Prints + More)
FACES is Consequence of Sound’s literary magazine. Each volume focuses on an artist whose scope of creativity and cultural impact defies simple categorization. Through a blend of original artwork and a variety of writings, we hope to both shed light upon and celebrate the artists who continually inspire us to put pen to paper.
It would be fatuous to try and reach a consensus on the significance of the sold-out roadshow screening of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight I attended last Saturday night at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre. Maybe the best I can do is acknowledge that it was anything but a normal night at the movies.
One person, corralled by stanchions and velvet ropes, mentioned it was the first time in his multiplex existence that he had to wait in line for good seats to a movie that didn’t have wookiees or wizards. Others remarked about never having seen a 70 mm film before or at least not on a screen specifically built to show them. Personally, I had never been to a movie that featured an overture (courtesy of Ennio Morricone) or an intermission — both staples from a bygone era.
Regarding the actual action onscreen, it was clear from some gasps and grimaces that some viewers were newer than others to Tarantino’s brand of violence and casual use of a certain racial epithet. It was also strange to regularly observe laughs (both blurted and suppressed) co-mingling with glances of admonishment — a confusion you rarely see in an age where movies theaters might as well come with giant, illuminating audience prompters that cue “LAUGH,” “CRY,” or “PASS POPCORN.” Hell, Samuel L. Jackon’s “dingus” monologue alone could be the basis for future sociological experiments — or maybe one of those pre-employment multiple-choice screeners.
I laughed uncontrollably during the “dingus” monologue.
<Strongly Agree> <Agree> <Disagree> <Strongly Disagree>
Let’s just call seeing The Hateful Eight an experience, then. And if trying to define an evening of watching a single Tarantino movie seems futile, you can imagine trying to encapsulate the filmmaker himself in any tidy way. To crib from Whitman: QT is large; he contains multitudes. The pieces in this issue of FACES try to wade through those multitudes — to share each writer’s respective lens on Tarantino, to define some sliver of him as a director, writer, or cultural entity. Each piece does that, I think. All the while risking that the writer is smiling when someone else thinks he should be scowling.
–Matt Melis
Senior Editor
Table of Contents:
— On the Physicality of Tarantino, as Legend and Filmmaker by Dominick Suzanne-Mayer … Page 2
— “Misirlou” and the Cultivation of Cool by Alex Czysz … Page 3
— QT as DJ by Blake Goble … Page 4
— The Last Rental by Michael Roffman … Page 5
Original artwork by Consequence of Sound Art Director Cap Blackard, Assistant Art Director Steven Fiche, Kailyn Boehm, Virginia McCarthy, and Dmitri Jackson. Their work can be purchased in a variety of formats by clicking the links throughout this issue.
Past Issues:
— Neil Young
— Tom Petty
— Dave Grohl
— Carrie Brownstein
— Rihanna
