McCabe & Mrs. Miller

I spent the entirety of my final year in college reading western literature, reading about western literature, and watching western films. Although I had long been a fan of Altman's 1971 masterpiece, I would probably never have called it the greatest western film. Having sat through most of the Rios, the Searchers, Red River, Stage Coach, the Leone Spaghetti Westerns, and the more current incarnations of the genre (Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves, All the Pretty Horses, et al.), I will say without hesitation that McCabe is a superior film (and a superior western) to all those listed.

It is not, of course, a traditional western, nor does it hold true to traditional 'values' of the western. You will not find any rampaging indians, and the typical shots of vast prairies or a surreal Monument Valley. Your hero is a conniving gambler and the heroine is a whore (and one that quite distinctly lacks a heart of gold). They're sympathetic, but they're also quite real with all the faults and foibles humans typically have. The landscape is brown and green; trees are everywhere and it looks like it's wet most of the time (which is appropriate to a film taking place in the Northwest). One of the few "cowboys" in the film dies in his underwear.

By a long shot, then, this is not your typical western, but it is better.

The wooden characters of old are replaced with real people to whom we can relate and about whom we can care. Furthermore, the environment - dark, dirty, wet, and all around not terribly inviting - seems more in line with the historical west than the traditional western. The West was not the nicest place to live; it was dangerous and inhospitable as it is in McCabe.

I could go on and on about how Altman inverts the western film tradition throughout the movie (as well as how he dismantles the notion that capitalism is a good economic and social system), but I will not. There is no need to treat McCabe that academically. The film is simply wonderful and entertaining - terrific performances, wonderful cinematography, a fascinating story, and great (and very Altman-esque) direction with overlapping conversations and well-handled improvisations. The movie also has the most perfect soundtrack I have ever heard. The songs - by the one and only Leonard Cohen - perfectly match the mood and atmosphere of the film and moreover feel like artifacts of that bygone era depicted in the film. That they were not written or recorded specifically for McCabe is astounding, as they are such an integral and organic part of this film.

If you have not seen this film, please do so; it's well worth the time and, unlike Nashville and Short Cuts - Altman's other masterpieces - it's very accessible.

McCabe&Mrs.Miller isn't exactly the old west of John Wayne. But it has the look and feel of westerns shot in those early days of silent film. I suspect that the town in this film looked a whole lot like those in the rural northwest at the turn of the last century.

Warren Beatty in one of the title roles as a gambler whose specialty is the bluff arrives in town with the intention of setting up a bordello. But it's not until Julie Christie arrives, a professional madam with a string of girls hat the operation really takes off.

As the business grows so grows the town. Note how director Robert Altman has the look of the town spruce up bit by bit as the film progresses. Makes the town look attractive to speculators and as it does the cracks in Beatty's flawed character show.

A big mining concern wants to buy Beatty and Christie out they're not squeamish about methods. Beatty's persona is deflated and the citizens realize he's all bluff.

Julie Christie got an Oscar nomination for her role as Best Actress as the take life as it comes madam. But it's Beatty you will remember. His character is both outrageous and vulnerable.

The west was really like this.

Few westerns have succeeded so strangely yet so completely in evoking a sense of place and time than Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs Miller". In fact, it's not really a western at all; certainly not like any western I've ever seen. It's setting is the Pacific Northwest; cold, rainswept and often covered in snow. There are gunslingers but they are more like the professional hit men of gangster movies. When Altman isn't filming through the haze of a rain-drenched exterior he is filming through the haze of a dimly lit interior where darkness is more prevalent than light. Above all, it doesn't have a conventional western hero. McCabe is like a tragi-comic Everyman out of his depth and his territory in this largely alien environment yet canny enough to apply his savvy into transforming the landscape into something tangible, real and materialistically American.

In this respect it is a very modern film in spite of its setting. The fact that Altman doesn't care very much about convention or even about narrative, (it's story is perfunctory; Altman is more interested in 'observing'), makes it so. But then "MASH" wasn't a conventional war movie either just as "Nashville" wasn't really about the country music business.

As for McCabe himself, Beatty plays him with the same laconic, stammering mannerisms he applies to all his roles, (and which he seems either blessed or cursed with in real life), and which actually makes him a perfect Altman hero, (or anti-hero, if you prefer). Mrs Miller, on the other hand, seems coolly distracted from what's going on around her. Julie Christie plays up her Englishness adding another element to the alienation of her character, a stranger in a strange land indeed, while in the foreground the songs of Leonard Cohen seem to hover like warm blankets, cosily familiar and comforting even at their bleakest. They could have been written for the film.

Behind every great man is a great woman. McCabe is the man, Mrs. Miller is the woman, and together they form a pretty successful team. Both are in search of the American dream: freedom, fortune, security. Mrs. Miller, a prostitute, and the real brains behind the operation helps make this possible for the couple. She doesn't want to be nothing but a whore for the rest of her life. They partner up and establish the best lil' whorehouse in town. This is quite the unconventional western, and it is executed so perfectly as only the great Robert Altman could do.

I loved the whole process of the film. I liked the characters and wanted to see them succeed. When things go bad, as they often do, some very tense sequences ensue. Men are hired to kill McCabe for not negotiating with the right people. There is one part where he first meets the man hired to kill him that is so nerve-wrecking, but so amusing at the same time. I mean, it's pretty clear early on that McCabe is a bit of a buffoon, but I think this is the crucial point in the film when we know we really care about his fate.

Wonderfully acted by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in the lead roles(as well as the supporting cast), being in the hands of Robert Altman, and with some great music by Leonard Cohen, McCabe & Mrs. Miller proves itself as a great, great movie. It's a comedy, a tragedy, a classic, a true masterpiece.

My rating: 10/10

As a Western this film is fascinating for what it does not contain. There are no sweeping vistas of the Great Plains, no Indians, no cacti, no cowboy hats. There is no sheriff, no broiling sun, and no corny music. And unlike most Westerns, which are plot driven, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is less about plot than about the tone or mood of the frontier setting.

The film takes place in the Pacific Northwest. The weather is cold, cloudy, and inclement. You can hear the wind howling through tall evergreens. And Leonard Cohen's soft, poetic music accentuates the appropriately dreary visuals. In bucking cinematic tradition, therefore, this film deserves respect, because it is at least unusual, and perhaps even closer in some ways to the ambiance of life on the American frontier than our stereotyped notions, as depicted in typical John Wayne movies.

Not that the plot is unimportant. Warren Beatty plays John McCabe, a two-bit gambler who imports several prostitutes to a tiny town, in hopes of making money. Julie Christie plays Mrs. Miller, a prostitute with a head for business. She hears about McCabe's scheme, and approaches McCabe with an offer he can't refuse. Soon, the two are in business together, but complications ensue when word gets around that McCabe may be a gunslinger who has killed someone important. Mrs. Miller is clearly a symbol of the women's liberation movement, and the film's ending is interesting, in that context.

"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is a vintage Altman film, in that you can hear background chatter, in addition to the words of the main character. It's Altman's trademark of overlapping dialogue. The film's acting is fine. Both Beatty and Christie perform credibly in their roles.

The visuals have a turn-of-the-century look, with a soft, brownish hue. Costumes and production design are elaborate, and appear to be authentic. The film is very dark, so dark in some scenes that I could barely make out the outline of human figures. In those scenes, I think they went overboard with the ultra dim lighting.

Strictly atypical for the Western genre, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" provides a pleasant change from cinematic stereotypes, and conveys a different perspective on life in the Old West. It's a quality production, one that has Robert Altman's directorial stamp all over it. In that sense, it's more like a cinematic painting than a story. And the painting communicates to the viewer that life on the American frontier was, at least in some places, cold and dreary, and had a quietly poetic quality to it.