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McCabe & Mrs. Miller
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by Warner Bros. Pictures
Sales Rank: 85849
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Iconoclastic director Robert Altman (<I>Nashville</I>, <I>M.A.S.H.</I>), deconstructs and demythologizes Hollywood's typically romantic vision of the Old West in this haunting, breathtaking masterpiece. A stranger, McCabe (Warren Beatty's best performance), the film's nonheroic protagonist, rides into a dead northwest mountain town (to the mournful sounds of Leonard Cohen), possessing ambitious entrepreneurial dreams of expansion. As the town grows, Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie's finest role, as well), a tough madam, arrives and convinces McCabe to join her in a partnership. Neither are typical Western archetypes: McCabe's an insecure braggart, bumbling lover, and horrible businessman, while Mrs. Miller, hardly a whore with a heart of gold, favors her opium pipe to her partner's romantic advances. Altman, meanwhile, buries these central characters within the town's complex, richly detailed tapestry of characters, preferring to eavesdrop on their overlapping conversations and study the bleak, harsh conditions of their lifestyles. At its core, the film addresses the sacrifices of individualism needed in order to build a community, an American concept that the independent Altman views with skeptical irony. The inevitable final shoot-out underscores the theme. Because McCabe refuses to sell the town he built to a corporation, hired bounty hunters are sent. Instead of a showdown at high noon, the finale--one of Altman's most beautiful set pieces--takes place in the snow, guerilla warfare style. As McCabe runs and hides for his life, the town he created preoccupies itself with saving a burning church instead of their creator, while Mrs. Miller, stoned and grinning, detaches herself from either concern. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond captures the town's brutal textures in luminous Cinemascope. <I>--Dave McCoy</I>
Viewer Reviews
It's Altman at his best, with a cast that clearly believed in him and relished the opportunity to be directed by him. This movie is as close to cinematic poetry as you're ever gonna get. Altman demonstrates his gift and mastery at mood, texture and tone, while skillfully adding rich layers of nuance and wit to this somewhat simple tale of a complex man -- or is McCabe a simple man in a complex tale? Beatty and Christie are nothing less than inspirational, and Carradine makes me cry (his earnest commitment the character and the haunting believability that results should be studied by every wannabe actor seeking the true goods). Such confident, restrained, detailed and thus moving filmmaking from an American master -- Altman never made a more beautiful film. Oh, to have been at least a background player in this experience (for Altman even approached their roles with a thoroughness that adds to the piece's overall realism and sense of actual community); a dream job for any performer. And Cohen's music works wonders with the film's atmosphere; I can't think of anyone else who coulda pulled it off more compatibly -- Neil Young maybe? Willie Nelson? Overall, I can't say enough about this one. I watch it each year, and it never fails to enhance my love for it in new ways every time.
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