McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Robert Altman – 1971 – USA

As far as great works from the all-too-short 70s Renaissance in American film, it doesn’t get much better than Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller.  Coming off the back-to-back anarchistic satires that made him famous – M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud (both 1970), Altman was primed to move on to a more mature and profound period in which he analyzed American foibles with more empathy than the mere sarcasm that characterized the earlier films.  Altman is always described as a debunker of genres, but I’ve never found that characterization helpful in understanding his films.  All together they are a meditation on the American experience, including our consciousness of movies and celebrity.  His prankish interest in occasionally poking fun at certain movie genres is an amusing part of his work, but it’s hardly the whole point.  Gambler and entrepreneur John McCabe (Warren Beatty) rides into the tiny fledgling mining town of Presbyterian Church around the turn of the 20th century, with an idea in mind to open a small brothel to cater to the predominantly male, and pathetically bored, population.  Not far behind, sensing a potential partner in McCabe, is English Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) who proposes a more ambitious project; a classy, clean and homey bordello that will attract loyal clientele from miles around.  Everything works beautifully for mere days, it seems, until representatives of the mining company arrive to make McCabe an offer he can’t refuse for his land and property.  This plot, it must be said, is only a skeleton upon which Altman builds a comic, painfully tragic and poignant story.  Shot in a brownish hue that accentuates the primitive and muddy locale, many scenes are lit to resemble a living Rembrandt painting.  The soundtrack is effectively comprised of a collection of melancholy Leonard Cohen songs.  It’s a film about personal eccentricity as much as community; showing the best and worst of human nature.  Control freak extraordinaire Warren Beatty despised Altman and the final film so much that he practically disowned it, and still never speaks of it; highly ironic since it is not only probably the best film he’s ever appeared in but also his finest performance.