One of the most beloved genres in cinema, the Western was considered one of the greatest and modern takes on conflict and tragedy. While the genre had considerable icons like directors John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Anthony Mann along with actors like John Wayne and Henry Fonda in the first half of the 20th Century. The genre begin to change more with new unconventional storylines thanks to Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and his "Spaghetti" Westerns that brought a new icon in Clint Eastwood while American director Sam Peckinpah brought more violent images to the genre. Then just as the 1960s ended, the Western still played to its storylines that ends with a showdown between hero and villain and yet, the storyline remain popular to this day as Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner help reinvent the genre while paying homage to the past. Then in 1971, a new Western film arrived to the silver screen but unlike the films of John Ford, McCabe & Mrs. Miller was a revisionist film that told a darker story in reference to what was going on in 1971.

Coming off his 1970 breakthrough film with M.A.S.H. and Brewster McCloud, Robert Altman was a director who played with many genres ranging from drama, comedy, and everything else. Never wanting to repeat himself, Altman was more prolific than his peers while maintaining a mentality that was more independent than his peers in Hollywood. In 1971, Altman released McCabe & Mrs. Miller, based on the novel McCabe by Edward Naughton. Set in the late 1800s on the Pacific Northwest, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a story of a bumbling, entrepreneurial gambler named John McCabe who is trying to open a new casino, saloon, and bathhouse for a town he stopped in. Helping him is a brothel madam named Constance Miller, who wants to open a brothel and become business partners with McCabe.

With McCabe & Mrs. Miller becoming successful, it attracts the attention of a mining company where lies and corruption emerge along with the death of a dream. Adapted into a script by Altman and Brian McKay, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is one of the most fascinating, haunting Westerns of the genre while it's also one of the greatest films of the 1970s. Starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in the title roles along with Altman regulars Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Rene Auberjonois, and John Schuck, William Devane, and Hugh Millais. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a film that's really more about how the west was lost and what ideals were lost in the time of the late 1800s and 1971.

It's a cold, hazy day as a man named John McCabe (Warren Beatty) comes into town on a horse where he stops by at a saloon to gamble. After meeting a saloon owner named Sheehan (Rene Auberjonois) and a patron with business sense named Smalley (John Schuck). McCabe stays at the saloon while he is hoping to help build a new saloon and gambling casino with a bathhouse nearby. While getting several men to help him work, he also wants to get some prostitutes for the men where he paid three homely women for $200 and looking on at the deal is a brothel madam named Constance Miller (Julie Christie).

With McCabe running things for the casino and bathhouses being built, Constance arrives to the site, with a barber named Washington (Rodney Gage) and a woman named Ida Coyle (Shelley Duvall). Mrs. Miller notices the homely women he's hired and she claims she can get good, classy girls from Seattle to help them on the business if a brothel building is built with Miller running it. McCabe doesn't know if he wants to mix in business with her and despite Miller's distaste for McCabe's business ideals, she wants to help him become successful. The two become partners with McCabe running the bathhouses and casino and Miller being in charge for the brothel with her in service for $5 and the rest of the women at a range for $1-$3.

After the completion and everything built, McCabe & Mrs. Miller's business becomes successful though McCabe has trouble making money with the saloon, now run by Sheehan since Miller's brothel business is booming. After a brawl that involved the death of Ida's husband (Bert Remsen), Ida is forced into working with Miller as a prostitute where Miller claims that even though she is working to have food and a room like her marriage, she at least is having some sense of freedom. With the business more successful with the arrival of a young cowboy (Keith Carradine), a local mining business called Harrison & Shaughnessy is interested in buying out McCabe. Two men named Sears (Michael Murphy) and Hollander (Anthony Holland) offered McCabe more than $5000 to buy him out but he says no.

Miller couldn't believe that McCabe is not taking the buy because it would help increase their business but the simpleton mind of McCabe refuses to let his dream of running a small independent business die. After a lot of discussions with Miller, McCabe considers the offer but turns to a lawyer (William Devane) for help, who tells McCabe that he will be a hero if he stays as a small businessman. Making things worse unfortunately is the arrival of a tall, huge gunman named Butler (Hugh Millais) who arrives with two men. McCabe meets with Butler, who was supposedly hired by the mining company, as McCabe tells them he is interested in the offer but is looking for something bigger. Butler presence becomes evident when one of his hooligans killed the young cowboy for no reason. The death of the young cowboy scares McCabe & Mrs. Miller where McCabe prepares for a huge shootout with Butler and his goons.

While Miller & Mrs. McCabe, like many Westerns, have a shootout scene. Altman presents the scene in a more unconventional way, especially done in a hazy, snowy way where McCabe is battling Butler but at the same time, something else is going on in the town. Altman's directing style done in widescreen camera angles is very succinct and elegant in its look, notably for the fact that it doesn't look like any other Western. Thanks to a strong, ambiguous script by him and Brian McKay, the film is filled with many ideas and comparisons to the time of the late 1800s and the Vietnam-era of 1971. The film's business ideals and sense shows the idealism of the 1960s with many of the dialogue done in a more contemporary way with a lot of profanity. Yet, when the third act begins with Keith Carradine's pointless death, it's not just McCabe's dream that falls but also something that many film critics had suggest that the death of an even bigger dream. This is why Altman's directing is so dead-on in its presentation, especially since he knew that big business would take over the little business soon, one way or another.

Whereas most Westerns had a desert, sunny look, Altman chose for a bleak, rainy, snowy look in McCabe & Mrs. Miller where he shot the film, entirely in Canada. Helping Altman with his hazy vision is the grainy, desaturated cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond, who brings a colorless look of muddy grounds, leaves, and everything else that isn't bright except for the sunlight in one scene. For the lighting, Zsigmond goes for candlelights in a lot of the interior scenes while in the exteriors, goes for graininess in its look. With production designer Leon Erickson and art directors Phillip E. Thomas and Albert J. Locatelli, the film has a very detailed look of the late 1800s Western saloons, bathhouses, and brothels, especially the bridges that connect in some of the lake areas. The film also has a strange, atmospheric sound with its wind and music box chimes that is captured wonderfully while Lou Lombardo's editing really helps give the film a nice pacing while in the shootout scene, help plays to the film's unconventional style.

Then, there's the film's soundtrack which features three songs by Leonard Cohen, "The Stranger Song", "Sisters Of Mercy" and "Winter Song" which all came from Cohen's debut album. The use of Cohen's songs helps bring a dark, bleak atmosphere where everything is amiss and a sense of doom is set to emerge. "Winter Song" serves a nice accompaniment to the opium-hearted mind of Mrs. Miller while "The Stranger Song" is perfect for the brooding McCabe. "Sisters Of Mercy" is also wonderfully used for the three homely prostitutes McCabe brings. Even in their extended instrumental sections that Cohen added to the film, it's melancholic folk-driven tone really gives the film a different feel in comparison to many Westerns.

Then, there's the film's amazingly sprawling cast of actors. Hugh Millais is wonderfully sadistic and charismatic as Butler with his British, roguish tone where he seems like a likeable villain while Michael Murphy and Anthony Holland are sleazily brilliant in the respective roles of Sears and Hollander. Shelley Duvall is lovely as the aloof mail-order bride Ida who doesn't know much but her scenes with Christie are wonderfully executed. William Devane is exquisitely charismatic as McCabe's attorney who shares his dreams in a way that seems very off but with some humor. Rene Auberjonois is also wonderful in his small role of Sheehan as is John Schuck as McCabe's business associate, Smalley. Rodney Gage, Bert Remsen, and many other small characters are wonderfully acted but biggest standout in the smallest of roles is Keith Carradine as a doomed, young cowboy who gets killed for no reason since all he wanted was to get new socks inside the saloon.

Warren Beatty, often seen as an iconic, handsomely old man, brings in an amazing performance as John McCabe. In his bearded look, Beatty brings a mix of humor, romanticism, idealistic, and charm to his role as the somewhat simpleton, chauvinistic McCabe. The scenes where Beatty talks to himself are funny sometimes but also sad since there's a sense of doom laying for him. Beatty really shines in this performance where he plays against type as a man who is just a bumbling, two-bit gambler who achieves something more than his simple, foolhardy dream. Julie Christie is the film's best performance, not to mention that she received an Oscar nod for Best Actress for this film, thanks to her Cockney British accent and smart, business tactics as Mrs. Constance Miller. Though the character was more interested in her opium pipe rather than the world around her, Christie brings grace and sympathy to her role, as a woman who is trying to ignore the world around her yet couldn't escape it. Christie also brings a sexiness that is a wonderful presence despite not showing a lot of skin as she transcends her beauty with grit and intelligence.

Beatty and Christie are wonderful together in their scenes and thankfully, Altman chose for them to go more into a sense of business rather than into a full-on romance. Though, there's hint of it, Beatty and Christie chose to act like business partners rather than reluctant lovers. Though the two care about each other, they know what's important first. It's one of the best pairings in cinema.

While McCabe & Mrs. Miller didn't grab audiences at first back in 1971, the years since then revealed that as a film, it was ahead of its time. Many of the themes in the movie still hold true to its relevance while it's become one of Robert Altman's greatest films. Though it was Altman's only attempt at a Western, he proved himself to be prolific in its subject matter and genres through such classics as Nashville, 3 Women, The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park along with favorites like California Split, Vincent & Theo, Cookie's Fortune and most recently The Companyand TV work like Tanner '88 and Tanner on Tanner. Still, McCabe & Mrs. Miller remains the film that proved to be one of Altman's finest work thanks to a great cast led by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, Vilmos Zsigmond's hazy cinematography, and Leonard Cohen's haunting soundtrack.

Robert Altman Films:

M.A.S.H. (1970):

http://www.epinions.com/content_328418823812

Nashville (1975):

http://www.epinions.com/content_332797152900

The Player (1992):

http://www.epinions.com/content_334755171972

Short Cuts (1993):

http://www.epinions.com/content_337777626756

Gosford Park (2001):

http://www.epinions.com/content_341042368132

A Prairie Home Companion (2006):

http://www.epinions.com/content_237343248004


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age