McCABE AND MRS. MILLER (director/writer: Robert Altman; screenplay: Brian McKay; cinematographer: Vilmos Zsigmond;cast: Warren Beatty (John Q. McCabe), Julie Christie (Constance Miller), Rene Auberjonois (Sheehan), Hugh Millais (Butler), Shelley Duvall (Mrs. Ida Coyle), Bert Remsen (Bart Coyle), William Devane (Lawyer), John Schuck (Smalley), Corey Fischer (Mr. Elliot), Keith Carradine (Cowboy), Jackie Crossland (Lily), Elizabeth Murphy (Kate), Michael Murphy (Sears), Antony Holland (Hollander), Manfred Schulz (Kid), Jace Van Der Veen (Breed), Rodney Gage (Sumner Washington), Jeremy Newson (Jeremy Berg), 1971)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
John McCabe (Beatty) cuts a nifty businessman's pose, dressed in a derby and a suit, as he wanders through the rain on horseback into this half-built, muddy wasteland mining town, Presbyterian Church, in the mountainous hinterlands of Washington. In the background Leonard Cohen sings his prophetic ballad, with the poetical refrain, "It is hard to hold the hand of anyone who is just reaching for the sky to surrender." Cohen's song will pop up continuously throughout, giving the film an arty flavor to it, as it also adds to the explanation of the film's despondent theme of a small capitalist against the big capitalist.
It is the kind of town where it easy for everyone to think they know one another, as one of the patrons in Sheehan's saloon thinks McCabe is a gunfighter by the nickname of Pudgy, who once shot a man in a card game. It is a dark place that McCabe has entered, where it either rains or snows, there is very little sunlight in town. The stranger anxiously cases the saloon he enters, until he gets to feel at home in this rough atmosphere and goes out to his saddlebags and soon comes back and puts a tablecloth on the table and start a card game.
"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is an antiwestern western, whose themes of love, gambling, alienation, suffering, death, and capitalism, are as haunting as the cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond' beautifully colorful Pacific Northwest territory is, and as haunting as Leonard Cohen's ballad is, and as haunting as the moody atmosphere of this winter wonderland of desolation is.
McCabe, is a two-bit gambler, who thinks of himself as more important than what he really is, and who has the romantic notion to dream the American dream of financial success, and decides to open a saloon and a whorehouse here, after winning at cards. He thereby purchases three unrefined "chippies" to get his business started, figuring on the 100 or so horny men working in the area as likely customers.
Mrs. Miller (Julie), a drifter and a whore, soon comes to this town and offers McCabe a business proposal, that they become partners and she will become the madame, bringing in classier prostitutes from the big city and taking care of the girls, something she declares that she knows more about than him. She also tells him that this partnership will raise his profits.
The harshness of life, drives the crafty businesswoman, Mrs. Miller, to prefer her opium pipe fantasy world to anything else in town, and that includes McCabe, who is taken with her but doesn't know quite how to love this disconnected woman. Their sexual contact comes, when he pays for her services like any other customer. Though she soon recognizes he isn't operating on all cylinders and feels sorry for this lost soul, still it doesn't bring her any closer to him.
For Mrs. Miller, marriage is compared to prostitution, as a mail-order bride Ida (Duvall), married to a lame older man, finds herself a widow when her husband takes umbrage at a street ruffian who treats his wife as a whore, and the other fellow reacts violently to being reprimanded by cracking his head open. Upon his death, in order to get room and board, Ida becomes one of Mrs. Miller's working girls.
The drunken McCabe succeeds by luck: by being at the right spot, at the right time, and not by any skills he might possess. But his success catches the interest of the big mining company and they sent out representatives to buy him out. But he foolishly turns down their offer, thinking he could outsmart them. He suddenly realizes when they are not there the next morning to bargain with him, that it's all over for him, that they will send someone to kill him, as is their custom to do when dealing with small businessmen they want to gobble up.
The final scene, shot in a snow storm, of the three hired gunmen for the mining company tracking him down, is an emotionally sad scene played against the glacial beauty of the natural surroundings, as the hapless McCabe has gotten into a mess that is way over his head, not quite understanding the life and death struggle inherent in American capitalism.
The town has a church, but when he comes calling in the church for shelter, he is forced out of there by the reverend and is forced to face off with the hired guns looking for him. The point made, is that there is no help forthcoming from anywhere, from the law or from God, man is on his own here, struggling against nature, his own fears, and the coldness of the citizens around him.
Altman's film is strikingly lyrical and perfect in mood; it is a dreamlike film that is hauntingly memorable, that is magical in scope and sadly touches McCabe's yearnings to find love and a place to put down roots. The result is a poetical Western without heroes, that is pathetically witty, where McCabe and Mrs. Miller's wishful dreams are seen as either foolish romantic notions or drug induced inspirations, ones that never had a chance of coming true.
REVIEWED ON 1/26/2000 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: " Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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