I’ve been harping on about my love of McCabe & Mrs. Miller for the
guts of two years now, so it’s about time that I put it into the Hall Of Fame.
One of two non-traditional westerns to go in this year, this film has been
described as a ‘Revisionist Western,’ and some have even gone so far as
referring to it as an ‘Anti-Western.’ One can understand that sentiment, given
the kinds of things that both the writer-director and leading male actor were
doing with their careers at the time. Robert Altman had this habit of taking an
established genre and subverting them to suit his own artistic intentions, and
Warren Beatty, never better, who from 1967 onwards with Bonnie And Clyde used
his clout and ladykiller public persona to make interesting projects and take
people unawares with his performances. Thus, alongside the also-terrific Julie
Christie, we have two main characters who on the surface appear to carry the
stereotypical characteristics associated with them, but are really damaged,
insecure and as messed up as the rest of us. The film also has a great
mise-en-scene, which is splendidly photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond and a score
consisting of perfect use of work from The Songs Of Leonard Cohen (it almost
seems like the music was written for the
film, and not before!). When deciding
between my favorite Robert Altman film, I’m always at loggerheads between this
and the big political spectacle that is Nashville, but right now, as I am most
of the time, I’m convinced that McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which at first look
seems so simple, yet underneath has such an intelligence and rich understanding
of the minutiae of human emotional behavior, is the superior film.
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