McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
December 19th, 2006
Vintage Robert Altman, seminal American filmmaking, and a soundtrack based on Leonard Cohen’s first album. If you have seen the HBO series “Deadwood” you will recognize this as its inspiration. A very beautiful film and a hard, gritty look at the old west.
If you wanted to you could watch this movie as an extended video for its soundtrack, missing every plot point and every word of dialogue, floating happily in the murky golden interiors and the hypnotic drone of the music.
(In fact you almost have to, because quite a bit of the dialogue is inaudible. I think this is intentional. Most of the time it’s just men muttering around poker tables. You don’t need to catch all the words. That being said, DVD versions provide subtitles in English, and I recommend turning them on.)
The plot is simple. The gambler McCabe (Warren Beatty) comes to the town of Presbyterian Church where he runs poker games and a poor-quality whorehouse.
Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) arrives and upgrades the whoring situation in exchange for 50% of McCabe’s profits. Businessmen from outside offer to buy McCabe out. When he is too stubborn to accept, they send in hired killers to persuade him.
There are three songs, each of which serves as a motif: “The Dealer” for McCabe, “Sisters of Mercy” for the whores, and “Travelling Lady” for Mrs. Miller.
Here’s Mrs. Miller in the opium den. She knows McCabe isn’t going to get out of this alive, but she isn’t really that sentimental.
I love this film.
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