McCabe & Mrs. Miller Puns

I’ve been meaning to get into Robert Altman films and saw that this was leaving Criterion Channel at the end of the month (and coincidentally, that it was the 50th anniversary of the film the other day). However, I’ve seen it described as a “revisionist Western” that deconstructs the genre, and at this point I really don’t have much experience with classic Westerns like the films of John Ford and others. Is it still worth watching, or should I try to get more experience with the Western genre before approaching it?

I had previously rented and watched on a DVD from Videology (RIP) and didn't get it, even drifting to sleep before rewinding and rewatching.

Tonight, I watched with my girlfriend on the Blu Ray that had been looming on my shelf since whatever sale I had clicked "buy" in an aspirational and optimistic attempt at redemption.

I am not an acolyte of Altman, and know that I'm most likely in the minority here on that, but this screening has changed my opinion quite a bit and I can't wait to watch more.

Anyone else watch something and need a second (or third) viewing for it to "work?"

I watched the movie yesterday. Still thinking how Cohen's soundtrack helped, since the film beginning, to turn it into a masterpiece. Just perfect!

One of the few movies that I felt would be greatly appreciated being watched before dark; something about its hazy, worn-down film look that I thought inherently made for a perfect cozy midday viewing(despite the uninvitingly muddy and slushy grounds which are far more present than the beautiful knee-deep snow of the finale). Was also in a huge Leonard Cohen mood these past two weeks, which is largely the reason for why I revisited it; I have this movie to thank for one of my favorite songs(The Stranger Song) and artists. This really is a perfect marriage of mood and temperament—it would be easy to mistake either - i.e. the film and the soundtrack - as the source of inspiration for the other if one didn’t know any better. (And not that it makes much of a difference, but I’m truly glad that Cohen eventually found a liking to this.)

This is such a delicate and rough and consequently tender contemplation of its subjects; the buildup and break down of both the foreground and background; of a yearning for romance and construction of something worthwhile; chiefly undone by the lamentable circumstances of corporate America's ever-growing stranglehold over the little guy with a hint of personal undoing thrown in(though it's a brand of boldness that becomes regrettable mostly in the context of an unjust system)—big business always wins, no matter what they tell you. (“Damn it, McCabe, I'm here to tell you that this free enterprise system of ours works.”)

An admirable level of matter-of-factness going on here—there isn't a single moment where the film attempts to moralize the situation; women are more or less sold like slaves and casual racism is perpetrated by its character, while the movie itself couldn’t bother to bat an eye. Stoic observation extends itself over the entire film really—it is understated in almost everything it does(minus its wonderful Cohen songs); in its characters, their sorrows, and in the tension and calamity of its atypical shootout, yet all yielding a powerful effect. There's something heartrendingly painful about McCabe's inability to express the poetry inside him as he calls it, as well as his constant self-muttering which sounds almost as if he's desperately trying to reassure himself of his self-worth. But he cannot fight the current that the movie lays out before him as the story continuously unveils his pretense of class, gunslinging and business - all eventually exposed to be the face of a drunk gambler with a temper - at every p

I watched this last night, has anyone else seen it?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067411/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

It's an interesting movie to consider alongside Deadwood as well as a great movie in its own right. There are lots of similarities, I wonder if Milch has seen it?

• Both are anti-Westerns that don't use the usual cowboy tropes.
• It's Keith Carradine's first movie!
• Both embrace the shit, piss and mud reality of life back then.
• Both towns grow as time progresses.
• Both are mining towns with sex workers brought in.
• Both are about big business coming in to try and take over.
• Both are ensemble pieces with a feeling that the characters have real lives and aren't just there to advance a plot.

It also has two things I would've loved to have seen in Deadwood, a building on fire and the reality of living in that kind of place during winter.

Well worth a look.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller should be considered the greatest Western of all time even though it doesn’t feel like a Western at all. It’s slow, with really no hero at the center. Instead of grassy plains and wide open desert, the film is set in some snowy mountains. The gun fight at the end is a game of cat and mouse instead of an explosive shootout. The Leonard Cohen soundtrack and Zsigmond cinematography are phenomenal. With all due respect to classics like Nashville and MASH, this might be Altman’s masterpiece.

What are your thoughts on this Altman anti-western?

Just rewatched this great film. It is indeed a great film about the deconstruction of myths, but this time around I picked up even more in terms of the loneliness presented to us in the titular characters. I realised that this time round, knowing that the myth of John McCabe is a falsified one, even before his defences begin to crumble, that he’s a man constantly in search of connections. He doesn’t buy rounds for folk, surround himself with others, just to cultivate his legend: he’s in search of company and comfort.

Which he also seeks in Julie Christie’s Constance, but try as she might to love him in her own way, she herself is separated by her own opium addiction. Both these characters I’ve realised struggle to connect to others, represented best by the ending which is not the death of a hero, but the sad lonely desolate death of a man who was just trying not to get killed, and a woman plunged into opium-fevered despair knowing this is the state she’ll forever be in.

Probably quite rambling but just a lot of thoughts.

The Westerns were viewed as the 'consensus narrative' vehicles of the early cinematic history in the States. They were a reflection of the norms, values, and ideals of society. As society changed, so did these norms, values and ideals, and subsequently, so did the Western.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller represents a slice of late Western history, where American society has been irrevocably changed under the influence of the two-decade war in Vietnam. The pessimism and cynicism on display in this film leave no stone unturned.

The titular 'hero' is a card hustler turned pimp, who starts off ruthlessly exploiting three women with limited mental abilities. He's later joined by a business savvy 'madame', who needs McCabe to achieve success as a 'businesswoman' in the States. Together they end up building a small business, until a bigger shark (a so-called 'reputable' corporation) takes an interest in their business venture, and things fall apart.

There are no gunslingers of the old west determining with their lives who is the fastest quickdraw. Trickery and foul play rule in this movie. The bridge scene in McCabe & Mrs. Miller appears to be iconic for the subversion of this trope.

You will find many of the themes of this movie to be the same as in the HBO show 'Deadwood'.

I'm a huge fan of McCabe and Mrs Miller, in particular the film's aesthetic, which I find to be stunning, if in a very unconventionally attractive way. I was just wondering - as now is perhaps the least costly time to blind buy - if anyone had any pointers for films in the collection that share a similar aesthetic pallet and tonal mood to McCabe & Mrs Miller. All suggestions welcome.

I've seen this film on quite a few lists of "Greatest Westerns" so I decided to check it out. I also enjoyed Altman's other film MASH (not using the stars, sorry) which I found hilarious. After watching it I am not sure how I truly feel about it.

The film is known as a revisionist western, which Altman calls his "anti-Western". It show cases the morally questionable characters. Instead of taking place in states like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming or Colorado, it takes place in Washington State in the year 1902. The town itself is called Presbyterian Church, named after the church in center of town that no one goes to. It is populated by miners who instead of going to church after a hard days work, go to the saloons and drink whiskey. This is were Mr. McCabe's story begins

McCabe has a mysterious past (just like in any other Western). He is not a good man by any means nor is he an evil man. Just a guy wanting to make money and he walks in the town and see's the simple minded "tinhorns" and he saw an opportunity. He enters the saloon, starts buying drinks and building himself up as a big shot to the miners who immediately grow to like him. A rumor starts that he is a gunslinger who shot a man in a car game. This builds up respect from the miners even more, because who doesn't love a killer?

McCabe's next move was to start his own brothel/saloon which started out as a bunch of tents with three prostitutes and he does okay. An English prostitute named Mrs. Miller arrives in town and meets McCabe and convinces him to make her his business partner because she has experience with "running whores" and wanted to turn the saloon into an establishment that the town hasn't seen before. A classier place. She brings in more women and their coffers grew. Oh and Mrs. Miller also has an opium addiction.

Eventually agents from this big Mining company came to down and offers to buy the saloon for a good price. McCabe doesn't realize he is out of his depth and after denying the offer hoping they would offer more, they instead send three gunmen to kill him. At first you think well, McCabe is a gunslinger, so no problem? It is complicated. One of the gunmen suspects that McCabe never killed anyone in his life and just used the rumor to establish himself in town. So the final showdown turns into this cat and mouse game in the snow where McCabe has to outwit the three more skilled gunfighters.

Overall, I enjoyed a lot of the aspects of the film. I like the 1902

Hey everyone! Could you please help me identify this simple but unique font at the beginning of McCabe & Mrs. Miller? Thanks!

http://annyas.com/screenshots/images/1971/mccabe-mrs-miller-blu-ray-movie-title.jpg

Thanks to my proximity to the AFI Silver Theatre, my boyfriend and I have the opportunity to see either McCabe & Mrs. Miller or Tampopo on the big screen. We have seen neither -- which would you say is more worth it to see in the theatre?

Just found this genre of western films and was wondering what others are out there that I might like.