The Movie Room

McCabe & Mrs. Miller 1971, directed by Robert Altman

Rating: 9/10

I love when Westerns are set in locations that don’t look like the regular Wild West with tumbleweeds and cacti and such, and I also love the look of snow from growing up in Connecticut, so the look of McCabe & Mrs. Miller is very much for me. I also love director Robert Altman; while McCabe & Mrs. Miller is not my favorite of his, it is pretty high up there.

A major part of the Altman style is the ensemble, and the cast here is very game. This one is much more focused on two main characters than something like Nashville or A Prairie Home Companion, but those two main characters are played by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. Those two actors are almost always great, and with Altman’s lived-in style that allows the actors to improvise more and become more familiar with each other they feel so natural together. Warren Beatty most often has great romantic chemistries with his leading ladies, including Julie Christie again in Shampoo, but here it seems more grounded and realistic. He feels more down-to-earth and his flaws are showing, and the same goes for her, so when they interact it feels like two humans who are legitimately connecting despite (or because they understand) their facades. Besides Beatty and Christie, the supporting cast also shines. Shelley Duvall is my personal favorite, as a mail order bride who fills that role in a realistic and non-stereotyped way. 

Another aspect of Altman’s films that I (usually) love is his sound design. My favorite example of this is in Nashville, while it adds to the strangeness (in a bad way, I think) of his Popeye. The dialogue overlaps, which has been co-opted by many, but he goes further than most still do by really heightening the mixture of sounds in the world to create an aural experience that makes his films feel more real. This can be very annoying to some people, but it really helps me feel immersed. Here there are less crowd noises and more about the world around them. The sounds of snow that are so familiar to me but that are absent in most movies are extremely present here—of all the movies that make me feel the winter, this movie might feel the most wintery to me. Besides the diegetic sounds, McCabe & Mrs. Miller also has music by Leonard Cohen in the background that adds to the themes of the films, even as they are a dint on the realism I appreciate elsewhere (and this is a problem that Nashville does not have, where much of the music is also diegetic). What it takes away from the illusion, Cohen’s music adds depth and beauty.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a stellar example of Robert Altman’s style. It has fantastic performances both in lead and supporting roles and they all feel like their roles and relationships are lived-in, with a sound design that mostly supports this realism. This movie does move a bit slower than I would like, but it remains a quintessential winter viewing for me.