McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971)

Film: McCabe & Mrs Miller

Director: Robert Altman

Country: USA

Released: June 1971

Runtime: 121 minutes

Genre: Western

Studio: Warner Bros

Influenced: David Lynch, Coen Brothers, Kelly Reichardt, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao

Robert Altman was one of the greatest mavericks and most abiding dudes to emerge from the New Hollywood scene. His 1970 Vietnam satire M*A*S*H was a huge success and on the back of this he secured the budget to make an anti-western, McCabe & Mrs Miller. Based on Edmund Naughton's 1959 novel McCabe, the screenplay was co-written by Altman and Brian McKay, with the story taking place in a zinc mining town in the Pacific Northwest of Canada at the turn of the 20th century. The entire set for the film was constructed out of timber, including its own Presbyterian church, while the human setting is among the hardy men & women of the frontier. Much of the credit for the authentic on-location set, including the dark and crowded interiors, must go to production designer Leon Eriksen. 

Starring Warren Beatty as John McCabe and Julie Christie as Constance Miller, the film has one of the great opening scenes with Leonard Cohen's broody and melancholy track The Stranger Song overlaying the footage of McCabe arriving to town, including a notable shot of him lighting a cigar and crossing the bridge to the inn. Cameraman Vilmos Zsigmond used the technique of "flashing", a process of slightly over-exposing shot film, to give a look of almost Dutch-master lighting, with close-ups of faces illuminated by oil lamps in dark wooden rooms. Altman often encouraged improvisation on set, which played a significant role in the performances and the overall narrative style of the movie. 

McCabe, a charismatic but somewhat dim drifter, wanders into the small mining town of Presbyterian Church with a reputation (that he himself subtly encourages) as a tough guy and a gunfighter. Seeing an opportunity, he sets up a brothel with the ladies he brings in, which quickly becomes popular with the miners. However, things change when Constance Miller, a Cockney madame, arrives in town. She proposes a business partnership, suggesting that they could make more money by upgrading the brothel into a classy bordello. As they work together, the business flourishes and the town grows more prosperous, but the success of the bordello draws the attention of a major mining company. McCabe tries to negotiate but – largely out of his depth – he rejects the company's offer, unwittingly instigating a deadly conflict involving three of the best killers ever seen in a Western: a giant, a half-breed and a psychopathic kid. 

Altman's depiction of the West was a radical departure from traditional Westerns; instead of the glorified, romanticised frontier, McCabe & Mrs Miller portrayed a grim, muddy town filled with flawed, often unheroic characters. This, combined with the film's complex and tragic storyline, helped to establish it as a revisionist Western. The movie is also an early example of Altman's trademark style – large ensemble cast, improvisation, overlapping dialogue (a technique pioneered by Godard, viz. À Bout de Souffle) and multi-layered sound design. The musical score by Leonard Cohen complements the mood of the film perfectly, and in fact it was Altman's wife – while listening to Cohen's early classic album Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967) – who was immediately struck by how well the songs reflected the melancholy and introspective tone that Altman wanted to establish in the film. That chilling ending, involving Cohen's Winter Lady played over images of a dead and frosty-faced McCabe, is hard to forget.