This film is an example of what has been called the "revisionist Western". The traditional Western had often presented an idealised, highly moralistic, picture of the Old West as a place where the brave, honourable men in the white hats took on the villainous criminals in the black hats and almost invariably came out on top. The revisionists tried to undermine this picture by presenting us with a world where good did not always triumph over evil- a world, indeed, where the lines between good and evil were often blurred. The heyday of the traditional Western was in the forties and fifties, significantly the era of World War II and the early days of the Cold War. There were, of course, Westerns from these decades where moral boundaries were by no means clear-cut, but they tended to be a minority; when film-makers of the period wanted to deal in moral ambiguity they often turned to other genres, such as film noir. By the late sixties and early seventies, however, the revisionists were in the ascendant, possibly because events such as the Vietnam War had caused many Americans to question some of their most cherished beliefs about their country.
"McCabe and Mrs Miller" is a film which takes its revisionism rather further than some. Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" is sometimes quoted as the quintessential revisionist Western, and it certainly shows us the West as a harsh, pitiless place. Yet although Peckinpah shows us both his criminal protagonists and their enemies as brutal and ruthless, he also mythologises the brutality and ruthlessness of the "Bunch", particularly in the final battle scene in which they achieve a sort of epic grandeur. Tom Gries's "Will Penny" demythologises the West by showing us the cowboy not as hero but as average working man, but keeps the moral distinction between the sympathetic Penny and his villainous adversaries.
Robert Altman's film is different to either. It is set in the early twentieth century in a small logging town in the Pacific North-West- a late date and an unusual location for a Western. The town goes by the name of Presbyterian Church, but the local residents, mostly male, have things other than religion on their minds. John McCabe is an entrepreneur who arrives in town with a scheme to make his fortune by setting up a tavern-cum-brothel. The sex industry is not a field of business in which he has any experience, but he goes into partnership with Constance Miller, an English hooker turned madam, and at first their enterprise proves a great success. Their success, however, proves to be their undoing. A powerful corporation wants to take over the town and makes McCabe an offer to buy out his holdings. He thinks the price is too low and refuses, not realising that the people with whom he is dealing will resort to anything, including violence, to get what they want and that this is the proverbial "offer he cannot refuse".
The plot is a relatively simple one, much more so than some of Altman's other films, such as "Short Cuts" with its collection of interlocking stories or "Gosford Park" with its multiple sub-plots. I felt, in fact, that the film was too long and in parts too slow-moving and that the simple story could have been better told in a more compact form. When I first saw it I occasionally found it difficult to follow, largely because of the director's frequent use of overlapping conversations, although I found it more comprehensible on a second viewing.
There are, however, compensations. The film is set in autumn and winter; the indoor scenes are dark, lit only by oil lamps and log fires, and the outdoor ones are dull, with overcast skies, rain and snow. (The final scenes take place in a snowstorm). The dominant tones are greys and browns, but from this limited palette Altman is able to achieve a sombre beauty. Indeed, this is visually one of the most beautiful films ever made, one of those films where almost every shot is composed like a painting. Leonard Cohen's haunting songs fit the mood of the film perfectly.
There is no epic grandeur about this film, the sordid tale of a brothel-keeper who gets himself shot because of his greed and stupidity. His death goes unnoticed by his fellow townsmen, who are more worried about the fact that the local church has caught fire. This is no story out of which legends are made, like the Gunfight at the OK Corral or Custer's Last Stand. It is the sort of story which might merit a few brief paragraphs on the crime page of a local newspaper. By 1971 the Western had, by and large, ceased to celebrate the triumph of Good over Evil. In Altman's vision it ceased to celebrate anything of any note. This is the only Western the director made, and he significantly referred to it as an "anti-Western". Yet he managed to produce from this sordid and mundane subject-matter a strange, hauntingly beautiful film. 7/10
"McCabe and Mrs Miller" is a film which takes its revisionism rather further than some. Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" is sometimes quoted as the quintessential revisionist Western, and it certainly shows us the West as a harsh, pitiless place. Yet although Peckinpah shows us both his criminal protagonists and their enemies as brutal and ruthless, he also mythologises the brutality and ruthlessness of the "Bunch", particularly in the final battle scene in which they achieve a sort of epic grandeur. Tom Gries's "Will Penny" demythologises the West by showing us the cowboy not as hero but as average working man, but keeps the moral distinction between the sympathetic Penny and his villainous adversaries.
Robert Altman's film is different to either. It is set in the early twentieth century in a small logging town in the Pacific North-West- a late date and an unusual location for a Western. The town goes by the name of Presbyterian Church, but the local residents, mostly male, have things other than religion on their minds. John McCabe is an entrepreneur who arrives in town with a scheme to make his fortune by setting up a tavern-cum-brothel. The sex industry is not a field of business in which he has any experience, but he goes into partnership with Constance Miller, an English hooker turned madam, and at first their enterprise proves a great success. Their success, however, proves to be their undoing. A powerful corporation wants to take over the town and makes McCabe an offer to buy out his holdings. He thinks the price is too low and refuses, not realising that the people with whom he is dealing will resort to anything, including violence, to get what they want and that this is the proverbial "offer he cannot refuse".
The plot is a relatively simple one, much more so than some of Altman's other films, such as "Short Cuts" with its collection of interlocking stories or "Gosford Park" with its multiple sub-plots. I felt, in fact, that the film was too long and in parts too slow-moving and that the simple story could have been better told in a more compact form. When I first saw it I occasionally found it difficult to follow, largely because of the director's frequent use of overlapping conversations, although I found it more comprehensible on a second viewing.
There are, however, compensations. The film is set in autumn and winter; the indoor scenes are dark, lit only by oil lamps and log fires, and the outdoor ones are dull, with overcast skies, rain and snow. (The final scenes take place in a snowstorm). The dominant tones are greys and browns, but from this limited palette Altman is able to achieve a sombre beauty. Indeed, this is visually one of the most beautiful films ever made, one of those films where almost every shot is composed like a painting. Leonard Cohen's haunting songs fit the mood of the film perfectly.
There is no epic grandeur about this film, the sordid tale of a brothel-keeper who gets himself shot because of his greed and stupidity. His death goes unnoticed by his fellow townsmen, who are more worried about the fact that the local church has caught fire. This is no story out of which legends are made, like the Gunfight at the OK Corral or Custer's Last Stand. It is the sort of story which might merit a few brief paragraphs on the crime page of a local newspaper. By 1971 the Western had, by and large, ceased to celebrate the triumph of Good over Evil. In Altman's vision it ceased to celebrate anything of any note. This is the only Western the director made, and he significantly referred to it as an "anti-Western". Yet he managed to produce from this sordid and mundane subject-matter a strange, hauntingly beautiful film. 7/10