McCabe & Mrs. Miller

viewed April 1, 2000 on video

For full information about this film, click here

This is the second film I've seen in a month about money, love, brothels and opium, and the sad passing of small people through the age they live in.  How strange that the two films that for my money seem more uniquely immersed in their specified setting than any other films I've seen, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Flowers of Shanghai, would have so much in common.  

The film sticks itself in memory haphazardly.  One can recall the general movements of the narrative: a sleepy town is set into motion by one man who has a ragged dream for himself as the proprietor of a brothel.  Unable to manage his women, he is helped by a madam who rolls into town with a tractorload of San Francisco girls and a dream to make the brothel into a world-class institution.   

After seeing Topsy-Turvy I'm too smart now to call this a historically accurate film.  What I used to mistake as historical accuracy I now call otherworldliness, a quality only movies can have.  Taking us to a past that may never have existed, even beyond mythologies of the western... it's in a language all of it's own... even the slightly anachronistic folk pop songs by Leonard Cohen contribute magnificently to the sardonic, doped-out feel of the film. 

Apparently the crew had shacked up in a mill town outside Oregon for a month.  The effect is a depiction of life so natural it seems unbelievable for a movie -- it's more like a dream.  The lighting is plays a key role to the film, giving a soft, dim touch to the interiors. The overall tone is so uncompromisingly sad.  what is it about movies in the 70s that seemed so sad?  Here, it is a world dominated by dew, rain and snow; people mill about, congregate and disband, things terrible and great happen, life unfolds and goes on.

Warren Beatty is at his best as McCabe, because he has absolutely no polish to his acting, leaving him coarse-mannered and completely believable: always overwhelmed, muttering to himself, constantly dreaming and never quite capable of accomplishing those dreams.  We can never be sure how smart or how stupid he is -- neither can he, because he's a lot of both, really.  His performance is like Nicholson's in Chinatown; a total deconstruction of the star's persona, only to build it back much better than it was.

Julie Christie plays a perfect counterpart; also raw, but very smart.  World-weary, she has little in common with McCabe's dreaminess; half of herself is ready to cash it all in for a terminal dose of opium.  And yet she sees the opportunities McCabe has found in opening the only whorehouse in a sleepy but growing town, and is too smart not to help make something out of McCabe's half-baked ideas.  In doing so, she sets herself up for a greater pain than what she's already experienced.

What happens to them and their town comes unexpectedly, even as the ominous signs gradually register.  Even after a second viewing the ending is suspenseful simply because the doom of the situation creeps in so subtly, yet is so evident that it can't be believed.  This kind of disbelief of doom is best illustrated with the character played by Keith Carradine, in a minor but poignant role as a boy who does business with every girl in the brothel only to meet a sudden, unexpected fate on a creaky bridge overlooking a frozen river.  The look on his face when he registers his situation is terrifying, because he is so innocent that we can't believe that he is doomed -- he can't believe it either because it happened so suddenly.  It's a bizarre ripple effect: coming to realize a man is to die just as he is realizing it.  The feeling is absolutely chilling.

Like a typical Altman film, this one is left open-ended, not quite sure what is to come of this town, and yet somehow certain that it won't be a good result. But most importantly, the ending is more resonant and satisfying than just about any Altman film.  The image of snow falling on McCabe is an amazing sight, and all we can do is watch, just as Mrs. Miller has nothing to do but gaze at the twisting designs of her opium pipe.  

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