Of all the various popular or acclaimed directors out there, I can’t say I have much interest in the work of Robert Altman. I don’t dislike his work. I honestly haven’t seen much of it. I loved the live-action Popeye as a kid but found it less interesting as an adult, and I have seen M*A*S*H* two or three times, but the work, while distinctive, didn’t really grab me all that much. I don’t hate it, but I don’t much like it either. It just doesn’t work for me.
Still, I do try a little of everything once and while, and he did make what he called an “anti-Western” that is on HBO Max until the end of the month. That would be the Warren Beatty/Julie Christie film McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
John McCabe (Beatty) is a gambler who moves out to a small mining settlement in snowy Oregon to open a whorehouse. He has a reputation as a gunslinger for some reason, but he’s more of a friendly guy, someone who relies on his knowledge of how to gamble to make his way in the world. That only goes but so far, and his initial work with a series of tents and at least one prostitute who attacks a customer with a knife before the brothel itself is built, well, he has problems. Enter Mrs. Constance Miller (Christie), an Englishwoman with a little knowledge on the business. She and McCabe become partners and build a more high-class operation that attracts customers from miles around. It’s quite the business, and McCabe soon develops feelings for Mrs. Miller that may or may not be reciprocated.
But then some representatives for a mining company show up and offer McCabe a sum of money for his business. McCabe thinks he can play them along for a bigger payout. Mrs. Miller realizes these companies don’t really like to negotiate when it’s cheaper to just hire a gunslinger. McCabe’s reputation may have made him untouchable to the locals, but when professional killers get involved, well, they don’t really back down just because of a reputation that may have never really been earned.
So, interesting set-up. Altman’s idea of the anti-Western is clear: McCabe is not some reluctant gunslinger like Shane or Will Kane trying to avoid violence and become civilized. McCabe is a coward who doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He often comes across as awkward–quite the sight considering Beatty’s own reputation as a ladies’ man, even as he was dating his co-star before they made the movie–and he doesn’t want to pull a gun because he never has before and has just let people think he has. He’s a gambler who believes he can negotiate with anyone. The mining company and its bounty hunters are not the sort you can buy off with a smile and some free fun with his best prostitutes.
By the by, this movie sure is sex worker positive considering when it was made.
But then there’s Mrs. Miller. She’s a much more canny businessperson, and she understands what a fool McCabe really is. She’s even rather cynical about the role of sex, or at least more pragmatic, when women deal with men, as seen when she explains to new employee and recent widow Shelley Duvall how her life isn’t really changing in the grand scheme of things aside from how she now has a bit more power than she used to. However, Mrs. Miller isn’t flawless either as she has an opium addiction, and it is while high that she seems most amenable to McCabe’s flirting. This is not story that will end well for either of the protagonists, and the slow motion to McCabe’s fall is obvious and inevitable from the midway point when he foolishly thinks he can get more money from the mining company. While I still won’t call myself an Altman fan, I will say that his work, that I have seen, are at least enjoyable excursions. I can get behind that.
Grade: B+
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