McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Director: Robert Altman

Overview

"Of all Robert Altman's early films released on DVD (M*A*S*H, Nashville), perhaps none was more anticipated than 1971's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. This was the esteemed director's revisionist anti-Western, part of his seemingly systematic deconstruction of genre throughout the 1970s (""I'm still chasing genres today,"" Altman says in the commentary track). Set in the bleak, rainy Pacific Northwest at the turn of the century, the film received critical accolades and was frequently singled out for its stunningly beautiful photography and difficult-to-decipher dialogue. If you've ever struggled through watching the darkly lit film on video or on TV, the Warner Home Video DVD will be a much-welcomed revelation. The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen picture still exhibits some graininess and darkness, but that's to be expected given how the film was shot (using minimal and natural light) and the technique of ""flashing"" (very briefly exposing the negative to light in order to achieve an antiquated, sepia-like visual effect) that Altman and his cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond employed. Many of the outdoor shots linger in the mind like paintings: McCabe (Beatty) crossing a bridge during the credit sequence, a church steeple rising into the sky at sunset, the snow-swept landscapes surrounding the growing town of Presbyterian Church, where McCabe establishes himself as proprietor of a brothel and eventually partners with Mrs. Miller (Christie). Despite the predominance of dark hues (browns, greens), the colors stand out well enough; for a revealing before-and-after test, just compare the DVD transfer to the original film footage shown in the making-of documentary. As for the sound, the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track contains some unfortunate hiss, yet it nicely serves the omnipresent sound of wind and rain, as well as the atmospheric Leonard Cohen songs that comprise the soundtrack. Bonus features include the theatrical trailer plus the previously mentioned documentary and commentary by Altman and producer David Foster. Recorded separately, the two commentary tracks don't ever fluidly merge, which is somewhat distracting but also provides some humorous juxtapositions, such as when Foster praises the novel on which the film was based while Altman derides it as ""no great piece of writing."" Elsewhere, Foster gushes about Altman, and Altman -- big surprise -- complains about producers. However, there are some interesting anecdotes about the filming of the movie that make the commentary worth checking out. What makes this DVD so memorable, though, is the look and feel of this classic from a classic era of American film."

Product Details

Release Date:	06/04/2002
UPC:	0085391105527
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	R
Source:	WARNER HOME VIDEO
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:01:00

Special Features

Feature-length audio commentary by director Robert Altman and producer David Foster; Behind-the-scenes documentary

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Warren Beatty	John McCabe
Julie Christie	Constance Miller
John Schuck	Smalley
William Devane	Lawyer
Bert Remsen	Bart
Keith Carradine	Cowboy
Corey Fischer	Elliot,Mr. Elliott
Shelley Duvall	Ida Coyle
Michael Murphy	Sears,Kate
Antony Holland	Hollander
Tom Hill	Archer
Don Francks	Buffalo,Mrs. Washington
Rodney Gage	Sumner Washington
Hugh Millais	Dog Butler
Manfred Schulz	Kid
Jackie Crossland	Lily
Carey Lee McKenzie	Alma
Linda Sorenson	Blanche
Elisabeth Knight	Birdie,Birdie
Janet Wright	Eunice
Maysie Hoy	Maisie
Linda Kupecek	Ruth
Jeremy Newsom	Jeremy Berg
Wayne Robson	Bartender
Wayne Grace	Bartender
Jack Riley	Riley Quinn
Robert Fortier	Town Drunk
Wesley Taylor	Shorty Dunn
Anne Cameron	Mrs. Dunn
Graeme Campbell	Bill Cubbs
J.S. Johnson	J.J.
Joe Clarke	Joe Shortreed
Harry Frazier	Andy Anderson
Edwin Collier	Gilchrist
Terence Kelly	Quigley
Brantley F. Kearns	Fiddler
Joan Maguire	Town Resident
Harvey Lowe	Town Resident
Milos Zatovic	Town Resident
Claudine Melgrave	Town Resident
Derek Deurvorst	Town Resident
Alexander Daikun	Town Resident
Gordon Robertson	Town Resident
Jace Van Der Veen	Breed
Jeremy Newson	Jeremy Berg
Ren? Auberjonois	Sheehan
Derek Keurvorst	Actor
Eric Schneider	Townsperson
L?onard Cohen	Composer,Composer

Technical Credits

Robert Altman

Brian McKay

Robert Altman	Screenwriter,Producer
Brian McKay	Screenwriter
Mitchell Brower	Producer
David Foster	Producer
Graeme Clifford	Casting
Marcel Vercoutere	Special Effects
William Thompson	Sound/Sound Designer

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Credits [4:43]
2. Five-Card Stud [4:48]
3. Businessman or Gunfighter? [6:14]
4. $80 for a Chippy [2:44]
5. Eying the Merchandise [5:13]
6. No Partners or Knives [3:03]
7. Constance Miller [3:31]
8. Her Proposal [5:06]
9. A Right to Know [3:51]
10. Mrs. Miller's Women [3:17]
11. Open for Business [2:09]
12. Bookkeeping [4:12]
13. Street Brawl [2:54]
14. Mining Company Offer [4:52]
15. A Warning [3:04]
16. More Offers [5:09]
17. A Funeral [4:12]
18. "Who Wants to Be Next?" [2:46]
19. Bed and Board [2:29]
20. Deal to Be Made? [3:20]
21. McCabe's Price [6:27]
22. Poetry in Me [2:44]
23. Future Hero [4:44]
24. Cowboy's Last Crossing [3:23]
25. Night Jitters [3:44]
26. Death Stalk at Dawn [3:34]
27. Holy Target [1:55]
28. Bathhouse Bullets [3:42]
29. Fire and Blood [3:32]
30. Second Victim [2:18]
31. Butler vs. McCabe [2:36]
32. Last Steps [2:55]
33. Cast List [1:11]

Menu

Side #1 --
Play Movie
Scene Selection
Special Features
Cast & Crew
Warren Beatty - John Q. McCabe
Julie Christie - Constance Miller
Commentary
Documentary
Theatrical Trailer
Languages
Spoken Languages: English
Spoken Languages: Fran?ais
Subtitles: English
Subtitles: Fran?ais
Subtitles: Espa?ol
Subtitles: Portugu?s
Subtitles: Japanese
Subtitles: Off

Editorial Reviews

Deconstructing the Western, Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) defied conventional myth-making with an oblique narrative steeped in Vietnam-era mistrust of American institutions. Shooting on location in Canada on a haphazard set built as filming progressed, Altman upended Western clichés of heroic Progress in an environment that was authentically rough, even as it evoked the muddy mires of Vietnam. Warren Beatty's McCabe was more buffoonish dreamer than powerful gunfighter, while Julie Christie's business-minded hooker Mrs. Miller had a heart of opium; Altman's widescreen zoom shots and soundtrack of overlapping voices and haunting Leonard Cohen songs downplayed McCabe's presence amid peripheral action and characters. The incursion of corporate interests on McCabe's success seems almost incidental, but the sudden eruption of pointless violence and a lawyer's hypocrisy about freedom and sacrifice reveal McCabe's doom. With cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's grainy, desaturated colors lending the interiors an orange-brown glow that contrasted with the hazy green-gray exteriors, Altman eschewed heroic frontier vistas in favor of a murky, hallucinatory beauty, particularly in McCabe's snowbound, eerily quiet final shoot-out. Confounding viewers with its layered soundtrack and tonal shifts, McCabe & Mrs. Miller failed to catch on; it has since come to be seen as one of the period's best revisionist Westerns and one of the most poetic and elegiac genre revisions of the 1970s.