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McCabe & Mrs Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
I loved the shooting location in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. It gave a really authentic look to the town, with all the mud, rain and evergreen trees. The small, rustic town built on a step mountainside also added to the film's ambiance. One beautiful movie to look at!
Great sets too...I loved the look of the film and the cinematography choices. The entire film was expertly handled by Altman. It's really near flawless. I especially liked the scene of the man dancing on the ice, which reminded me of one of the greatest movie scenes ever filmed.
I liked the story premise too, it was an interesting subject matter and I did enjoy watching it. Overall there's a lot to like here, unfortunately there's a few things that didn't work for me:
The theme song that played over and over, drove me nuts. It took me out of the film and was distracting as I kept focusing on it instead of the film.
The interior shots were to dark at times and hard to see, but they sure looked authentic. Just a tiny bit more light would have helped. I read other reviews that mentioned the darkness and sound quality so I know it just wasn't me. I also read Robert Altman deliberately 'frosted' the negative of his film so that it would have a dark slightly hazy look, that could not be corrected later on by the studio. An artistic choice that I liked.
But I don't like Warren Betty, I never have. His movie star fame didn't last long and he's not much of an actor either. Though I will say he's perfectly cast here as a successful but clueless business man. And true to Altman's style he spends a lot of time on colorful dialogue and yet doesn't give us much insight or development on the characters (or maybe I just couldn't hear it!) I felt like I didn't even know what Julie Christie's character was about. Nor did we get much on the momentous task of building a thriving town out of the wilderness mud.
McCabe & Mrs Miller is the kind of film that can grow on you and takes more than one viewing to get it's full effect. However as I already knew what was coming at the ending, the rewatch wasn't emotional rewarding and the last 20 minutes with the hired guns dragged for me.
+
Director: Robert Altman
Writers: Edmund Naughton(novel), Robert Altman(screenplay)
Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois
Genre: Western
An off beat gambler arrives in a remote western mining town, his reputation as a gun fighter proceeds him. He settles into the town and begins making money...and romancing the town's prostitute. The gambler becomes a successful small town business man. Then he comes up against a large corporation who tries to force him to sell his land.Writers: Edmund Naughton(novel), Robert Altman(screenplay)
Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois
Genre: Western
Great sets too...I loved the look of the film and the cinematography choices. The entire film was expertly handled by Altman. It's really near flawless. I especially liked the scene of the man dancing on the ice, which reminded me of one of the greatest movie scenes ever filmed.
I liked the story premise too, it was an interesting subject matter and I did enjoy watching it. Overall there's a lot to like here, unfortunately there's a few things that didn't work for me:
The theme song that played over and over, drove me nuts. It took me out of the film and was distracting as I kept focusing on it instead of the film.
Also I couldn't make out what was being said half the time. The words were so mumbled that I actually had to use subtitles to know what they were saying. This made it hard to connect to the film emotionally. The sound mix needed to be done differently.
The interior shots were to dark at times and hard to see, but they sure looked authentic. Just a tiny bit more light would have helped. I read other reviews that mentioned the darkness and sound quality so I know it just wasn't me. I also read Robert Altman deliberately 'frosted' the negative of his film so that it would have a dark slightly hazy look, that could not be corrected later on by the studio. An artistic choice that I liked.
But I don't like Warren Betty, I never have. His movie star fame didn't last long and he's not much of an actor either. Though I will say he's perfectly cast here as a successful but clueless business man. And true to Altman's style he spends a lot of time on colorful dialogue and yet doesn't give us much insight or development on the characters (or maybe I just couldn't hear it!) I felt like I didn't even know what Julie Christie's character was about. Nor did we get much on the momentous task of building a thriving town out of the wilderness mud.
McCabe & Mrs Miller is the kind of film that can grow on you and takes more than one viewing to get it's full effect. However as I already knew what was coming at the ending, the rewatch wasn't emotional rewarding and the last 20 minutes with the hired guns dragged for me.
+