Classic 70s Movie: “McCabe & Mrs. Miller”
September is Classic 70s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Mark A. Furney.
Movie Title: McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Year: 1971
Writer: Edmund Naughton (Novel “McCabe”); Robert Altman (Screenplay); Brian McKay (Screenplay)
Lead Actors: Warren Beatty; Julie Christie;
Director: Robert Altman
IMDB Plot Summary: A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in a remote Pacific Northwest mining town. Their enterprise thrives until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
Why I Think This Is A Classic 70s Movie: Film makers broke the rules in the seventies. With M.A.S.H, Robert Altman redefined the comedy war movie. With McCabe, he redefined the western genre at the height of disillusionment with the Viet Nam war. McCabe is listed number eight on the American Film Institute’s top ten list for the western genre.
McCabe is the first film in my memory bank told in episodic form. The place, the struggle, the little people interacting and living and dying with the survivors then going on living and dying some more, is the story; the plot. Despite this observation, the acting of Warren Beatty and Julie Christie make the movie, in my opinion. Stunning performances by both. Quentin Tarantino calls Beatty the “true auteur” in the film and that his performance is “brilliant” and “something to behold.”
Pauline Kael described McCabe & Mrs. Miller as “a beautiful pipe dream of a movie — a fleeting, almost diaphanous vision of what frontier life might have been.” (The New Yorker, July 3, 1971).
That sentence also describes the film’s trailer [see it below].
My Favorite Moment In The Movie: There is a scene where Julie Christie and some of the other gals in her whorehouse make a birthday cake for one of their fellow whores. It shows them living life and being kind and happy in the midst of that life they were in. It captured what I believe Altman was trying to do: showing folks living and interacting and dying and the survivors moving on.
My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie: A soliloquy by Warren Beatty, “I got poetry in me … you’re just freezin my soul.”
Robert Altman had a bad reputation with writers because he wouldn’t shoot what a writer wrote. Actors, however, loved the man. (Source: Wiki entry on Robert Altman).
Altman also favored overlapping dialog, where many different actors would be talking at the same time. He said that it would be hard to imagine only two people talking at a table of twelve at a Thanksgiving Dinner.
For the dialog I’ve selected as my favorite, I include how it was written in the script that I’ve been able to find online. This should be compared to the clip below. The “I’ve got poetry in me” line in the script is spoken by McCabe to Constance in a love scene. After this love scene, McCabe sets off to meet his enemies in the final showdown. In the movie as shot, McCabe speaks these words in a soliloquy from his own room rather from Constance’s love nest.
This is how it was written in the script:
He kisses her hair right there. And then her eyes and her shoulders and her lips and her ears and she kisses him back.
Constance: John, Now!”
McCabe: Listen to me, Constance. Listen to me. I got poetry in me if you’d only listen to me. –All my life I’ve been walking around with a block of ice inside me. I’ve wanted to feel your body warm for me sometimes so bad that the ache nearly busts me. I never wanted to do nothing but put a smile on your face. Oh God, how I hate for them bastards to put their hands on you. Jesus, how I used to hate being over there when I knew some son-of-a-bitch was with you over here. Oh God, Constance, you ain’t nothing but the best looker I’ve ever seen.
But the words, THE words just don’t come. He’s trying to say “I love you” and trying not to say it too. Constance reaches up and dims the lights.
Constance: Love me, John. Love me.
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie: Robert Altman is not known for following formulas with his film making. Despite this reputation, and in light of the episodic nature of McCabe & Mrs. Miller, I was struck by the respected beats and forms found in the film. For instance, mirroring. Note the importance of the building of the church with its high steeple in the first act, the church’s visual importance throughout the film, and the central role of the church in the showdown and resolution of the film. (Spoiler alert: the church is set on fire; the townsfolk fight and conquer the fire, all while McCabe is in a gunfight to his death. The closing image is of Mrs. Miller prone and high in an opium den. People live. People die. People go on living.)
Three act structure is present. At minute twenty-eight Mrs. Miller shows up. The ordinary life of McCabe just changed. A clear “mid-point crisis” is present when the heavy from the mining company refuses to negotiate with McCabe. The tone of the film changes. We know McCabe is done, finished. And at 1:24:30 into the film, McCabe straps on his gun, gives his soliloquy (to boost his courage) and goes to meet his enemy.
Even in the darker second half of the movie, clear plus and minus emotional points are interwoven into the movie. This was probably wise. Otherwise, the last half of the movie may have been too dark for any audience.
Duality is present. The church and the whorehouse/tavern are the focal points in this budding community. A sequence with scenes where a recently widowed young woman (played brilliantly by Shelley Duvall) decides to become a whore “where she will make some money” is juxtaposed with scenes where a young and innocent young man (brilliantly played by Keith Carradine in his first film role) comes to town and he is like “an innocent in a whorehouse.” (A quote from Robert Altman from the commentary DVD).
I believe the closing sequence is simply courageous film making. McCabe sets off for his showdown (the “chase of death,” in my viewing notes) at 1:39 into the film and it ends at 1:59. Only one line of dialog is spoken (by the preacher) in that whole time (discounting the “crowd noise” as it fights the fire at the church). It is visual, taut film making at its best. In fact, Quentin Tarantino (link above) describes the closing gunfight as “a true stroke of genius.” High praise, indeed.
I recommend the DVD version with the commentary from Robert Altman and producer David Foster. It includes real nuggets of wisdom there for any writer or film maker.
Thanks, Mark! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
We already have a set of 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 70s Movies.
If you have volunteered, please email your posts to me by today. Thanks!
Thanks to all of you for your participation in this project, creating a resource for writers, movies we should all watch to help learn the craft of screenwriting!
Comment Archive