Synopsis

A smooth-talking gambler, John McCabe (Warren Beatty), arrives in a small Old West mining town and quickly gains popularity amongst the townsfolk. He establishes a successful brothel with assistance from a charismatic English woman, Constance Miller (Julie Christie), helping the town to prosper. The burgeoning town attracts the unwanted attention of agents of a larger mining company keen on buying out the town—at a lethal price.

Fresh from the success of M.A.S.H. (1970), Warner Brothers approached Robert Altman to direct a Western. Altman made an anti-Western instead, actively subverting genre tropes and reimagining the genre in a murkier, ambiguous light. To achieve his vision, Altman took extraordinary measures to keep studio producers at arm’s length. Altman’s re-imaging of the Western is visually exemplified by the foggy lensing from the legendary Vilmos Zsigmond; and narratively through the deconstruction of masculinity as set against a strong female lead character.

Altman also experimented with multi-track sound recording—a technological breakthrough—that captured in less than full clarity the myriad of ambient sounds and overlapping conversations, making the picture feel raw and alive. Backed by a haunting soundtrack by Leonard Cohen, McCabe & Mrs Miller examines the panoramic expanse of the Western frontier through a revisionary lens, and remains to be one of Altman’s greatest masterworks from the ‘70s.

Movie Trailer