McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Encyclopedia
McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a 1971 American Western
film starring Warren Beatty
and Julie Christie
, and directed by Robert Altman
. The screenplay is by Altman and Brian McKay from the novel McCabe by Edmund Naughton. The cinematography
is by Vilmos Zsigmond
and the soundtrack includes three songs by Leonard Cohen
issued on his 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen
. As one of Altman's naturalist
films, the director called it an "anti-western film" because the film ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions.
McCabe establishes a make-shift brothel, consisting of three prostitutes purchased from a pimp in the nearby town of Bearpaw for $200, and has some success. Englishwoman Constance Miller, an opium-addicted professional "madam", arrives in town and convinces McCabe that she can do a better job of managing the brothel than he can. The two become successful business partners, and open a higher class establishment which is more successful. A love interest develops between the two after McCabe avails himself of the madam's services.
As the town becomes richer and more successful, a pair of agents from the Harrison Shaughnessy mining company in Bearpaw arrive to buy out McCabe's business as well as the surrounding zinc mines. Shaughnessy is notorious for having people killed when they refuse to sell. McCabe doesn't want to sell at their initial price, but he overplays his hand in the negotiations in spite of Mrs. Miller's warnings that he is underestimating the violence that will ensue if they don't take the money.
Three bounty killers are dispatched by the mining company to make an example of McCabe but he refuses to abandon the town. The climactic showdown is unconventional for a Western. McCabe is clearly afraid of the gunmen when they arrive in town, and initially tries to appease them. Finally, when a lethal confrontation becomes inevitable, he kills two of the gunmen by shooting them in the back from hidden positions, leaving only the third to be dealt with. In a final twist, McCabe is mortally wounded, but also kills the third gunman with his pistol. While the townspeople fight a fire in the chapel McCabe dies in the snow and Mrs. Miller visits a Chinese opium den.
, an agent for Edmund Naughton, who was then living in Paris
and working for the International Herald Tribune
.
Altman was in post-production on M.A.S.H. and sneaked Foster into the screening; Foster liked the film and agreed to have Altman direct McCabe; the two of them agreed to wait until M.A.S.H. became popular to take the pitch for McCabe to a studio for funding. Meanwhile, Foster called Warren Beatty, then in England, about the film; Beatty flew to New York
to see M.A.S.H. and then flew to Los Angeles, California
to sign for McCabe.
The film was originally called The Presbyterian Church Wager, after a bet placed among the church's few attendees about whether McCabe would survive his refusal of the offer to sell his property. Altman reported that an official in the Presbyterian Church called Warner Brothers to complain about having their church mentioned in context of a film about brothels and gambling. The complaint prompted a name change to John Mac Cabe but it was further changed and released as McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
The film was shot in West Vancouver and in Squamish, almost entirely in sequential order — a rarity for films. The crew found a suitable location for the filming and, as filming progressed, built up the "set" as McCabe built up the town in the film. In the film, Mrs. Miller is brought into town on a J. I. Case 80 HP steam engine
from 1912; the steam engine is genuine and functioning and the crew used it to power the lumbermill after its arrival. Carpenters for the film were locals and young men from the United States, fleeing conscription
into the Vietnam War
; they were dressed in period costume and used tools of the period so that they could go about their business in the background while the plot advanced in the foreground.
The crew ran buried hoses throughout the town, placed so they could create the appearance of rain if necessary. Since the city of Vancouver
generally receives a great deal of rain, it was usually only necessary to turn on the hoses to make scenes shot on rare days when it didn't rain match those shot on days when it did.
It began snowing near the end of the film's shooting, when the church fire and the standoff were the only scenes left to shoot. Beatty did not want to start shooting in the snow, as it was in a sense dangerous (expensive) to do so: to preserve continuity, the entire rest of the film would have to be shot in snow. Altman countered that since those were the only scenes left to film, it was best to start since there was nothing else to do. The "standoff" scene — which is in fact more a "cat and mouse" scene involving shooting one's enemy in the back — and its concurrent church fire scene were shot over a period of nine days. The heavy snow, with the exception of a few "fill-in" patches on the ground, was all genuine; the crew members built snowmen
and had snowball fight
s between takes.
For the distinctive cinematography, Altman and Zsigmond chose to "flash' (pre-fog) the actual film negative, as well as use a number of filters on the cameras, rather than manipulate the film in post-production; in this way the studio could not force him to change the film's look to something less distinctive.
. Altman had immensely liked Cohen's debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen
(1967), buying additional copies of it after wearing each one out. Then he had forgotten about the LP. Years later, he visited Paris, just after finishing shooting on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and rediscovered Cohen's album; he had it transferred and used the music to maintain a rhythm for the film (in effect using it as a "temp" track). Altman didn't expect to be able to procure rights for Cohen's music since McCabe was a Warner Brothers film and Cohen's album was released through Columbia Records
. He called Cohen, expecting to trade off his recent success with M*A*S*H, but found that Cohen had no knowledge of it. Instead, Cohen had loved Altman's less popular follow-up film Brewster McCloud
. Cohen arranged for his record company to license the music cheaply, even writing into the contract that sales of that album after the release of McCabe would turn some of the royalties to Altman (an arrangement which at the time was quite unusual). Later, on watching McCabe to come up with a guitar riff for one scene, Cohen decided he didn't like the film. Nonetheless, he honored his contract and recorded the music for it. A year later he called Altman to apologize, saying he had seen the film again and loved it.
's performance was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress
. Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography received a nomination by the British Academy Film Awards
, and the film's screenplay garnered a Writers Guild of America
nomination.
Greeted with muted praise upon release, the film's reputation has grown in stature in the intervening years. Roger Ebert
, a leading critic, described it as "perfect." In June 2008, the American Film Institute
revealed its AFI's 10 Top 10
—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. McCabe & Mrs. Miller was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the Western genre.
During a web special of At the Movies
, A.O. Scott named the film one of his five favorite films of all time.
In 2010, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
film starring Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
and Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
, and directed by Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
. The screenplay is by Altman and Brian McKay from the novel McCabe by Edmund Naughton. The cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
is by Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C. is a Hungarian-American cinematographer.In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Zsigmond among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.-Biography:...
and the soundtrack includes three songs by Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
issued on his 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen
Songs of Leonard Cohen
Songs of Leonard Cohen is the debut album of Canadian musician Leonard Cohen. It foreshadowed the future path of his career, with less success in the United States and far better in Europe, reaching #83 on the Billboard chart but achieving gold status only in 1989, while it reached #13 in UK and...
. As one of Altman's naturalist
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
films, the director called it an "anti-western film" because the film ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions.
Plot
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, a gambler named John McCabe arrives in the town of Presbyterian Church (named after its only substantial building, a largely unfrequented chapel), in the northwest United States. He quickly takes a dominant position over the town's simple-minded and lethargic miners, thanks to his aggressive personality and rumors that he is a gunfighter.McCabe establishes a make-shift brothel, consisting of three prostitutes purchased from a pimp in the nearby town of Bearpaw for $200, and has some success. Englishwoman Constance Miller, an opium-addicted professional "madam", arrives in town and convinces McCabe that she can do a better job of managing the brothel than he can. The two become successful business partners, and open a higher class establishment which is more successful. A love interest develops between the two after McCabe avails himself of the madam's services.
As the town becomes richer and more successful, a pair of agents from the Harrison Shaughnessy mining company in Bearpaw arrive to buy out McCabe's business as well as the surrounding zinc mines. Shaughnessy is notorious for having people killed when they refuse to sell. McCabe doesn't want to sell at their initial price, but he overplays his hand in the negotiations in spite of Mrs. Miller's warnings that he is underestimating the violence that will ensue if they don't take the money.
Three bounty killers are dispatched by the mining company to make an example of McCabe but he refuses to abandon the town. The climactic showdown is unconventional for a Western. McCabe is clearly afraid of the gunmen when they arrive in town, and initially tries to appease them. Finally, when a lethal confrontation becomes inevitable, he kills two of the gunmen by shooting them in the back from hidden positions, leaving only the third to be dealt with. In a final twist, McCabe is mortally wounded, but also kills the third gunman with his pistol. While the townspeople fight a fire in the chapel McCabe dies in the snow and Mrs. Miller visits a Chinese opium den.
Cast
- Warren BeattyWarren BeattyWarren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
- John McCabe - Julie ChristieJulie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
- Constance Miller - Rene AuberjonoisRene AuberjonoisRené Murat Auberjonois is an American actor, known for portraying Father Mulcahy in the movie version of M*A*S*H and for creating a number of characters in long-running television series, including Clayton Endicott III on Benson , Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Chef Louis in The Little...
- Sheehan - William DevaneWilliam DevaneWilliam Joseph Devane is an American film, television and theater actor.-Life and career:Devane was born in Albany, New York in 1937 or 1939 , the son of Joseph Devane, who was Franklin D. Roosevelt's chauffeur when he was Governor of New York...
- the Lawyer - John SchuckJohn SchuckConrad John Schuck Jr. is an American actor, primarily in stage, movies and television. He is best-known for his roles as police commissioner Rock Hudson's mildly slow-witted assistant, Sgt. Charles Enright in the 1970s crime drama McMillan & Wife, and as Lee Meriwether's husband, Herman Munster...
- Smalley - Corey FischerCorey FischerCorey Fischer , born in 1945 in Los Angeles, received a BA in French and Theatre Arts from UCLA. In the mid-sixties he worked in Los Angeles in improvisational theatre, notably with The Committee, and went on to work in film and television...
- Mr. Elliot - Bert RemsenBert RemsenHerbert Birchell "Bert" Remsen was an American actor.-Life and career:Remsen was born in Glen Cove, New York, on Long Island, the son of Helen and Winfred Herbert Remsen. He played character roles in numerous films directed by Robert Altman, including: Brewster McCloud , McCabe & Mrs...
- Bart Coyle - Shelley DuvallShelley DuvallShelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
- Ida Coyle - Keith CarradineKeith CarradineKeith Ian Carradine is an American actor who has had success on stage, film and television. In addition, he is a Golden Globe and Oscar winning songwriter. As a member of the Carradine family, he is part of an acting "dynasty" that began with his father, John Carradine.-Early life:Keith...
- Cowboy - Michael MurphyMichael Murphy (actor)Michael George Murphy is an American film and television actor.-Career:Murphy played Woody Allen's duplicitous friend Yale in the film Manhattan...
- Sears - Hugh MillaisHugh MillaisHugh Geoffroy Millais was a British author and actor known for his film collaborations with director Robert Altman.-Early years:...
- Butler - Jace Van Der Veen - Breed
- Jackie Crossland - Lily
- Elizabeth Murphy - Kate
- Carey Lee McKenzie - Alma
- Thomas HillThomas Hill (actor)Thomas Hill was an actor and director on stage for decades before starting in film in the mid 1960s and on television in the 1980s....
- Archer - Linda SorensonLinda SorensonLinda Sorenson is a Canadian actress best known for playing Mrs. Stegman in Class of 1984, Warden Howe in Murphy Brown, Virginia Reeves in Material World and Isabelle Carrington in Road to Avonlea....
- Blanche - Elisabeth Knight - Birdie
- Janet WrightJanet WrightJanet Wright is a Canadian actress and theatre director. She is best known for her role as Emma Leroy on the hit Canadian sitcom Corner Gas. She won a 2003 Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for her role in Betrayed...
- Eunice - Maysie Hoy - Maisie
- Linda Kupecek - Ruth
- Jeremy Newson - Jeremy Berg
- Wayne RobsonWayne RobsonWayne Robson was a Canadian television, film and stage actor best known for playing the part of Mike Hamar, an ex-convict and sometime thief, on the Canadian sitcom The Red Green Show from 1993 to 2006, as well as in the 2002 film Duct Tape Forever.Robson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia...
- Bartender - Jack Riley - Riley Quinn
- Robert Fortier - Town Drunk
- Wayne Grace - Bartender
Background
Altman was introduced to the story by David Foster, one of the film's producers. Foster had been introduced to the story by the widow of novelist Richard WrightRichard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, an agent for Edmund Naughton, who was then living in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and working for the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
.
Altman was in post-production on M.A.S.H. and sneaked Foster into the screening; Foster liked the film and agreed to have Altman direct McCabe; the two of them agreed to wait until M.A.S.H. became popular to take the pitch for McCabe to a studio for funding. Meanwhile, Foster called Warren Beatty, then in England, about the film; Beatty flew to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to see M.A.S.H. and then flew to Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to sign for McCabe.
The film was originally called The Presbyterian Church Wager, after a bet placed among the church's few attendees about whether McCabe would survive his refusal of the offer to sell his property. Altman reported that an official in the Presbyterian Church called Warner Brothers to complain about having their church mentioned in context of a film about brothels and gambling. The complaint prompted a name change to John Mac Cabe but it was further changed and released as McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
Production
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
from 1912; the steam engine is genuine and functioning and the crew used it to power the lumbermill after its arrival. Carpenters for the film were locals and young men from the United States, fleeing conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
into the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
; they were dressed in period costume and used tools of the period so that they could go about their business in the background while the plot advanced in the foreground.
The crew ran buried hoses throughout the town, placed so they could create the appearance of rain if necessary. Since the city of Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
generally receives a great deal of rain, it was usually only necessary to turn on the hoses to make scenes shot on rare days when it didn't rain match those shot on days when it did.
It began snowing near the end of the film's shooting, when the church fire and the standoff were the only scenes left to shoot. Beatty did not want to start shooting in the snow, as it was in a sense dangerous (expensive) to do so: to preserve continuity, the entire rest of the film would have to be shot in snow. Altman countered that since those were the only scenes left to film, it was best to start since there was nothing else to do. The "standoff" scene — which is in fact more a "cat and mouse" scene involving shooting one's enemy in the back — and its concurrent church fire scene were shot over a period of nine days. The heavy snow, with the exception of a few "fill-in" patches on the ground, was all genuine; the crew members built snowmen
Snowman
A snowman is an anthropomorphic snow sculpture. They are customarily built by children as part of a family project in celebration of winter. In some cases, participants in winter festivals will build large numbers of snowmen...
and had snowball fight
Snowball fight
A snowball fight is a physical game in which balls of snow are thrown with the intention of hitting somebody else. The game is similar to dodgeball in its major factors, though typically less organized. This activity is primarily played during months when there is sufficient snowfall.Today, the...
s between takes.
For the distinctive cinematography, Altman and Zsigmond chose to "flash' (pre-fog) the actual film negative, as well as use a number of filters on the cameras, rather than manipulate the film in post-production; in this way the studio could not force him to change the film's look to something less distinctive.
Soundtrack
The music for the film was largely by Leonard CohenLeonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
. Altman had immensely liked Cohen's debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen
Songs of Leonard Cohen
Songs of Leonard Cohen is the debut album of Canadian musician Leonard Cohen. It foreshadowed the future path of his career, with less success in the United States and far better in Europe, reaching #83 on the Billboard chart but achieving gold status only in 1989, while it reached #13 in UK and...
(1967), buying additional copies of it after wearing each one out. Then he had forgotten about the LP. Years later, he visited Paris, just after finishing shooting on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and rediscovered Cohen's album; he had it transferred and used the music to maintain a rhythm for the film (in effect using it as a "temp" track). Altman didn't expect to be able to procure rights for Cohen's music since McCabe was a Warner Brothers film and Cohen's album was released through Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. He called Cohen, expecting to trade off his recent success with M*A*S*H, but found that Cohen had no knowledge of it. Instead, Cohen had loved Altman's less popular follow-up film Brewster McCloud
Brewster McCloud
Brewster McCloud is a 1970 movie, directed by Robert Altman, about a young recluse who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, where he is building a pair of wings so he can fly. He is helped by his fairy godmother, played by Sally Kellerman....
. Cohen arranged for his record company to license the music cheaply, even writing into the contract that sales of that album after the release of McCabe would turn some of the royalties to Altman (an arrangement which at the time was quite unusual). Later, on watching McCabe to come up with a guitar riff for one scene, Cohen decided he didn't like the film. Nonetheless, he honored his contract and recorded the music for it. A year later he called Altman to apologize, saying he had seen the film again and loved it.
Reception
Julie ChristieJulie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
's performance was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography received a nomination by the British Academy Film Awards
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
, and the film's screenplay garnered a Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
nomination.
Greeted with muted praise upon release, the film's reputation has grown in stature in the intervening years. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, a leading critic, described it as "perfect." In June 2008, the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
revealed its AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. McCabe & Mrs. Miller was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the Western genre.
During a web special of At the Movies
At the Movies
At the Movies is an Australian television program on ABC1 hosted by film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, in which they discuss the films opening in theatres that week.-History:...
, A.O. Scott named the film one of his five favorite films of all time.
In 2010, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"