Dir. Robert Altman, 1971, US, 121 mins
Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois
Review by Michael Bartlett
It was the peculiar genius of Robert Altman (who died last year at the age of 80) to open a Western, not with the strident, masculine score one would expect, but an intimate, mournful ballad addressed to a woman. And the man who is the subject of this ballad trots through the opening shots, not the noble gunslinger of yore, but the incongruous city-slicker figure of Warren Beatty (McCabe), his sharp suit hidden under a bulging fur coat. And the landscape through which he travels is no epic vista of rock and stone, no Monument Valley, but a rain-drenched forest caught in its late autumnal colours.
And it was Altman’s peculiar genius that this genre-bending would determine the form and ethos of the rest of the film. No straight-talking, macho dialogue but the babble of voices barely heard in the bar. No wisecracking dame or saintly pioneer for Beatty to hook up with, but a cranky Cockney whore with a drug habit. And McCabe’s motivation? Not cleaning up the streets or facing down some outlaws, but setting up the best little whorehouse in town. The only whorehouse in town, the only business…
For the desperate, scrappy little gathering of redwood buildings he arrives at is a frontier outpost, trying to scrabble some life out of the harsh environment. This is the beginning of the West, when its heart and soul, its very existence, was up for grabs. And it was Altman’s peculiar genius that the first seeds of community should lie in three uncomely girls, parked in their tent, offering a little bit of pleasure in the wilderness. And McCabe organises them, turns their services into a business. Here is the start of the pioneer spirit, the tradition of the entrepreneur, that will become America’s foundation.
But business can only lead to one thing – competition. And in Altman’s universe, that competition is ferocious, aggressive, violent – it’s administered by the gun. Mercenaries ride into town, and suddenly McCabe is fighting for his life and the settlement’s future. He’s come up against the other side of America’s new-found ambition – the ruthless profiteers who’ll shed blood for a dollar. Who will win and forge the soul of this new country? It was Altman’s peculiar genius that their shoot-out should take place unnoticed by the townspeople, as they race to protect the one other symbol of their world, apart from the brothel, that matters – the church, which is, prophetically, the building both we and McCabe see when he first rides into town. And it was Altman’s peculiar genius that as their bodies fall in the biting snow, the cranky Cockney whore should be puffing away her last drops of happiness in an opium den…
It was Altman’s peculiar genius to have made a film like McCabe and Mrs Miller.
|
