The Nobodies #9: Mccabe and Mrs. Miller
Mccabe has a beautiful opening. The chords of The Stranger Song waft into your ears as a wandering man in a giant overcoat walks through the beautifully shot mountains. We know nothing about him, he is a wanderer, one of those characters who purpose is unknown. Mr Cohen tells us this specifically. The green trees which impose in the background watch him, observing his actions for judgment later on. He wanders up to the saloon in the mountains, looks at a table, gos out, gets a green cloth and puts it on the table.
What's interesting is then, we learn everything about Mccabe quite easily. He is not hard man to understand. He is a business man, he is interested in Mrs. Miller, the local brothel owner. As the assassin sent after him says, "That man never murdered anyone in his life". This feels like an indictment of such a character. He tries to be an enigma, a man who people cannot understand. He spends time alone figuring out his persona, the man who noone understands. But he is quite simple, and he is much more naive then he might think. Beatty is much better here then in Bonnie And Clyde, as he lays incompetent and above it all better then anyone.
See, the real enigma here is not him, not Mrs. Miller either. She is head strong, a great female character and is a great woman to watch. Christie is also wonderful, her thick british accent making her stand out among all the women and men in the ensemble. But she is simplistic also, she cannot escape our piercing film watching eyes. She is strong, smart, do anything for her girls, her business. It's a simple question of code. The assassin who comes to town is not hard, he is not Chigurgh, he is a just a man on the job. So, we are left with a simple premise. Sure, Altman deconstructs in the first ten minutes, turning our preconceptions about Mccabe on it's own head, but other then the obvious turning the Western hero into a man who is incompetent and runs brothels, he does not do much to the formula.
At first glance.
But, it's our world, our environment that is new. this is destructive territory. And I don't mean destructive enviroment in the Herzogian sense of the phrase, I mean how these people interact with each other. Think about, (spoiler till end of paragraph) As everyone is in joy having put out the fire Mccabe is dying a lonely death stuck in the snow. Passing away through time, as if you were never there, forgotten. This is what Altman nails, and what exemplifies Mccabe as a classic.
The last twenty minutes are phenomenal, a true masterclass in suspense. I'm quite fond of scenarios where a director puts two characters in a contained area, one or both with the lust to kill, and allow them to weave around each other. There's something wonderful about watching the whole thing unfold.
The craft of the film is marvelous too. The landscapes are wonderful, but the red hues of the insides are claustrophobic in contrast, and the snow is dark and all encompassing as well as being beautiful. Those Leonard Cohen songs are a perfect fit, with The Stranger Song being a particularly beautiful piece of music. The soundtrack really stuck out to me, only knowing Cohen through Everybody Knows and Hallelujah, two songs I can take or leave, and now I'm excited to check out more of him. It's definitely a fantastic change of pace from the 60's stalmart tunes we've gotten so far.
Verdict: There have been many films in this marathon, but none quite as beautiful as this.
Grade: A