MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971)

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is less of an anti-Western Western and more of a haunting, snow-covered dream. As I mentioned, Leonard Cohen’s melancholic songs are at its heart, and along with Gosford Park, it’s arguably Robert Altman’s best film. It stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, each giving career- best performances.
This is another of those films that provide a powerful experience, but one hard to describe. The two reviewers below give you an idea.

Roger Ebert: “It is not often given to a director to make a perfect film. Some spend their lives trying, but always fall short. Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another, but one of them is perfect, and that one is “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1971). This is one of the saddest films I have ever seen, filled with a yearning for love and home that will not ever come — not for McCabe, not with Mrs. Miller, not in the town of Presbyterian Church, which cowers under a gray sky always heavy with rain or snow. The film is a poem–an elegy for the dead.”

Dennis Schwartz : “Altman’s film is strikingly lyrical; it is dreamlike and hauntingly memorable. It sadly touches on McCabe’s yearnings to find love and a place to put down roots. The result is a poetical western without heroes. McCabe and Mrs. Miller’s wishful dreams are seen as either foolish romantic notions or drug induced inspirations, dreams that never had a chance of coming true.”

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is available for free on YouTube and from your local library, and for rent or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV.

*** NOTE TO NEW MEMBERS ***
Please watch the movie before the meetup. Information to help find the films will generally be posted in the description or in the comments on the webpage. During the meetup itself, we discuss the movie, but we don't watch it. It's a book club style movie group.