Part of Winter Classics
McCabe (Warren Beatty), an entrepreneurial vagabond, moves to a ramshackle town in the Pacific Northwest known as Presbyterian Church to establish an upscale saloon — aka brothel. He soon meets the shrewd Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie), a professional madam with years of experience, and together they start a booming business and a blossoming relationship. With a haunting score courtesy of Leonard Cohen, McCABE & MRS. MILLER captures the essence of a long-ago time — while re-imagining the Old West as a muddy frontier for hustlers and corporate sharks.
“McCABE & MRS. MILLER is a beautiful pipe dream of a movie — a fleeting, almost diaphanous vision of what frontier life might have been…. The pipe dreamer is, of course, Robert Altman…. The question is always asked, ‘Why aren’t there American Bergmans and Fellinis?’ Here is an American artist who has made a beautiful film. The question now is ‘Will enough people buy tickets?’” —Pauline Kael, New Yorker (Jul 3, 1971) “If anything, Robert Altman's self-styled ‘anti-Western’ looks even richer, stranger and more daring than it did when it first appeared back in 1971.” —Xan Brooks, The Guardian
