362 - McCabe & Mrs. Miller, United States, 1971. Dir. Robert Altman.

Thursday, December 28, 2017

362 - McCabe & Mrs. Miller, United States, 1971.  Dir. Robert Altman.

The town is called Presbyterian Church.

A church building sits in it, but it does not seem to be used much.

The men congregate in the saloon.  They are drinking when the stranger man rides into town.

He enters the saloon, walks through, and exits the back door.  What is he up to?  Is he casing the joint?  Is he planning a hold-up?

He goes out back to his horse and retrieves something.

While the man is out back, another man argues with Bart Coyle.  You better get away or I'll bash you in the face, you ignorant . . .

This is foreshadowing.  The talk about Bart Coyle's face getting bashed in.

Someone identifies the stranger man as McCabe.  Pudgy McCabe.  Didn't he once kill a man?  Didn't he kill Bill Roundtree?

Who is Bill Roundtree?  He was a friend of a friend.  I never heard of him.  He was nobody to mess with.  He was a governor.  He was running for governor in Wyoming.

That man out there shot him.  He's got a big rep.  He really is a gunfighter.

The stranger man enters and clears a table.  He opens a table cloth and spreads it on the table.  He pulls out a pack of cards.

Let's play.

Five-card stud with a three bet roof on the card.  15 cents on an open pair on the last card. . . . Unless you have objections about that.

The man negotiates with the bar owner.  Patrick Sheehan.  Who will buy a bottle on the house?  Who will split the winnings?  Who will split the losses?  The man does not want to split his winnings with Sheehan if Sheehan will not equally cover his losses.  He offers to pay two dollars for a bottle of whiskey to pass around the room.  Sheehan says it is three dollars, but a patron reveals it was two dollars yesterday.

Someone asks Laura what's for dinner.

One man asks another man if he should shave his beard and leave his mustache.  The other man recommends he shave the sides and keep the middle.

These background and side conversations are part of the movie.  Part of the world of Robert Altman.

What's the matter with you, Sheehan?  You got a turd in your pocket?

John Sheehan wins over the men.  He has come to town to set up shop.  To build his own saloon.  To build his own whorehouse.  The best little whorehouse in the Pacific Northwest.

The construction workers on the crew are extras on the set.  They build the sets--the saloon, the whorehouse, the bathhouse--in front of the camera.  The story of the townsmen building the buildings is told by the crew building the sets.

McCabe uses his reputation as leverage in the town.  He builds the building, procures three women, and gets ready to go into business.

But then Mrs. Miller comes into town.  Mrs. Constance Miller.  She tells him she is a whore and a madame.  She knows how to run a place, how to keep it clean, hygienic, free of the clap, how to make it fancy, special, luxurious, how to get men to keep coming back and paying more, how to keep the women from lying about cycles to get days off.  She schools him.

He needs her.  She will go into business with him and use the proceeds to pay off all his debts and split the net profits 50-50.  He resists.  He acts tough.  He denies the men are about the fineries.  She convinces him they will be once they get a taste of it.  He agrees.

Before long McCabe and Mrs. Miller own the town.

And everything will continue to go along smoothly and wonderfully for them.

If only those men from the mining company had not come.

They want to buy out McCabe.  Buy out the mines.  Buy out the town.  They are the big boys.  Engaging in mergers and acquisitions.  He is the little guy.  Trying to keep from being swallowed.

He tries to negotiate but does not know how.  He acts tough.  Overstates his price.  Runs them off.  When he tells Constance about it, she is shocked.  What were you thinking?  Those men were offering you good money.  The alternative is that they will send men back to shoot you in the back.

You either take their deal or die.

McCabe listens to her.  He has learned that she is a good businesswoman.  Even if she does have a little thing for opium.  And we are learning that he is not as tough as his reputation.  We are about to learn that he has never shot a man.

He tries to undo the damage but it is too late.  And it is all downhill from here.  With a showdown in the falling snow.  As the church burns.  And the townspeople run to set up a fire brigade.  Not knowing that bullets are flying behind them.

What sets this film apart is Robert Altman.  He developed a unique style.  He "flashed" the negative filmstock to make it look old, like sepia tone filmed in color.  He encouraged the actors to improvise and allowed them to talk at the same time as one another.  He miked everyone on set and ran their voices into different channels so that during post he could select which voices were heard.  He ignored conventions and focused on details.  And he included the songs of Leonard Cohen, at the time still early in his career. He told the story in fits and spurts.  While spending time with other characters in other stories.  Their stories.

If only the big corporation had not come into town.

If only Mrs. Miller were not addicted to opium.

If only McCabe knew how to negotiate.

They could have had a great life.

In the town of Presbyterian Church.

On the backs of their fancy whores.

In this un-Western.  This Northwestern.