"I lived with a child of snow when I was a soldier, and I fought every man for her until the nights grew colder..." --Leonard Cohen
February 20th birthday boy Robert Altman directed an absolute Wit of the Staircase favorite, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, a not-quite love story/not-so-much-a cowboy film that subtly examines myths of America and masculinity at mid-Vietnam War. Made in 1971, the film is typically naturalistic, with much of the action taking place during the genuine snowstorms that frequently occurred at the film's location in Vancouver, B.C. (standing in for a fictional Colorado town called Presbyterian Church.) Filmed through hazes of snow and smoke by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, the film's look recalls the subtle grey tones and past shadows of a daguerrotype. Soft around the edges in look and structure, Altman dubbed this beautifully irresolute ensemble film an "anti-western."
"McCabe" updates hoary American filmic tropes by overturning conventions of the Western such as dominant male characters and a build up toward a climactic final standoff between hero and villain. The central romance also unfolds in a desultory way, featuring mostly missed emotional connections between a man whose very character rests on a case of mistaken identity (Warren Beatty as McCabe) and a drug addicted whorehouse madam (Julie Christie as the Mrs.) whose opium-insulated indifference to Beatty's McCabe is reflected in the film's drifiting, frigid scenes of winter. The love story seems to take place on a different plane of existence--more ghost story than grand romance--and the story of the gunfighter who never was ends on a soft drift of snow, giving even the violence a dulled edge, as if the proceedings were being seen through a filmy mental gauze.
The terrific music, full of faint echoes, muted music box notes and a voice made serious and low from the telling of many twice-told tales, is by bleak-romance bard Leonard Cohen. Altman obtained the rights to an entire existing record by the singer, "Songs of Leonard Cohen" to add to his edited film. Altman admired this album immensely, buying additional copies of it after wearing each one out, and finally prevailing on Cohen to sell the rights though the singer at first disliked the finished film. Years later Cohen called Altman and amended his first negative opinion of "McCabe." Cohen too had come to see the fuzzed-out light and had learned to love this gorgeous, ghostly story of love and longing death.
Above, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
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