Search - McCabe & Mrs. Miller on DVD

MPAA Rating: R Content Advisory: Violence, Brief Nudity, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Substance Abuse Movie Release: 1971 DVD Release: 06/04/2002 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French, Japanese, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 1 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 24 Genres: Drama, Western, Revisionist Western

Memorably described by Pauline Kael as "a beautiful pipe dream of a movie," Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller reimagines the American West as a muddy frontier filled with hustlers, opportunists, and corporate sharks -- a turn-of-the-century model for a 1971 America mired in violence and lies. John McCabe (Warren Beatty) wanders into the turn-of-the-century wilderness village known as Presbyterian Church, with vague plans of parlaying his gambling winnings into establishing a fancy casino-brothel-bathhouse. McCabe's business partner is prostitute Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie), who despite her apparent distaste for McCabe helps him achieve his goal. Once McCabe and Mrs. Miller become successful, the town grows and prospers, incurring the jealousy of a local mining company that wants to buy McCabe out. Filmed on location in Canada, McCabe & Mrs. Miller makes use of such Altman "stock company" performers as Shelley Duvall, René Auberjonois, John Schuck, and Keith Carradine. The seemingly improvised screenplay was based on a novel by Edmund Naughton and the movie features a soundtrack of songs by Leonard Cohen. McCabe & Mrs. Miller joined such other Altman efforts as M*A*S*H, The Long Goodbye, and Thieves Like Us in radically revising familiar movie genres for the disillusioned Vietnam era. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Warren Beatty - John McCabe
Julie Christie - Constance Miller
René Auberjonois - Sheehan
William Devane - Lawyer
Shelley Duvall - Ida Coyle
John Schuck - Smalley
Corey John Fischer - Mr. Elliott

Of all Robert Altman's early films released on DVD (M*A*S*H, Nashville), perhaps none was more anticipated than 1971's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. This was the esteemed director's revisionist anti-Western, part of his seemingly systematic deconstruction of genre throughout the 1970s ("I'm still chasing genres today," Altman says in the commentary track). Set in the bleak, rainy Pacific Northwest at the turn of the century, the film received critical accolades and was frequently singled out for its stunningly beautiful photography and difficult-to-decipher dialogue. If you've ever struggled through watching the darkly lit film on video or on TV, the Warner Home Video DVD will be a much-welcomed revelation. The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen picture still exhibits some graininess and darkness, but that's to be expected given how the film was shot (using minimal and natural light) and the technique of "flashing" (very briefly exposing the negative to light in order to achieve an antiquated, sepia-like visual effect) that Altman and his cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond employed. Many of the outdoor shots linger in the mind like paintings: McCabe (Beatty) crossing a bridge during the credit sequence, a church steeple rising into the sky at sunset, the snow-swept landscapes surrounding the growing town of Presbyterian Church, where McCabe establishes himself as proprietor of a brothel and eventually partners with Mrs. Miller (Christie). Despite the predominance of dark hues (browns, greens), the colors stand out well enough; for a revealing before-and-after test, just compare the DVD transfer to the original film footage shown in the making-of documentary. As for the sound, the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track contains some unfortunate hiss, yet it nicely serves the omnipresent sound of wind and rain, as well as the atmospheric Leonard Cohen songs that comprise the soundtrack.

Bonus features include the theatrical trailer plus the previously mentioned documentary and commentary by Altman and producer David Foster. Recorded separately, the two commentary tracks don't ever fluidly merge, which is somewhat distracting but also provides some humorous juxtapositions, such as when Foster praises the novel on which the film was based while Altman derides it as "no great piece of writing." Elsewhere, Foster gushes about Altman, and Altman -- big surprise -- complains about producers. However, there are some interesting anecdotes about the filming of the movie that make the commentary worth checking out. What makes this DVD so memorable, though, is the look and feel of this classic from a classic era of American film. ~ Andrew Roe, All Movie Guide