McCabe & Mrs. Miller

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. ...more

Deconstructing the Western, Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) defied conventional myth-making with an oblique narrative steeped in Vietnam-era mistrust of American institutions. Shooting on location in Canada on a haphazard set built as filming progressed, Altman upended Western clichés of heroic Progress in an environment that was authentically rough, even as it evoked the muddy mires of Vietnam. Warren Beatty's McCabe was more buffoonish dreamer than powerful gunfighter, while Julie ...more