McCabe & Mrs. Miller

I keep trying. I keep hearing, from one source or another, how great Robert Altman films are. And I keep watching them, with the expectation that I will see a flick that will, at some point, help me see the light. But this isn’t that one, and at this point I’m drawing the inevitable conclusion that Altman’s oeuvre is way, way overrated. I’ve no doubt that the tone of this movie—dispassionate, disaffected, and distant—is meant to convey the seriousness of the artistry being presented, but it certainly doesn’t help viewers who simply want to watch a good movie. Most definitely, it does not serve the needs of those who want a good story. The telling of the tale lacks some of the most fundamental aspects of good storytelling; for instance, we never really see the Special Event that is supposed to make us care about what happens to McCabe, or Miller, or the whores and the whorehouse, or even the whole damn town. It’s easy to look down upon such standards as trite, or hackneyed, or even bourgeois, but there’s a reason that standards become standards: they work. What happens here doesn’t. Also, the performances are uneven; Beatty and Christie are, at times, nearly unintelligible by the manner in which they deliver their lines. That may reflect poor sound recording or editing, which further damns the director for not going to the trouble of doing the job technically right. As for the look of the thing, it’s fine, excepting perhaps the director and cinematographer’s deep fondness for the camera’s zoom feature (it really gets a workout—and wears out—here). It isn’t awful, but a new form that shook up the world of cinema? I’m not seeing it. Maybe, just maybe, this emperor had no clothes.