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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, Commentary, Director's Cut, Trailers
Presbyterian Church is a small mining town in the turn-of-the-century Pacific Northwest--and a perfect place where John Q. McCabe and Constance Miller can do business. He's a small-time gambler dreaming of running a big-time bordello. She's a madam from Seattle who arrives to make that dream come true. Robert Altman's dazzlingly original McCabe & Mrs. Miller, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (a 1971 Best Actress Academy Award nominee for her work here) in the title roles, uses these two characters as the center of a gritty movie that stands the mythology of the Old West on its ear. It captures the touch, taste and very essence of a long-ago time, coupled with the edgy modern sensibility Altman brought to his other '70s masterworks M*A*S*H and Nashville. Shooting on beautiful wilderness locations outside Vancouver, Altman invited each of his more than 50 extras to devise the townsfolk "types" they wanted to play and "be that character for the next three months." "The spellbinding result of that collaborative process," critic Pauline Kael wrote, is "a modern classic."
"...a likely classic of the genre." VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever
"The most important American movie since Bonnie And Clyde." Gary Arnold, The Washington Post
"Richly textured mood piece... Beatty is first-rate..." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
Editor's Note
A haunting, poetic anti-Western based on the 1959 novel by Edmund Naughton, Robert Altman's MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER is a deeply moving motion picture about love and the pursuit of wealth in 19th-century America.| |John McCabe (Warren Beatty), a determined businessman with a mysterious past, settles in the small Northwestern town of Presbyterian Church and opens up a saloon and brothel. Soon after, the brothel's madam, an Englishwoman named Constance Miller (Julie Christie), arrives and forms a partnership with McCabe in order to manage the brothel's business affairs. McCabe has trouble expressing his true feelings to Mrs. Miller, with whom he has fallen in love; she, in turn, relies on opium to distract her from her personal sorrows. After a powerful company arrives and offers to buy out McCabe's property, his stubborn refusal ends up jeopardizing his life, resulting in a showdown with three hired killers in the middle of a freak blizzard. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's faded imagery-purposely manipulated by "flashing" the film stock before shooting--along with production designer Leon Ericksen's authentically created town, brings to life a past world that is tinged with an underlying sadness, a feeling that is heightened by Leonard Cohen's melancholy soundtrack. Beatty, as the lovesick McCabe, and Christie, who was nominated for an Oscar as the hard-nosed Mrs. Miller, deliver heartfelt and convincing performances.
Plot Summary
Widely hailed as one of the top ten motion pictures of the 1970s, this Western follows an entrepreneurial drifter with a hidden past. John McCabe builds a makeshift brothel and casino in a small Pacific Northwest mining town during the turn of the century who finds an unlikely a assistant in a world-weary, opium-smoking British madame. Featuring outstanding performances by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER is yet another outstanding revisionist genre film from acclaimed director Robert Altman.
| Features | Commmentary By Robert Altman & Producer David Foster | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Access | | Trailer | | Cast Film Highlights | | Audio: English & French Mono | | Widescreen Version Enhanced For 16x9 TVs | | All-New Digital Transfer | | Behind-The-Scenes Documentary |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 6/3/2003 |
| Running Time: 121 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1971 | | Catalog ID: 11055 | | UPC: 00085391105527 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (1972) | | | Julie Christie, Nominee, Best Actress |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"...A lyrical and hardhearted masterpiece....Two of the best performances of [Beatty's and Christie's] careers..." 01/21/1994 p.C16Chicago Sun-Times
"...The film is a poem -- an elegy for the dead....Few film have such an overwhelming sense of location..." 11/14/1999 p.6 Entertainment Weekly
"...One of Robert Altman's best....The film's real strength is its offbeat characters and their mood-drenched milieu..." 06/21/2002 p.57 USA Today
"...A visual marvel..." 06/07/2002 p.6E |
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