McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Criterion Collection) DvDThis unorthodox dream western by Robert Altman may be the most radically beautiful film to come out of the New American Cinema. It stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as two newcomers to the raw Pacific Northwest mining town of Presbyterian Church, who join forces to provide the miners with a superior kind of whorehouse experience. The appearance of representatives of a powerful mining company with interests of its own, however, threatens to be the undoing of their plans. With its fascinating flawed characters, evocative cinematography by the great Vilmos Zsigmond, innovative overlapping dialogue, and haunting use of Leonard Cohen songs, McCabe & Mrs. Miller brilliantly deglamorized and revitalized the most American of genres.FEATURES:Genre: WESTERNOriginally Released: 1971WidescreenASPECT RATIO 2.40:1ColorRun Time: 121 MinutesSubtitles: ENGLISH SDHDISC FEATURES:New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-rayAudio commentary from 2002 featuring director Robert Altman and producer David FosterNew making-of documentary, featuring members of the cast and crewNew conversation about the film and Altman’s career between film historians Cari Beauchamp and Rick JewellFeaturette from the film’s 1970 productionArt Directors Guild Film Society Q&A from 1999 with production designer Leon EricksenExcerpts from archival interviews with cinematographer Vilmos ZsigmondGallery of stills from the set by photographer Steve SchapiroExcerpts from two 1971 episodes of The Dick Cavett Show featuring Altman and film critic Pauline KaelTrailerNumber of Discs: 2PLUS: An essay by novelist and critic Nathaniel Rich
J**F
Great film
Songs by Leonard Cohen especially good
S**S
Why have I never seen this film before?
Why have I never seen this film before? Just starting to go through Robert Altman's films one by one, and this is the best one so far. Typical Altman atmospheric direction, great music from Leonard Cohen, wonderfully shot and stellar performances from Warren Beattie and the incomparable Julie Christie.
J**J
Won't work in the UK; returns are a nightmare
The disc will not work in the UK (verified this by showing it to a film archivist) and returning it is very complicated. Should not be selling the product without indicating this.
**Y
Gritty realism in the West!
I don't usually like Warren Beaty but he is excellent in this unglamorous move. It is set in the reality of the frontiersman: Julie Christie is the immigrant, far from the East End of London, of ill repute! With a Leonard Cohen sound track! Directed by Robert Altman of MASH and Gosford Park!
T**K
A masterpiece of the western genre.
Beautifully designed and naturally played by a uniformly excellent cast , Altman's elegiac vision of Edmund Naughton's novel is one of the most magnificent and melancholy westerns ever produced. Beatty gives a career best performance as a small-time gambler and businessman with a mysterious reputation as a gunfighter. He struggles to build an empire in the snowy wastes of a northwest mining town with help from an east end madam. After overplaying his hand with a big mining company he is forced to take a stand and proves his reputation is not wholly undeserved. The sets and locations are wonderfully evocative in the snow and the costume design is exquisite in its muted Brown's and blacks. For some years the DVD has been the only available print in the UK now thanks to Amazon the film can be enjoyed in a superior HD form allowing you to perceive the visuals with far greater clarity.
L**B
More car crash than film
There are so many more enjoyable films than this one that involve the main creative team- particularly Altman. Don’t waste your time…
E**N
Terrible quality
Terrible quality. Muffled sound. Don't waste your money.
V**A
elegiac
This is a beautifully shot movie, full of elegant, sombre tableaux. The interiors all look dark and brooding (a little like chiaroscuro oil paintings) The film works so well with the Leonard Cohen songs used in the score that the music seems to have been written with the film in mind.On another level, this film is a rather jaundiced vision of the old west. There are no tall blond cowboys riding off into the sunset (a la "Shane"), or illiterate but charismatic characters (as in Sergio Leone's movies) This is a snowbound West full of chisellers, sleazy opportunists and madmen. Bleary saloon-bound no-hopers. Altman's vision owes a lot more to the "streetwise" movies of the 1970s than to anything ever made by John Ford. Imagine if Tom Waits had been a scriptwriter rather than a musician and you'll get some idea of what this film is like.Altman presents the ragged backside of America's Western myth but with a certain tenderness and love for his characters and their inability to communicate with each other which is missing in a lot of his later films. I wouldn't hesitate to call it a minor masterpiece.
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