by Robert Altman, 1971.
Starring: Rene Auberjonois, Warren Beatty, Keith Carradine, Julie Christie, Shelly Duvall.
Rating: 3.5/10, 5/10.
OK, so Robert Altman is way cool. And this movie is supposed to be one of his best. But...but...why?
I didn’t like it at all. It seemed incoherent, poorly edited, not too well acted, and kinda just...bad. It’s about this guy, Warren Beatty, who comes to a small frontier town to start a brothel, and goes into the business with Julie Christie, who is like a high-class whore. And they love each other but don’t say it, and he gets drunk a lot and makes stupid choices that make people want to kill him, and she smokes a lot of opium. And along the way Keith Carradine acts young and optimistic and gets shot, and Shelly Duvall’s husband gets killed and she becomes a whore, and Rene Auberjonois acts nervous.
But it clearly SHOULD be a good movie. I mean, meaningful issues are brought up, it’s shot like a movie people like, the soundtrack is incredible (it’s all haunting, beautiful Leonard Cohen songs). But it just never...works, for me at least. I dunno. Maybe I’m just incapable of liking westerns, no matter how un-western and Robert Altmany they are. I dunno. I guess you should trust Roger Ebert more than me (no matter how much he liked Saving Private Ryan; everyone makes mistakes).
nb: the picture at the top is in black and white, but the movie is in colour.
read roger ebert's essay on mccabe & mrs miller