McCabe & Mrs. Miller (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Mar 26, 2025
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Robert AltmanRelease Date(s)
1971 (February 6, 2024)Studio(s)
Warner Bros. (The Criterion Collection – Spine #827)- Film/Program Grade: A+
- Video Grade: A+
- Audio Grade: A+
- Extras Grade: A+
Review
When Robert Altman set out to make an anti-Western in the early 1970s, he likely had no idea that he was actually creating something that would eventually become a part of the overall Western aesthetic and tableau. After McCabe & Mrs. Miller (as well as the Dollars films), there was no going back to the days of James Arness in clean, pressed outfits having bloodless shootouts in saloons and dealing with mustache-twirling outlaws. McCabe & Mrs. Miller was something fresh, a gritty character piece that threw conventions out the window, going more for a kind of authenticity. Altman had previously done the same with the hard-boiled detective genre in The Long Goodbye and the war film in M*A*S*H, making the latter an anti-war film instead, but in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, he pushed the genre to its absolute limit and, therefore, re-defined it.
In the early twentieth century mining town of Presbyterian Church, a newly-arrived businessman, “Pudgy” McCabe (Warren Beatty), gambles with the simple locals to get a feel for the place before settling in and organizing a local brothel. Rumors of his reputation as a gunfighter help him to sway the townspeople under his entrepreneurial thumb, though he soon becomes reluctant partners with the brothel’s madam, Constance Miller (Julie Christie), as well as lovers, but always for a price. Soon representatives from a nearby mining company come calling to buy him out, but after he names a price to them that’s insultingly high, he becomes the sudden target of contracted killers. Also among the cast are many Altman regulars, including René Auberjonois, Shelley Duvall, Michael Murphy, Keith Carradine, John Schuck, Bert Remsen, and William Devane.
Based upon the novel McCabe by Edmund Naughton, McCabe & Mrs. Miller features, among many things, memorable performances from Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. Beatty, in particular, opted to shed his good looks and attempted to hide inside of his character, appearing bearded, gruff, and unpleasant, yet still somehow magnetic. Despite the fact that he and Altman didn’t get along well due to a clashing of working styles, a strong piece of acting came out of that collaboration regardless. Meanwhile, Christie bares the burden of carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders as the opium-addicted Mrs. Miller. Often hard-nosed when it comes to matters of business while occasionally exposing her humanity with playful glee, she sells the role of a woman who has fully endured in an era dominated by men with the greatest of ease.
Featuring the music of Leonard Cohen, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is existential in a lot of ways, but honest and forthright in others. It’s also not necessarily a film that can be taken all in one sitting. Loaded with small character moments, background activity, vast landscapes, and various on-screen dynamics, it almost requires you to see it more than once. The basic narrative is easy to follow, but it’s the world and its array of personalities that eclipses it. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t received well initially upon its 1971 release, outside of some of the more open-minded critics who recognized it for what it was. Matters weren’t helped that it wasn’t supported all that well by the studio, either. Yet time has been kind to McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which continues to stand up as one of the greatest Westerns ever made, as well as classic piece of avant-garde filmmaking.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller was shot anamorphically by legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond on 35mm film (Eastman 100T 5254) using Panavision PSR R-200° cameras with Panavision C-Series and Angenieux lenses, finished photochemically, and presented in the aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The Criterion Collection brings the film to Ultra HD with their 2016 4K restoration of the original camera negative, which is presented on a triple-layered BD-100 disc. No High Dynamic Range grade has been performed, but it may have not benefitted the film all that much anyway as the color matches a reference print that was timed personally by Vilmos Zsigmond. The overall presentation is every bit as gorgeous as the previous Criterion Blu-ray, but now with added pixel muscle. Bitrates sit between 80 and 100Mbps most of the time, even in the dark interiors lit mostly by candles. The film has a very intended appearance as the camera negatives were exposed prior to principal photography (known as “flashing” or “pre-fogging”), giving it a softer, milky appearance that’s much more lived in, not unlike the sets and environments themselves. Grain is heavy but well-attenuated, with very minor speckling. Contrast is perfect, helping to capture Zsigmond’s visually-aged aesthetic with deep blacks, warm skin tones, and rainy, muddy exteriors. Shadows are even deeper now and the image is more crisp without any aggressive retooling of how the film was meant to be presented. Some who have may not have seen the film before may find this look to be a turnoff initially, but it’s part and parcel to the drenched and dirty boomtown world of the early twentieth century.
Audio is included in English mono LPCM with optional subtitles in English SDH, preserving the film’s well-known soundtrack. Altman often overlapped dialogue in scenes, making some of it unintelligible at times, but never at the behest of what an audience needed to hear. Nothing has changed, but there’s now added clarity to the soundtrack, especially concerning the music. The ambient moments, including rain and snow, also have surprising depth. Obviously, it’s meant to be a surround-heavy presentation, but it’s the best that the film will sound using as few audio channels as possible. I would like to think that Altman would definitely have made use of multiple channels had he made it today, but I digress.
The 2-Disc 4K Ultra HD release of McCabe & Mrs. Miller sits in a clear Amaray case alongside the 2016 1080p Blu-ray of the film, as well as an accordion-style booklet containing cast and crew information, the essay Showdowns by novelist and critic Nathaniel Rich, restoration information, special thanks, and production credits. The booklet and insert feature the same artwork used for the 2016 Blu-ray release, with cover art by Jon Contino. The following extras are included on each disc:
DISC ONE: UHD
- Audio Commentary by Robert Altman and David Foster
DISC TWO: BD
- Audio Commentary by Robert Altman and David Foster
- Way Out on a Limb (HD – 54:38)
- Cari Beauchamp and Rick Jewell (HD – 36:27)
- Behind the Scenes (Upscaled SD – 9:32)
- Leon Ericksen (SD – 37:36)
- Vilmos Zsigmond (HD – 11:30)
- Steve Schapiro Photo Gallery (HD – 28 in all)
- The Dick Cavett Show:
- Pauline Kael (SD – 10:34)
- Robert Altman (SD – 11:49)
- Trailer (HD – 1:58)
These extras are identical to the previous ones, which is a good thing because they’re quality materials. First is the 2002 DVD audio commentary with Robert Altman and producer David Foster, which is an excellent track and well-worth the effort of tuning in for. Way Out on a Limb is a terrific, hour-long documentary containing interviews with actors René Auberjonois, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, casting director Graeme Clifford, and script supervisor Joan Tewkesbury. The vintage Behind the Scenes featurette was shot on location during the film’s production. There’s also a video conversation between film historians Cari Beauchamp and Rick Jewell, an Art Directors Guild Film Society Q&A from 1999 with production designer Leon Ericksen, and various excerpts from archival interviews with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. Next is a Photo Gallery featuring stills from the set by photographer Steve Schapiro and two excerpts from episodes of The Dick Cavett Show from 1971, one featuring an appearance by film critic Pauline Kael defending the film against negative reviews, and the other with Robert Altman who discusses the film’s reception. Last is the trailer, which was obviously restored sometime in the 1980s or 1990s as it features the Warner Bros. shield from that time period.
Revisiting McCabe & Mrs. Miller is always a treat. It’s one of my favorite films and Criterion’s Blu-ray has always been one of my favorite releases. Their 4K Ultra HD has surpassed it with the same great bonus materials and artwork, but a much improved picture that was already great to begin with. For Altman fans and Western fans alike, or just fans of film, this release comes highly recommended.
- Tim Salmons
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