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PROFESSOR: Good evening, people.

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I want to continue
our discussion

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of the end of the studio era,
the advent of the kind of much

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freer, more independent, more
politically and even morally

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liberated movies that
appear after the Hollywood

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dispensation has subsided.

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But remember that I've
also been suggesting to you

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that even though there's
a certain sense in which

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a kind of artistic
freedom was now granted

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to directors and
to American films,

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and on balance I think most
scholars and film buffs

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looking at the 1970s
would certainly

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share my sense that it's
a very remarkable decade.

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But I think they might
also share my sense

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that the films had given
up more than they realized,

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certainly more than
they were conscious of,

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that the shift in what
we might call the media

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ecology of the society, which
enabled this level of freedom

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for movies, also carried
with it a tremendous cost.

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And remember how
decisive the numbers are.

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I've mentioned them a
few times in this course.

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At the height of the studio
era, 2/3 of the country

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is going to the
movies every week.

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It's an habitual experience
for most Americans,

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both adults and
children, really.

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By the time this
system comes to an end,

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by the time the
movies have been,

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as I've suggested several
times in the course,

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supplanted by television as
the new central storytelling

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system of the society,
by the time that

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occurs at the end of
the '60s, most Americans

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are going to the movies
only once a year.

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And it's only particular
subcultures-- teenagers,

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for example, who make a regular
habit of going to the movies.

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And a good deal of the
triviality and superficiality

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of movies of many
of the box office

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successes of the '80s and '90s
from the American film industry

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is a direct function of
the fact that the audience

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had dwindled from
the whole society

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to particular subsets
of the society.

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And the consequences
for the nature

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of-- the movie's sense of
its connection to the society

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are powerful, are profound.

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Well, we're going
to explore aspects,

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finally-- our final exploration
of aspects of this topic

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comes in tonight's
lecture, and especially

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in the exemplary
early 1970s film

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McCabe and Mrs.
Miller that we're

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going to screen for
you after my lecture.

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I want to begin by
talking a little bit

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about Robert Altman's career.

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And I'll actually look
at certain specific films

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and say a few things
about them in a minute.

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But first let me
talk about what I

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take to be some of his--
not only the only ones,

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but some of his defining
qualities as a director--

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signature features of his work.

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The first and most
obvious to me is

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what we might call
his moral skepticism.

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He really is in some respects
temperamentally an outsider.

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And it's interesting
to speculate,

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I think, about what
might have happened

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to Robert Altman, an immensely
gifted natural filmmaker,

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had he been born a
generation earlier

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and had to actually struggle
with the requirements

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and responsibilities, the
confinements of the studio

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system.

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But luckily for
Altman, he emerges

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in the time when the
tyranny of the studios

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and also the creative input of
the studios has disappeared,

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has gone away.

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And in that sense, he
represents a new kind

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of independent
spirit in filmmaking.

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And he resembles some of
the other directors who

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come of age at roughly the same
time, directors some of whom

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I mentioned this afternoon,
like Scorsese or Coppola or Alan

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Pakula.

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So one of his defining
qualities is a kind

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of moral skepticism, a kind
of sympathy, we might call it,

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which is connected
to what we might call

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his sympathy for the marginal.

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Over and over again
in Altman's films,

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we focus on either
marginal figures who

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are reluctantly or inadequately
part of a larger community,

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or we focus on a community
that itself is so dubious

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as a community, so
damaged as a community, so

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enfeebled and unlike the
traditional communities

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that it's as if the
community he treats itself,

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the societies or groupings
that he finds interesting,

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are also in some deep way
non-traditional communities.

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And in fact, in McCabe
and Mrs. Miller,

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most of the supporting cast were
literally members of a commune.

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They were members of
the counterculture.

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The ballad that is sung
by the great balladeer,

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American singer Leonard Cohen
in the beginning of the film,

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would have struck
knowledgeable viewers

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as a deeply subversive gesture.

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Because think how often the
Western begins with a ballad,

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with someone saying a ballad,
as if the stories of the West

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have become so
mythological that they're

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part of our song tradition,
our musical tradition-- which

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is true-- as well as
our narrative tradition.

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And many, many
classic Westerns begin

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with a ballad of some kind.

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The Searchers has such a ballad,
in fact, as I hope you noticed.

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Well, McCabe and Mrs.
Miller begins with a ballad,

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as you'll see.

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But it's a subversive ballad.

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It's sung by a
man, Leonard Cohen,

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who's deeply associated
with marijuana,

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with the counterculture, with
striking out against authority,

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with writing anti-war songs.

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And there's a kind of
countercultural ambience,

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a kind of countercultural
skepticism

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and sympathy for the
margins in nearly all

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of Robert Altman's work.

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So his moral
skepticism then could

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be said to have at
least two dimensions.

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One is what we might call an
aesthetic dimension, in which

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he is skeptical about the
inherited strategies, belief

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systems, and even structures
of earlier movies.

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And he actually is in that
sense aesthetically subversive,

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although very
subtly so, as I hope

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you'll see in tonight's film.

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He'll very often give you a
film that seems on the surface

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to sustain and to recreate
all the classic conventions

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of the genre in
which he's working.

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And it's only when you
look a little bit more

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closely that you realize
that although the structural

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elements are there, they have
been perverted or inverted

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so that they have in
some sense enacted

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some kind of moral
migration and stand

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for virtually alternative
beliefs, assumptions, or values

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from what they
normally are taken

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to stand for in the classic
genre films on which Altman is

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borrowing, or against which he
is engaged in a kind of mockery

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or at least hostile
action of some kind.

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And I think that McCabe and
Mrs. Miller demonstrates

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this very dramatically,
although most of Altman's films

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have these qualities
in some degree.

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The second quality of
his moral skepticism

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is what would be not now related
to his aesthetic principles,

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to his filmmaking
practice, but would

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be more broadly
associated with politics,

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with his general ideological
view of the world.

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And even there,
especially there maybe,

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Altman styled himself a rebel.

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Even when he was successful in
Hollywood in his early career

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when he was so-- MASH
was a box office success.

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And the decade of
1970 through '80

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is probably the richest
decade of Altman's career.

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And in that time, even though
Altman was very successful,

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later he fell into disfavor
with the Hollywood bosses

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and he spent some period of his
career underground in a way,

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either not making movies
at all-- directing plays

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in various places or
making documentary films

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or private films that were
not released commercially.

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Then he has a resurgence later,
before the end of his life.

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The last 10 or 15
years of his life

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again involve successes
at the box office.

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So the second aspect
of his moral skepticism

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might be a kind of
political skepticism,

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and a political skepticism both
against the Hollywood system

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and then against the
larger political structures

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of the society.

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Now remember, his
political subversiveness

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comes at a time when many
honorable and normal people,

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including your professor,
were subversive in some sense,

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because it was a time when the
country was at war in a war

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that many people in
the country thought

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was unreasonable and wrong.

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Many people went to jail
or protested the war.

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And Altman was on the side
of the anti-war forces.

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He was on the morally
skeptical side

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about wars of choice in
foreign environments.

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So he was both
politically and culturally

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a skeptic and
aesthetically a skeptic.

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And both qualities show up
in his films in all kinds

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00:10:07,070 --> 00:10:09,940
of remarkable ways.

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I've talked about how that
leads to a kind of sympathy

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for marginality, for the
condition of marginality

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and for characters who belong on
the margins of the society, who

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live on the margins.

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00:10:19,670 --> 00:10:23,500
And he loved to make films
often about certain kinds

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of human communities, subsets,
small versions of human society

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comprised entirely of misfits
and marginal characters.

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And he even has a
sympathy for what

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we might think of as
unconventional appearance,

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so that many of the
actors and especially

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the secondary background
actors in his films

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might actually be in
ads for grotesquerie.

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He loves the grotesque.

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And at least his
background characters

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often have a sort of
grotesque element.

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There's a love of the weird
and the strange in Altman

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00:11:05,820 --> 00:11:09,220
that you can feel in his
films, in his casting

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00:11:09,220 --> 00:11:10,370
and in his subject matter.

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Another thing that
I would identify

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00:11:14,710 --> 00:11:17,560
as a kind of defining
quality for Robert Altman

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00:11:17,560 --> 00:11:22,980
is the relation in his films,
especially his mature films,

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between plot and character.

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There's a tendency-- it's
an aspect of his skepticism.

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He doesn't like structures
that control him.

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And from one angle, if you
think about storytelling

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00:11:33,860 --> 00:11:39,870
or narrative, plot is a
kind of controlling feature,

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00:11:39,870 --> 00:11:42,880
especially if you
allow the plot to take

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00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:45,750
the foreground of
the-- to assume

215
00:11:45,750 --> 00:11:48,200
a position in the
foreground of the text,

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00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:50,240
the plot can become
a kind of iron hand,

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00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:54,000
controlling the choices the
director makes, controlling

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00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,110
what can happen
to the characters.

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00:11:56,110 --> 00:11:59,970
And certain forms of action
adventure-- what happens next,

220
00:11:59,970 --> 00:12:02,940
the sequence of events
and the visual excitement

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00:12:02,940 --> 00:12:05,740
of watching those events, is
virtually the only interest

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00:12:05,740 --> 00:12:07,840
you have in film.

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00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:10,570
Those totally
plot-oriented films

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00:12:10,570 --> 00:12:15,080
tend to have stereotyped
or flat characters in them.

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00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:18,870
But Altman, even when he
embraces certain genre

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00:12:18,870 --> 00:12:20,680
principles that
require what looks

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00:12:20,680 --> 00:12:23,710
like a conventional
linear plot, often

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00:12:23,710 --> 00:12:26,470
tries to subvert the
linearity of his plot.

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00:12:26,470 --> 00:12:34,650
There's a kind of digressive or
dissenting, nonlinear tendency

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00:12:34,650 --> 00:12:36,140
in Altman's work.

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00:12:36,140 --> 00:12:38,270
You can sense it in
McCabe and Mrs. Miller,

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00:12:38,270 --> 00:12:41,570
although it doesn't emerge
totally fully until later

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00:12:41,570 --> 00:12:44,210
in his career, a little
bit later in his career.

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00:12:44,210 --> 00:12:47,170
The fullest embodiment of
this non-plot principle,

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00:12:47,170 --> 00:12:49,830
of this preference for
character over plot,

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00:12:49,830 --> 00:12:54,110
I think is probably the
film Nashville in 1975,

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00:12:54,110 --> 00:12:59,050
in which Altman displays an
immense range of characters

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00:12:59,050 --> 00:13:01,410
to us and skips
from one character

239
00:13:01,410 --> 00:13:02,390
to another to another.

240
00:13:02,390 --> 00:13:04,270
There are certain
centers of interest.

241
00:13:04,270 --> 00:13:06,450
They seem to have no
connection to each other,

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00:13:06,450 --> 00:13:09,110
and you sit there in the film--
when the film first came out,

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00:13:09,110 --> 00:13:11,940
it actually elicited a
number of negative reviews

244
00:13:11,940 --> 00:13:13,920
from reviewers who were
angry about the fact

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00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:18,022
that the film took virtually
its whole length to make clear

246
00:13:18,022 --> 00:13:19,480
that in fact there
was a connection

247
00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:20,730
between these characters.

248
00:13:20,730 --> 00:13:23,540
The complaint against the
film was it was plotless.

249
00:13:23,540 --> 00:13:25,621
Well, that wasn't exactly true.

250
00:13:25,621 --> 00:13:26,620
It wasn't like plotless.

251
00:13:26,620 --> 00:13:28,580
In fact, all the
lines of the plot

252
00:13:28,580 --> 00:13:30,490
do come together toward
the end of the film.

253
00:13:30,490 --> 00:13:33,150
But the truth is that
Altman is at least

254
00:13:33,150 --> 00:13:38,330
as interested in digression as
he is in linear progression.

255
00:13:38,330 --> 00:13:40,390
And there is a sense
in which his films

256
00:13:40,390 --> 00:13:43,730
like to pause and savor
what's going on around them.

257
00:13:43,730 --> 00:13:46,290
And as you're watching
McCabe and Mrs. Miller,

258
00:13:46,290 --> 00:13:49,340
one of the things you might
ask yourself at a certain level

259
00:13:49,340 --> 00:13:54,150
is what's the
throughline of the story?

260
00:13:54,150 --> 00:13:57,330
In fact, it feels when you're
watching McCabe and Mrs. Miller

261
00:13:57,330 --> 00:14:00,820
as if it doesn't have at least
a conventional Western plot.

262
00:14:00,820 --> 00:14:02,750
As the film goes on,
you begin to realize,

263
00:14:02,750 --> 00:14:07,710
yes, the story here is about
the growth of this town.

264
00:14:07,710 --> 00:14:12,140
In that sense, the film
really is a founding myth,

265
00:14:12,140 --> 00:14:14,550
an ironic, mocking,
founding myth.

266
00:14:14,550 --> 00:14:16,957
But while you're
watching the film,

267
00:14:16,957 --> 00:14:18,540
you're interested
in McCabe and you're

268
00:14:18,540 --> 00:14:21,081
interested in some of the other
minor characters in the town.

269
00:14:21,081 --> 00:14:24,400
But it's hard to identify what
the actual subject of the film

270
00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:25,340
is, at first.

271
00:14:25,340 --> 00:14:28,810
Altman likes to leave his
audiences in a little bit

272
00:14:28,810 --> 00:14:30,320
of confusion of that sort.

273
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,560
He doesn't like to
satisfy the narrow desire

274
00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:37,290
to have a clear, linear plot.

275
00:14:37,290 --> 00:14:39,957
He prefers some
principles of digression.

276
00:14:39,957 --> 00:14:42,290
And one of the reasons that
he does, apart from the fact

277
00:14:42,290 --> 00:14:44,520
that he wants to savor the
experience of the world

278
00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:48,210
and he's attentive to so
many aspects of experience

279
00:14:48,210 --> 00:14:50,140
that he wants to often
bring all of them

280
00:14:50,140 --> 00:14:52,670
into the film-- he's
very interested in sound,

281
00:14:52,670 --> 00:14:57,270
for example, in the way
sound operates in the world.

282
00:14:57,270 --> 00:14:59,434
And he does odd things
with his soundtrack,

283
00:14:59,434 --> 00:15:01,100
as you'll see in
McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

284
00:15:01,100 --> 00:15:02,558
I'll come back to
this in a minute.

285
00:15:02,558 --> 00:15:05,590
His preoccupation,
then, is with trying

286
00:15:05,590 --> 00:15:08,850
to create a situation in
which character unfolds.

287
00:15:08,850 --> 00:15:14,470
And he'll always sacrifice what
a more action-oriented director

288
00:15:14,470 --> 00:15:16,600
might think was the most
important thing in order

289
00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:18,750
to explore character more fully.

290
00:15:18,750 --> 00:15:22,200
Now, one very broad way
of dividing narratives,

291
00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:24,780
as I may have suggested
earlier in the semester to you,

292
00:15:24,780 --> 00:15:27,310
is a distinction
between plot-driven and

293
00:15:27,310 --> 00:15:28,990
character-driven stories.

294
00:15:28,990 --> 00:15:30,690
And one of the
things one can see

295
00:15:30,690 --> 00:15:32,210
happening in Altman's
film-- again,

296
00:15:32,210 --> 00:15:34,350
it's another marker of
the fact that Altman

297
00:15:34,350 --> 00:15:40,020
is operating in a cinematic
environment that no longer has

298
00:15:40,020 --> 00:15:43,600
the conservative aesthetic
constraints that are

299
00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:45,870
placed upon a consensus system.

300
00:15:45,870 --> 00:15:51,020
So can explore these kinds of
possibilities more fully than--

301
00:15:51,020 --> 00:15:53,340
or can explore them
at all, in fact.

302
00:15:53,340 --> 00:15:55,540
In some cases, he
couldn't have even looked

303
00:15:55,540 --> 00:15:57,580
down these territories,
looked down

304
00:15:57,580 --> 00:16:03,960
these pathways if he'd been a
conventional studio director.

305
00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:07,560
So a distinctive feature,
then, of the way he works

306
00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:10,810
is this tension between plot
and character and the emphasis

307
00:16:10,810 --> 00:16:13,890
that Altman will almost
always put on character,

308
00:16:13,890 --> 00:16:15,750
the way he'll even
subvert your interest

309
00:16:15,750 --> 00:16:18,585
in what is going to happen
next some time in the film.

310
00:16:18,585 --> 00:16:19,960
And as you're
watching McCabe you

311
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:21,580
might sort of think about that.

312
00:16:21,580 --> 00:16:23,580
You don't ever feel that
the film is flagging.

313
00:16:23,580 --> 00:16:25,706
You always are interested
in what happens.

314
00:16:25,706 --> 00:16:27,330
But after a while,
you suddenly realize

315
00:16:27,330 --> 00:16:29,130
that you're not
being carried along

316
00:16:29,130 --> 00:16:32,370
by the momentum of story
itself in the way you

317
00:16:32,370 --> 00:16:34,620
are in a normal film,
or what you would think

318
00:16:34,620 --> 00:16:36,330
of as a conventional film.

319
00:16:36,330 --> 00:16:38,410
And McCabe is only a
minor version of this.

320
00:16:38,410 --> 00:16:44,010
As I say, Nashville is a much
more dramatic instance of this.

321
00:16:44,010 --> 00:16:48,040
Finally, another distinctive--
not unique, but distinctive

322
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:49,690
feature of Altman's
work-- and this

323
00:16:49,690 --> 00:16:56,550
occurs, especially powerfully
as his career continues.

324
00:16:56,550 --> 00:16:58,880
You can sense it
earlier, but it actually

325
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,500
becomes a dominant topic
later in his career

326
00:17:01,500 --> 00:17:02,625
after he's very successful.

327
00:17:02,625 --> 00:17:04,710
He has great
confidence in himself.

328
00:17:04,710 --> 00:17:07,750
By the last decade of his
life, he is conceived of,

329
00:17:07,750 --> 00:17:10,069
I think, as a
master movie maker.

330
00:17:10,069 --> 00:17:13,250
And he finds it very easy to get
people to appear in his films.

331
00:17:13,250 --> 00:17:16,260
And that's where this
principle comes in most fully.

332
00:17:16,260 --> 00:17:20,109
He's interested in blurring
the distinction between fiction

333
00:17:20,109 --> 00:17:22,569
and reality.

334
00:17:22,569 --> 00:17:24,579
And in fact, in
some of his films,

335
00:17:24,579 --> 00:17:27,650
I think Nashville is the first
one in which this happens.

336
00:17:27,650 --> 00:17:32,340
And then he returns to
this trick or this strategy

337
00:17:32,340 --> 00:17:34,650
much later in his career
in a whole series of films.

338
00:17:34,650 --> 00:17:37,420
In Nashville there
are some performers

339
00:17:37,420 --> 00:17:38,830
who are playing themselves.

340
00:17:38,830 --> 00:17:42,250
They're not
fictional characters.

341
00:17:42,250 --> 00:17:44,220
Some of them are famous
singers and so forth.

342
00:17:44,220 --> 00:17:46,280
And they appear as themselves.

343
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:49,430
Nashville is about the American
music scene, and also about

344
00:17:49,430 --> 00:17:53,050
the turmoil of American
society in the 1970s.

345
00:17:53,050 --> 00:17:56,930
And so many of the people
who appear in the film

346
00:17:56,930 --> 00:18:03,040
are playing musicians, singers,
songwriters, and performers.

347
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:05,210
But there are actually
some real performers

348
00:18:05,210 --> 00:18:06,760
who are recognized
by the audience

349
00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:10,810
because they're relatively
famous, who play themselves.

350
00:18:10,810 --> 00:18:13,330
This blurring of the
distinction of the difference

351
00:18:13,330 --> 00:18:16,910
between fiction and
reality, this mingling

352
00:18:16,910 --> 00:18:18,660
of fictional with
real characters

353
00:18:18,660 --> 00:18:20,510
becomes a very
distinctive feature

354
00:18:20,510 --> 00:18:22,780
of Altman's work
later in his career.

355
00:18:22,780 --> 00:18:24,530
And very quickly then,
what I'd like to do

356
00:18:24,530 --> 00:18:26,800
is show you a list
of some of his films.

357
00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:28,910
You can put that up now, Greg.

358
00:18:28,910 --> 00:18:30,660
I want to say something
about all of them.

359
00:18:30,660 --> 00:18:32,480
This is not a full
list of his films.

360
00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:36,310
And you can see, there's a long
interregnum of almost a decade

361
00:18:36,310 --> 00:18:37,480
where he makes some films.

362
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:39,021
I just haven't
bothered to list them.

363
00:18:39,021 --> 00:18:40,932
This is not a complete
listing of his films,

364
00:18:40,932 --> 00:18:42,640
although I think it
is a complete listing

365
00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:44,707
of his films made in the 1970s.

366
00:18:44,707 --> 00:18:46,290
And I did that partly
because I wanted

367
00:18:46,290 --> 00:18:49,100
you to see what a prolific
and productive decade

368
00:18:49,100 --> 00:18:52,094
this was for Altman, but
also because I thought

369
00:18:52,094 --> 00:18:54,510
you might be interested in
seeing how many titles register

370
00:18:54,510 --> 00:18:55,010
with you.

371
00:18:55,010 --> 00:18:56,707
Even if you're not
seen the films,

372
00:18:56,707 --> 00:18:58,790
you've probably have heard
of some of these films,

373
00:18:58,790 --> 00:19:02,560
because they are among the
most innovative and important

374
00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,790
American films of the second
half of the 20th century.

375
00:19:05,790 --> 00:19:10,847
I want to say a couple of things
about some of these films.

376
00:19:10,847 --> 00:19:12,930
You've already seen the
ending of The Long Goodbye

377
00:19:12,930 --> 00:19:15,620
and you know what a
deeply subversive version

378
00:19:15,620 --> 00:19:18,420
of the detective
genre that film is.

379
00:19:18,420 --> 00:19:20,310
I want to say a word
about California Split,

380
00:19:20,310 --> 00:19:22,870
because in some ways it's a
film that most fully embodies

381
00:19:22,870 --> 00:19:25,780
this principle of being
interested in the marginal.

382
00:19:25,780 --> 00:19:28,110
California Split is
a gambler's movie.

383
00:19:28,110 --> 00:19:35,250
And Eliot Gould, that sort
of shuckin' and jivin' figure

384
00:19:35,250 --> 00:19:37,280
of anti-heroic
irony that you saw

385
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:41,780
at the end of The Long Goodbye
is the star of California Split

386
00:19:41,780 --> 00:19:42,470
as well.

387
00:19:42,470 --> 00:19:45,970
And almost the entire film--
a large part of the film

388
00:19:45,970 --> 00:19:47,900
actually takes place
at the race track

389
00:19:47,900 --> 00:19:49,180
and in gambling environments.

390
00:19:49,180 --> 00:19:53,320
The climax of the film is
a trip to Las Vegas, where

391
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:59,760
our hero has a tremendous run
of luck, nearly breaks the bank.

392
00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:06,380
And California Split follows the
fortunes of these two gamblers.

393
00:20:06,380 --> 00:20:09,980
It's hard even fully to follow
the chronology of the film.

394
00:20:09,980 --> 00:20:13,701
Sometimes you lose sense of
how much time has passed.

395
00:20:13,701 --> 00:20:15,450
There are many things
about the characters

396
00:20:15,450 --> 00:20:17,450
that are vague and unclear.

397
00:20:17,450 --> 00:20:20,260
It's also a film--
parenthetically--

398
00:20:20,260 --> 00:20:22,040
this is a trivial
detail, but it's always

399
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:27,300
struck me as a mark of Altman's
perversity-- every woman

400
00:20:27,300 --> 00:20:30,560
in the film is named Barbara.

401
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:33,070
I especially notice this because
my wife is named Barbara.

402
00:20:36,540 --> 00:20:39,090
I think the perversity had
to do with Altman's idea

403
00:20:39,090 --> 00:20:43,520
that I'm creating a kind
of slice of life movie.

404
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,860
Thieves Like Us is a
particularly characteristic

405
00:20:46,860 --> 00:20:48,360
Altman film, not
only because it has

406
00:20:48,360 --> 00:20:51,620
a kind of plotless amorphousness
to it when you first

407
00:20:51,620 --> 00:20:54,330
look at it, even though it
has great excitement in it

408
00:20:54,330 --> 00:20:56,230
and a great emphasis
on character

409
00:20:56,230 --> 00:20:58,970
and a great emphasis on
marginal, weird people

410
00:20:58,970 --> 00:21:01,850
who sort of are not solid
citizens in any way.

411
00:21:01,850 --> 00:21:05,140
But it also carries
another signature feature

412
00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:08,490
of Altman's work, which I
did not list on my outline.

413
00:21:08,490 --> 00:21:11,900
And that is, he was very
prone to allow his actors

414
00:21:11,900 --> 00:21:14,350
to improvise when they
got in from the camera.

415
00:21:14,350 --> 00:21:15,970
Or not literally
when he was shooting,

416
00:21:15,970 --> 00:21:18,246
but they would improvise,
work something out.

417
00:21:18,246 --> 00:21:19,620
He didn't work
from a set script,

418
00:21:19,620 --> 00:21:21,770
or he would allow
departures from his script

419
00:21:21,770 --> 00:21:24,810
very easily and quickly.

420
00:21:24,810 --> 00:21:27,490
One of the reasons he loved
to work with Eliot Gould

421
00:21:27,490 --> 00:21:30,250
was Eliot Gould was a
particularly gifted,

422
00:21:30,250 --> 00:21:32,120
improvisational actor.

423
00:21:32,120 --> 00:21:34,960
And there's a kind
of authenticity

424
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,667
in the performances in
most of Altman's films

425
00:21:37,667 --> 00:21:39,250
that partly come
from the fact that he

426
00:21:39,250 --> 00:21:42,110
was deeply interested
in trying to create

427
00:21:42,110 --> 00:21:46,440
an illusion of authenticity that
was much more intense and much

428
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,530
more compelling than what
the traditional Hollywood

429
00:21:49,530 --> 00:21:50,320
movie offers.

430
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:56,680
He really wasn't interested in
the fancy lighting and the very

431
00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:00,650
elaborate patterning
of the Hollywood film.

432
00:22:00,650 --> 00:22:05,030
He liked grit and
dirt and imperfection.

433
00:22:05,030 --> 00:22:08,710
And you can feel these
elements in his work.

434
00:22:08,710 --> 00:22:10,490
And you can especially
feel it often

435
00:22:10,490 --> 00:22:13,852
in the performances
of his actors.

436
00:22:13,852 --> 00:22:15,310
The ones who liked
working with him

437
00:22:15,310 --> 00:22:17,110
really loved it,
because it gave them

438
00:22:17,110 --> 00:22:20,880
a significant creative
part in the film itself.

439
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:23,730
So Thieves Like Us is a
relatively minor Altman film

440
00:22:23,730 --> 00:22:25,765
in certain ways, but
it shows his interest

441
00:22:25,765 --> 00:22:28,730
in character, his lack
of interest in plot,

442
00:22:28,730 --> 00:22:31,770
and his love of the
marginal, and of course

443
00:22:31,770 --> 00:22:34,170
of improvisational performance.

444
00:22:34,170 --> 00:22:35,630
I've mentioned
Nashville already.

445
00:22:35,630 --> 00:22:37,129
Maybe I should say
a little bit more

446
00:22:37,129 --> 00:22:38,840
about it, simply
because it really

447
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,740
was an unbelievably
influential film.

448
00:22:41,740 --> 00:22:45,490
The film seemed to
desert conventional plot,

449
00:22:45,490 --> 00:22:49,290
and almost in an arbitrary
way for its first half, simply

450
00:22:49,290 --> 00:22:52,480
to look at various characters
who had musical ambitions

451
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:54,050
and were bound for Nashville.

452
00:22:54,050 --> 00:22:56,410
That was sort of the only
throughline in the film.

453
00:22:56,410 --> 00:22:58,571
Everyone's going to Nashville.

454
00:22:58,571 --> 00:23:00,820
And you really wondered as
you were watching the film,

455
00:23:00,820 --> 00:23:02,380
what could these
characters possibly have

456
00:23:02,380 --> 00:23:03,296
to do with each other?

457
00:23:03,296 --> 00:23:06,100
Will they ever come together?

458
00:23:06,100 --> 00:23:08,040
Should they come together?

459
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,970
It's a very artful film
in part because of the way

460
00:23:10,970 --> 00:23:13,770
it plays with the
reader's frustration

461
00:23:13,770 --> 00:23:15,600
about a linear plot.

462
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,900
And in fact, one of the
things the movie does

463
00:23:18,900 --> 00:23:22,710
is it makes you aware as a
viewer of the extent to which

464
00:23:22,710 --> 00:23:25,240
a linear plot is a kind of
crutch you lean on when you're

465
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:26,010
watching a movie.

466
00:23:26,010 --> 00:23:27,770
It helps you sort of
get through the film.

467
00:23:27,770 --> 00:23:29,311
If you're confused
about other stuff,

468
00:23:29,311 --> 00:23:32,222
you always have that
throughline to grasp onto.

469
00:23:32,222 --> 00:23:33,930
And when Altman takes
that away from you,

470
00:23:33,930 --> 00:23:35,730
or seems to take
it away from you,

471
00:23:35,730 --> 00:23:40,130
he immerses you in the
moral texture of his movie,

472
00:23:40,130 --> 00:23:42,460
in the psychological
and political meanings

473
00:23:42,460 --> 00:23:44,980
of his movies in a way
that would not be true

474
00:23:44,980 --> 00:23:47,316
if you were fixated on what
happens next, what happens

475
00:23:47,316 --> 00:23:49,337
next, what happens next.

476
00:23:49,337 --> 00:23:50,670
I want to say a couple of words.

477
00:23:50,670 --> 00:23:53,660
I've mentioned Buffalo Bill
and the Indians to you earlier.

478
00:23:53,660 --> 00:23:55,990
And it's one of his most
subversive Westerns.

479
00:23:55,990 --> 00:23:59,330
It's interesting that he went
back to the Western genre

480
00:23:59,330 --> 00:24:02,554
in this very creative
period of his career.

481
00:24:02,554 --> 00:24:03,970
And I think one
of the reasons was

482
00:24:03,970 --> 00:24:07,060
he understood that there were
aspects of the genre he hadn't

483
00:24:07,060 --> 00:24:09,190
made enough fun of.

484
00:24:09,190 --> 00:24:15,240
He hadn't quite ruined
all the sacred truths,

485
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:17,500
to use a phrase that
I'm going to refer

486
00:24:17,500 --> 00:24:19,660
to later that I
have on my outline

487
00:24:19,660 --> 00:24:21,380
for McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

488
00:24:21,380 --> 00:24:22,750
So he wanted to return again.

489
00:24:22,750 --> 00:24:29,240
And that of course is the story
about those Wild West shows

490
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:30,780
I spoke about last week.

491
00:24:30,780 --> 00:24:36,080
And the episode he
dramatizes actually

492
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,070
involves a comical and
also very disturbing

493
00:24:39,070 --> 00:24:44,160
confrontation or interaction
between Great Chief Sitting

494
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:49,460
Bull and drunken Buffalo Bill,
and an absolutely corrupt,

495
00:24:49,460 --> 00:24:55,140
drunken morally
muddled Indian hero,

496
00:24:55,140 --> 00:24:57,295
played by incidentally
Paul Newman, who

497
00:24:57,295 --> 00:25:02,350
had played upright
heroes frequently before.

498
00:25:02,350 --> 00:25:06,920
And let me jump down a
little bit and say one word.

499
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,560
The films I've
listed from '88 on

500
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:13,640
are more recent films, all
of them relative successes.

501
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,990
My view is that his greatest
work is in the '70s.

502
00:25:15,990 --> 00:25:18,080
But these later films I've
listed are interesting.

503
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,990
But I want to say a word
about Tanner and Tanner

504
00:25:20,990 --> 00:25:25,150
on Tanner, because they show
how imaginative and experimental

505
00:25:25,150 --> 00:25:28,460
he remained, even in his
later years as a director.

506
00:25:28,460 --> 00:25:30,550
As some of you may know,
Tanner is not a movie.

507
00:25:30,550 --> 00:25:32,272
It was a television series.

508
00:25:32,272 --> 00:25:34,230
And it was a very
interesting television series

509
00:25:34,230 --> 00:25:38,060
in which we could see Robert
Altman further developing

510
00:25:38,060 --> 00:25:40,980
this interest he had in this
confusion between reality

511
00:25:40,980 --> 00:25:43,900
and fiction.

512
00:25:43,900 --> 00:25:47,240
I think he was right
about this in some ways.

513
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:50,490
Partly, I think, he
felt that because we

514
00:25:50,490 --> 00:25:53,310
live in such a
media-saturated culture

515
00:25:53,310 --> 00:25:57,280
and because of the power that
celebrity seems to exercise

516
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,620
in our culture, this
celebrity was often one

517
00:26:00,620 --> 00:26:02,110
of Robert Altman's subplots.

518
00:26:02,110 --> 00:26:08,660
It's a key subject in
Nashville and he returns to it

519
00:26:08,660 --> 00:26:11,430
in a number of his
later films as well.

520
00:26:15,360 --> 00:26:17,600
The trick of Tanner
is that it purports

521
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:24,540
to be a documentary following
a Democratic presidential

522
00:26:24,540 --> 00:26:29,610
candidate in the Democratic
primaries of 1988.

523
00:26:29,610 --> 00:26:33,370
And you've got an actor,
one of his favorite actors--

524
00:26:33,370 --> 00:26:35,810
this actor-- I think his
name is Michael Murphy,

525
00:26:35,810 --> 00:26:38,450
he has a role in
McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

526
00:26:38,450 --> 00:26:41,660
He's the younger
company representative

527
00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:43,110
who comes near the
end of the film

528
00:26:43,110 --> 00:26:45,020
to negotiate with
McCabe about selling

529
00:26:45,020 --> 00:26:46,830
his interest in the town.

530
00:26:46,830 --> 00:26:49,640
And he's a wonderful actor,
this guy Michael Murphy.

531
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:53,590
And like many of the actors
who appear in Altman's films,

532
00:26:53,590 --> 00:26:55,520
you have a sense, if
you watch Altman's films

533
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,800
over the whole of his
career, that there

534
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,240
was a repertory company that
kept coming back to work

535
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,400
with him again and again.

536
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,150
Eliot Gould must
be in six or seven

537
00:27:03,150 --> 00:27:06,990
of his movies, Michael Murphy
in at least three or four.

538
00:27:06,990 --> 00:27:09,850
He has favorite actresses too,
who love to work with him,

539
00:27:09,850 --> 00:27:13,720
and Julie Christie is one,
the star of tonight's film.

540
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:15,724
Warren Beatty is another
of his favorite actors,

541
00:27:15,724 --> 00:27:17,390
although Beatty was
such a big star that

542
00:27:17,390 --> 00:27:19,180
could generate his own films.

543
00:27:19,180 --> 00:27:23,500
He didn't need Altman as much as
some of these other actors did.

544
00:27:23,500 --> 00:27:25,980
In any case, the
trick of Tanner,

545
00:27:25,980 --> 00:27:28,190
the strategy of Tanner,
the really memorable thing

546
00:27:28,190 --> 00:27:31,640
about Tanner was, I think, a
very significant television

547
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:36,290
event, is that the
fictional Tanner, played

548
00:27:36,290 --> 00:27:40,630
by this guy Michael
Murphy, treated

549
00:27:40,630 --> 00:27:42,420
with complete seriousness.

550
00:27:42,420 --> 00:27:44,950
We mostly saw him through
the eyes of his press

551
00:27:44,950 --> 00:27:47,000
managers, his press handlers.

552
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,950
So there was a great cynicism
about the political process

553
00:27:50,950 --> 00:27:52,715
and the gossip of
journalists about

554
00:27:52,715 --> 00:27:53,840
the presidential candidate.

555
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,830
But the real genius
of Tanner was

556
00:27:57,830 --> 00:28:01,320
that we saw Tanner on the stump
with the real presidential

557
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:02,320
candidates.

558
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:03,280
And they cooperated.

559
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:05,267
The real presidential
candidates cooperated

560
00:28:05,267 --> 00:28:06,350
in the making of the film.

561
00:28:06,350 --> 00:28:09,460
And there are actually scenes in
which the fictional Tanner gets

562
00:28:09,460 --> 00:28:13,270
into a conversation with
Michael Dukakis, who was also

563
00:28:13,270 --> 00:28:14,580
running to be President.

564
00:28:14,580 --> 00:28:16,740
And then there's an interview
with Michael Dukakis

565
00:28:16,740 --> 00:28:20,850
in which Michael Dukakis
assesses the danger that Tanner

566
00:28:20,850 --> 00:28:22,710
represents to his candidacy.

567
00:28:22,710 --> 00:28:28,670
So when he returned to
Tanner on Tanner in 2004,

568
00:28:28,670 --> 00:28:30,620
he elaborated this theory.

569
00:28:30,620 --> 00:28:33,340
Now Tanner is a
retired politician,

570
00:28:33,340 --> 00:28:36,040
and he's helping his daughter,
who's a documentary filmmaker,

571
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,450
do a new political film.

572
00:28:38,450 --> 00:28:40,886
But now it's about
the contemporary.

573
00:28:40,886 --> 00:28:48,060
It was about the last
election, the nomination.

574
00:28:48,060 --> 00:28:51,680
I guess it was the first Bush
election was what it was about.

575
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:52,880
And it's very interesting.

576
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:54,760
He brings back many
of the characters.

577
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,410
Well, both of these texts,
like some of his other films,

578
00:28:58,410 --> 00:29:01,160
are really preoccupied
with the question

579
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,340
of the blurred boundaries
between the fictional worlds we

580
00:29:05,340 --> 00:29:09,280
live in and the actual
worlds we eat and breathe in,

581
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,310
and the extent to which our
media-saturated culture has

582
00:29:12,310 --> 00:29:14,930
created a kind of
virtual reality

583
00:29:14,930 --> 00:29:16,110
that we watch on television.

584
00:29:16,110 --> 00:29:18,970
And now, of course, we watch
on our computer screens

585
00:29:18,970 --> 00:29:22,500
that competes with the actual
reality we live every day.

586
00:29:22,500 --> 00:29:26,535
Well, Altman loved playing
games with that question

587
00:29:26,535 --> 00:29:28,310
and raising questions about it.

588
00:29:28,310 --> 00:29:31,750
And the first Tanner series
is, among other things,

589
00:29:31,750 --> 00:29:34,130
a powerful meditation
on the mendacity

590
00:29:34,130 --> 00:29:36,080
and the stupidity of
the political process

591
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:36,940
in our country.

592
00:29:36,940 --> 00:29:40,410
It showed people trying to raise
money, candidates scrambling

593
00:29:40,410 --> 00:29:43,940
to get five minutes in
front of the news cameras

594
00:29:43,940 --> 00:29:46,589
just at the moment when the
evening news is going to break,

595
00:29:46,589 --> 00:29:47,380
that sort of thing.

596
00:29:47,380 --> 00:29:51,240
It's very wonderfully
accurate, cynical account

597
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:52,740
of American politics.

598
00:29:52,740 --> 00:29:55,400
Well, let me turn now to
McCabe and Mrs. Miller

599
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:56,910
and try to concretize
some of what

600
00:29:56,910 --> 00:29:59,350
I've been saying with
specific reference

601
00:29:59,350 --> 00:30:02,670
to this remarkable film.

602
00:30:02,670 --> 00:30:06,210
"Ruin the sacred truths," a
line that I have plagiarized

603
00:30:06,210 --> 00:30:11,680
from the Yale literary critic
and scholar Harold Bloom, who

604
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,610
uses it to describe
the enterprise

605
00:30:13,610 --> 00:30:20,960
of certain romantic poets whose
aim was said, in Bloom's terms,

606
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:24,860
to ruin the inherited truths
of the society, to attack them,

607
00:30:24,860 --> 00:30:25,846
to assault them.

608
00:30:25,846 --> 00:30:27,220
And in a certain
sense, one could

609
00:30:27,220 --> 00:30:28,780
say that that's
Altman's ambition

610
00:30:28,780 --> 00:30:32,300
as well, to ruin, to
expose, to undermine,

611
00:30:32,300 --> 00:30:37,560
to drench in irony the secret
truths that have come down

612
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:39,710
to us from cinematic
tradition, and maybe

613
00:30:39,710 --> 00:30:42,940
from more political and
moral culture as well.

614
00:30:42,940 --> 00:30:46,450
And we can see this in
many different aspects

615
00:30:46,450 --> 00:30:51,342
of Altman's movie.

616
00:30:51,342 --> 00:30:55,080
In many of his films
we feel these elements,

617
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,540
but especially powerfully
and especially clearly,

618
00:30:57,540 --> 00:31:00,160
I think, in McCabe
and Mrs. Miller.

619
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,720
One might say, in fact, that the
whole energy of McCabe and Mrs.

620
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,370
Miller, the whole
energy of the film,

621
00:31:06,370 --> 00:31:08,900
results in a kind
of tension or clash

622
00:31:08,900 --> 00:31:11,890
between the conventional
expectations

623
00:31:11,890 --> 00:31:14,150
that we have about
Westerns, and even

624
00:31:14,150 --> 00:31:17,330
the conventional expectations
as they have been complicated

625
00:31:17,330 --> 00:31:21,480
by the serious and
enlarging and already ironic

626
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:23,750
Westerns of the late
'50s and early '60s,

627
00:31:23,750 --> 00:31:26,410
a kind of tension or clash
between the expectations

628
00:31:26,410 --> 00:31:28,810
we have about traditional
Westerns, no matter how

629
00:31:28,810 --> 00:31:33,740
ironic they might have been, and
the gritty, comical, uglified,

630
00:31:33,740 --> 00:31:37,810
and humanized reality that
Altman actually presents us

631
00:31:37,810 --> 00:31:38,630
with.

632
00:31:38,630 --> 00:31:40,980
And almost every
element of the film

633
00:31:40,980 --> 00:31:43,540
has this kind of shock
of recognition in it.

634
00:31:43,540 --> 00:31:45,850
Let's take the question--
watch for example,

635
00:31:45,850 --> 00:31:51,430
how the film treats
both the soundtrack

636
00:31:51,430 --> 00:31:52,910
and what you visually see.

637
00:31:56,510 --> 00:31:58,670
When the film first
came out, some reviewers

638
00:31:58,670 --> 00:32:01,130
complained that they had
trouble making out the dialogue.

639
00:32:01,130 --> 00:32:02,560
And they weren't
lying about this.

640
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,340
It's because when
Altman takes his camera

641
00:32:06,340 --> 00:32:10,290
inside dingy saloon in
which some of the action

642
00:32:10,290 --> 00:32:13,600
early in the film begins and to
which it returns periodically

643
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,750
as the film goes on,
Altman does not tamp down

644
00:32:17,750 --> 00:32:19,560
the ambient noise in the bar.

645
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:21,410
You hear the conversation
of other people.

646
00:32:21,410 --> 00:32:22,770
You hear bodies moving.

647
00:32:22,770 --> 00:32:24,240
You hear various kinds of noise.

648
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,310
And sometimes, if
the people who are

649
00:32:27,310 --> 00:32:31,100
in the foreground of the frame
are talking in very low voices,

650
00:32:31,100 --> 00:32:33,980
their voices are blotted out
by the sounds around them.

651
00:32:33,980 --> 00:32:36,080
And in fact, Altman's
treatment of sound

652
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:41,290
all the way through the film
has an energetic realism in it.

653
00:32:41,290 --> 00:32:43,790
And it's a strange and
ultimately, I think,

654
00:32:43,790 --> 00:32:46,830
very satisfying aspect of the
film, the way in which Altman

655
00:32:46,830 --> 00:32:49,850
seems to try to create
a grittier, more

656
00:32:49,850 --> 00:32:53,790
accurate account of the way
sound operates in our world.

657
00:32:53,790 --> 00:32:57,080
The fact is, when
we're in actuality

658
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,272
and we address someone in a
crowded room, it's not quiet.

659
00:33:00,272 --> 00:33:01,730
You can hear a lot
of other things.

660
00:33:01,730 --> 00:33:03,760
Altman wants to sort
of recreate that.

661
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:07,240
And sometimes it almost
seems as if that tendency,

662
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:09,670
that digressive
tendency that I've said

663
00:33:09,670 --> 00:33:12,440
is characteristic of
Altman's imagination

664
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,310
may even be expressing
itself in the way

665
00:33:14,310 --> 00:33:16,590
he uses the soundtrack,
because it's

666
00:33:16,590 --> 00:33:19,220
almost as if the
soundtrack may sometimes

667
00:33:19,220 --> 00:33:22,340
be more interested in the
words or sounds coming

668
00:33:22,340 --> 00:33:24,050
from the margins of
the frame rather than

669
00:33:24,050 --> 00:33:25,430
from the center of the frame.

670
00:33:25,430 --> 00:33:28,980
So there are these elements
of potential abstraction

671
00:33:28,980 --> 00:33:30,840
that you always have
to contend with when

672
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:32,280
you're watching Altman's films.

673
00:33:35,050 --> 00:33:37,430
The same thing
from another angle

674
00:33:37,430 --> 00:33:41,140
could also be said to be true
in some degree of the way

675
00:33:41,140 --> 00:33:43,190
the images work in the film.

676
00:33:43,190 --> 00:33:48,160
Watch especially for the color
palette that Altman uses.

677
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,240
He plays around
with light and dark,

678
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:56,540
with a certain kind of
cold, dark, damp feeling.

679
00:33:56,540 --> 00:34:02,350
And he contrasts that with
a kind of lighting that

680
00:34:02,350 --> 00:34:04,750
suggests not incredibly
bright sunlight,

681
00:34:04,750 --> 00:34:09,270
but a kind of nostalgic,
golden, sunset kind of imagery.

682
00:34:09,270 --> 00:34:13,245
And if you watch the film, in
the very beginning of the film,

683
00:34:13,245 --> 00:34:14,620
one of the things
that happens is

684
00:34:14,620 --> 00:34:18,540
that sometimes this golden
sort of light appears indoors,

685
00:34:18,540 --> 00:34:21,520
and the outdoors seem
gloomy and dank and dark.

686
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:26,699
And then later in the film,
this division between light

687
00:34:26,699 --> 00:34:28,790
and dark undergoes
an alteration.

688
00:34:28,790 --> 00:34:30,989
You might ask yourself why.

689
00:34:30,989 --> 00:34:32,830
In one of the most
dramatic moments

690
00:34:32,830 --> 00:34:37,130
toward the end of the film,
there is a group of murderers,

691
00:34:37,130 --> 00:34:39,659
assassins ride into the town.

692
00:34:39,659 --> 00:34:43,560
And they ride in accompanied
with the sun behind them,

693
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,110
accompanied by this
sort of golden haze

694
00:34:46,110 --> 00:34:48,610
that Altman has
ironically associated

695
00:34:48,610 --> 00:34:53,730
with comfort and pleasure
earlier in the film.

696
00:34:53,730 --> 00:34:58,750
So both in terms of the
sound and the image,

697
00:34:58,750 --> 00:35:00,640
we're engaged in
something new here.

698
00:35:02,954 --> 00:35:04,370
In considering the
word "image," I

699
00:35:04,370 --> 00:35:06,840
should also mention
Altman's montage,

700
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:08,830
Altman's habits of editing.

701
00:35:08,830 --> 00:35:15,340
He's capable of the most
fluid and undistracted editing

702
00:35:15,340 --> 00:35:16,460
if he wants to do it.

703
00:35:16,460 --> 00:35:18,600
But he is actually
fonder of forms

704
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,720
of editing that are abrupt,
that are disconcerting,

705
00:35:22,720 --> 00:35:24,730
that are mildly disorienting.

706
00:35:24,730 --> 00:35:27,050
And that style is
part-- I don't mean

707
00:35:27,050 --> 00:35:28,680
does this at all
moments of the film.

708
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,120
But that style, I think,
is part-- sometimes

709
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:32,930
he'll use abrupt cuts.

710
00:35:32,930 --> 00:35:36,330
That style is part
of his art, I think,

711
00:35:36,330 --> 00:35:38,210
but it's also part
of this desire

712
00:35:38,210 --> 00:35:41,160
not to have things too smooth,
not to have things too neat.

713
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,930
His love of the
apparently imperfect

714
00:35:44,930 --> 00:35:48,050
is part of what's
operating there.

715
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:54,860
Even a third element
of what I'm calling

716
00:35:54,860 --> 00:35:57,770
his special or his
new realism might

717
00:35:57,770 --> 00:35:59,960
have to do even with
the way he treats

718
00:35:59,960 --> 00:36:01,940
not just the physical
spaces that you see,

719
00:36:01,940 --> 00:36:02,970
but even the weather.

720
00:36:02,970 --> 00:36:05,250
Watch how lousy the
weather is in his film

721
00:36:05,250 --> 00:36:07,350
and how much damage
it does to people,

722
00:36:07,350 --> 00:36:09,770
what an unpleasant thing
the weather actually is.

723
00:36:09,770 --> 00:36:11,640
Snow really matters
in this film.

724
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:13,670
Bad weather really
matters in this film.

725
00:36:13,670 --> 00:36:15,960
It affects the outcome of
the plot in certain ways,

726
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:16,800
as you'll see.

727
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:21,400
So this messy realism
I'm talking about even

728
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,350
extends to the way in which
the film treats the weather,

729
00:36:24,350 --> 00:36:30,370
as you'll see as
the film proceeds.

730
00:36:30,370 --> 00:36:33,860
The central features of the
traditional Western-- the hero

731
00:36:33,860 --> 00:36:38,420
savior figure, the protagonist
figure, the gal from the East

732
00:36:38,420 --> 00:36:42,580
who is often a schoolmarm who
falls in love with the hero,

733
00:36:42,580 --> 00:36:45,880
and the idea that the
Western as a text,

734
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,190
as I've said many times
already, is always

735
00:36:48,190 --> 00:36:51,140
a kind of founding story about
the equation of a community.

736
00:36:51,140 --> 00:36:54,460
All of those
conventional structures

737
00:36:54,460 --> 00:36:57,720
remain in McCabe and Mrs.
Miller, but they're reverted.

738
00:36:57,720 --> 00:36:58,500
They're weird.

739
00:36:58,500 --> 00:37:01,580
Let's take just a quick example.

740
00:37:01,580 --> 00:37:05,260
The character played
by Warren Beatty,

741
00:37:05,260 --> 00:37:08,730
he really is in some sense
the founder of the town.

742
00:37:08,730 --> 00:37:12,370
There's a miserable
mining camp--

743
00:37:12,370 --> 00:37:15,440
it just has a saloon in
it when the film opens.

744
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:16,710
And McCabe arrives.

745
00:37:16,710 --> 00:37:17,850
He's the great gambler.

746
00:37:17,850 --> 00:37:21,840
He's actually a visionary
entrepreneur in a certain way,

747
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:23,810
although in a very ironic sense.

748
00:37:23,810 --> 00:37:26,740
The story is an ironic
entrepreneur's story,

749
00:37:26,740 --> 00:37:28,720
a Horatio Alger story.

750
00:37:28,720 --> 00:37:31,710
This gambler, McCabe,
comes to town,

751
00:37:31,710 --> 00:37:33,620
looks the place over,
gambles for awhile

752
00:37:33,620 --> 00:37:36,990
with these poor schlubs
who are suffering

753
00:37:36,990 --> 00:37:39,440
on the very margins
of civilization

754
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:40,390
and then goes away.

755
00:37:40,390 --> 00:37:44,740
When he comes back, he's
bringing prostitutes with him.

756
00:37:44,740 --> 00:37:47,250
This town is not built
by noble intentions.

757
00:37:47,250 --> 00:37:51,700
It's built by a whoremonger who
brings a bunch of prostitutes

758
00:37:51,700 --> 00:37:53,240
into the town and
sets up the town's

759
00:37:53,240 --> 00:37:55,670
first house of prostitution.

760
00:37:55,670 --> 00:37:57,785
And in fact McCabe becomes
the biggest landowner

761
00:37:57,785 --> 00:38:00,830
and the richest man in
town, not because he

762
00:38:00,830 --> 00:38:03,854
has the entrepreneurial
vision of an Andrew Carnegie--

763
00:38:03,854 --> 00:38:06,270
although actually, if we look
closely at Andrew Carnegie's

764
00:38:06,270 --> 00:38:08,470
life, we might find
he more resembles

765
00:38:08,470 --> 00:38:11,870
McCabe than his biographers
have acknowledged.

766
00:38:11,870 --> 00:38:14,650
In other words, it's as
if what Altman is doing

767
00:38:14,650 --> 00:38:18,450
is he's telling a kind of
ironic or mocking or antiheroic

768
00:38:18,450 --> 00:38:21,830
Horatio Alger story.

769
00:38:21,830 --> 00:38:24,580
And as the story unfolds,
certain lovely things

770
00:38:24,580 --> 00:38:25,360
begin to happen.

771
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:26,900
One thing that
begins to happen is

772
00:38:26,900 --> 00:38:32,080
we begin to see a soft or a
vulnerable side to the McCabe

773
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:32,790
character.

774
00:38:32,790 --> 00:38:36,180
And when the schoolmarm
East figure arrives,

775
00:38:36,180 --> 00:38:37,670
she's really from the East.

776
00:38:37,670 --> 00:38:39,753
She's not even from the
East of the United States.

777
00:38:39,753 --> 00:38:41,330
She has an English accent.

778
00:38:41,330 --> 00:38:43,180
It's Julie Christie.

779
00:38:43,180 --> 00:38:45,580
But she's not a schoolmarm.

780
00:38:45,580 --> 00:38:51,320
She's a retired whore who
is now a manager of whores.

781
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,610
She's a whore mistress, an
expert in running whores.

782
00:38:54,610 --> 00:38:58,640
And in fact, as soon as she
arrives in town and partners

783
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,632
with McCabe, McCabe really
begins to make money.

784
00:39:01,632 --> 00:39:03,340
What we begin to
realize is McCabe really

785
00:39:03,340 --> 00:39:04,548
doesn't know what he's doing.

786
00:39:04,548 --> 00:39:07,010
McCabe had a kind of vision,
but he doesn't really--

787
00:39:07,010 --> 00:39:12,030
and there's a wonderful scene
over a meal in which the Julie

788
00:39:12,030 --> 00:39:14,050
Christie character who
wolfs down her food

789
00:39:14,050 --> 00:39:17,790
like some John Wayne character,
while the McCabe character

790
00:39:17,790 --> 00:39:20,150
looks very askance at her.

791
00:39:20,150 --> 00:39:22,750
There's a scene in which
Julie Christie in effect

792
00:39:22,750 --> 00:39:25,330
explains to McCabe
how little he knows

793
00:39:25,330 --> 00:39:27,200
about how to manage women.

794
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:31,970
And then what develops is a kind
of love affair between McCabe

795
00:39:31,970 --> 00:39:34,960
and this prostitute.

796
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:38,600
And what one begins to
realize is first of all,

797
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,080
the woman is much
smarter than the man.

798
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,500
And you can see her
despair being generated

799
00:39:43,500 --> 00:39:47,280
as the story unfolds and McCabe
is manipulated by other people.

800
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,140
She knows the powerful
forces that McCabe will be up

801
00:39:50,140 --> 00:39:51,735
against by the end of the film.

802
00:39:51,735 --> 00:39:53,610
And she tries to discourage
him and help him,

803
00:39:53,610 --> 00:39:56,380
but he's too caught
up in his macho

804
00:39:56,380 --> 00:39:59,160
idea of what a man
is to allow himself

805
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,580
to see the wisdom of
what she's saying.

806
00:40:01,580 --> 00:40:03,730
And he's actually sometimes
embarrassed by the fact

807
00:40:03,730 --> 00:40:07,260
that she seems to know
more than he does.

808
00:40:07,260 --> 00:40:09,660
Well, the relation between
McCabe and Mrs. Miller

809
00:40:09,660 --> 00:40:11,900
inverts the normal love
affair relationship.

810
00:40:11,900 --> 00:40:13,950
It shows us a woman who's
stronger and smarter,

811
00:40:13,950 --> 00:40:17,790
although also much more cynical
and despairing than her man.

812
00:40:17,790 --> 00:40:20,540
But McCabe's optimism and
sense of self-confidence,

813
00:40:20,540 --> 00:40:25,030
which he loses pretty
quickly, is shown in the film

814
00:40:25,030 --> 00:40:29,950
to be a function of his
ignorance and his innocence.

815
00:40:29,950 --> 00:40:32,160
So the treatment
of the love story

816
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:35,170
and the treatment of the hero
savior figure in the film

817
00:40:35,170 --> 00:40:37,820
is deeply humanizing
and deeply ironic.

818
00:40:37,820 --> 00:40:41,120
They're actually more credible,
psychologically complex

819
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,910
characters, these two,
McCabe and Mrs. Miller,

820
00:40:43,910 --> 00:40:46,590
than most of their predecessors
in earlier Westerns.

821
00:40:46,590 --> 00:40:49,360
But they're also deeply
ironic embodiments

822
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,660
of their much nobler ancestors.

823
00:40:51,660 --> 00:40:53,560
And the same thing
that I've just

824
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:57,870
been saying about the
hero and the heroine,

825
00:40:57,870 --> 00:41:01,410
about the love story
and savior story

826
00:41:01,410 --> 00:41:04,040
is also true of the
founding myth itself.

827
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:08,650
The name of this town
is Presbyterian Church.

828
00:41:08,650 --> 00:41:09,810
Very good name, isn't it?

829
00:41:09,810 --> 00:41:11,960
And it takes its
name from the steeple

830
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:13,620
of an unfinished church.

831
00:41:13,620 --> 00:41:17,240
And I think the allusion to
unfinished churches in earlier

832
00:41:17,240 --> 00:41:20,270
traditional Westerns is
certainly intentional.

833
00:41:20,270 --> 00:41:25,840
It takes its name from the
unfinished church in the town.

834
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,160
And in fact as you will see,
the church is never finished.

835
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:31,120
You might watch how in
the plot that works out,

836
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,740
and why it works out,
and what role the church

837
00:41:33,740 --> 00:41:36,590
and especially the minister who
is hanging out at the church

838
00:41:36,590 --> 00:41:39,050
plays in the outcome
of the story.

839
00:41:39,050 --> 00:41:41,720
Does the church, and
implicitly therefore does

840
00:41:41,720 --> 00:41:45,480
religion play a constructive or
a destructive role in the film?

841
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,240
I'm not giving too
much away to tell you

842
00:41:48,240 --> 00:41:50,620
it's obvious which
answer is appropriate.

843
00:41:50,620 --> 00:41:52,290
It plays a destructive role.

844
00:41:52,290 --> 00:41:54,930
Just as it's hostile to
certain political myths

845
00:41:54,930 --> 00:41:57,110
about the founding
of the West, the film

846
00:41:57,110 --> 00:42:00,680
is also hostile to our
pieties and complacencies

847
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,920
about the role of
religious institutions,

848
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,740
and especially in the
founding of our society.

849
00:42:06,740 --> 00:42:13,300
So watch how it works itself out
and how that traditional icon

850
00:42:13,300 --> 00:42:16,780
of the conventional
Western has its meanings

851
00:42:16,780 --> 00:42:22,730
and its significance inverted
and subverted in this film.

852
00:42:27,070 --> 00:42:32,850
There's one crucial film,
conventional Western,

853
00:42:32,850 --> 00:42:35,050
to which this film
directly alludes,

854
00:42:35,050 --> 00:42:38,260
I think, or at least
implicitly directly alludes.

855
00:42:40,664 --> 00:42:42,080
It alludes to other
films as well,

856
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:44,260
but there's one especially.

857
00:42:44,260 --> 00:42:46,540
And I want to show
you a clip from it,

858
00:42:46,540 --> 00:42:48,710
because it has its
own distinction.

859
00:42:48,710 --> 00:42:51,680
And it reminds you not
only about the sort

860
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:53,320
of ballad dimensions
of the Western,

861
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:58,320
but how stylized and
heroic in a certain way

862
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,370
the conventional Western is.

863
00:43:01,370 --> 00:43:04,900
It'll be a nice contrast
with the antiheroic qualities

864
00:43:04,900 --> 00:43:06,650
of McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

865
00:43:06,650 --> 00:43:10,720
And this is a scene
from the very beginning

866
00:43:10,720 --> 00:43:13,300
of a film made in the early
'50s called High Noon,

867
00:43:13,300 --> 00:43:19,490
starring the first or second
most iconic of Western heroes.

868
00:43:19,490 --> 00:43:21,170
If John Wayne was
the first, then

869
00:43:21,170 --> 00:43:22,590
Gary Cooper was the second.

870
00:43:22,590 --> 00:43:24,070
And this stars Gary Cooper.

871
00:43:24,070 --> 00:43:28,000
But the main reason I want you
to see the opening of the film

872
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,840
is because it's very important
to McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

873
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,170
And there's no doubt that
Altman expects his audience

874
00:43:34,170 --> 00:43:38,284
not only to be thinking about
many prior Westerns to contrast

875
00:43:38,284 --> 00:43:39,700
with what happens
in this Western,

876
00:43:39,700 --> 00:43:41,500
but he certainly
expects his audience

877
00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:44,970
to remember specifically
the beginning

878
00:43:44,970 --> 00:43:48,640
of High Noon and the way
High Noon plays itself out.

879
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:55,100
And perhaps also
certain other Westerns

880
00:43:55,100 --> 00:43:59,790
play maybe almost as
significant a role in the film,

881
00:43:59,790 --> 00:44:01,960
but High Noon especially.

882
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:03,570
And the main reason
that High Noon

883
00:44:03,570 --> 00:44:05,930
is so important to
McCabe and Mrs. Miller

884
00:44:05,930 --> 00:44:08,320
is that it's also a
drama that takes place

885
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:10,680
in the physical
spaces of the town.

886
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:14,860
High Noon begins brilliantly
with bad guys riding into town.

887
00:44:14,860 --> 00:44:19,610
And we hardly see the hero
until the final images

888
00:44:19,610 --> 00:44:21,510
of the sequence I'm
going to show you,

889
00:44:21,510 --> 00:44:23,550
the Gary Cooper figure.

890
00:44:23,550 --> 00:44:24,950
A man's been
released from prison

891
00:44:24,950 --> 00:44:27,280
who's going to take vengeance
on the town marshal.

892
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:30,757
It's the day of the
town marshal's wedding

893
00:44:30,757 --> 00:44:32,340
when the bad guys
are coming into town

894
00:44:32,340 --> 00:44:33,880
to take their revenge.

895
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,720
The film itself, incidentally,
is a parable of the McCarthy

896
00:44:36,720 --> 00:44:39,909
era of the early 1950s.

897
00:44:39,909 --> 00:44:41,450
Like many Westerns--
and we've talked

898
00:44:41,450 --> 00:44:42,991
about this-- like
many Westerns, it's

899
00:44:42,991 --> 00:44:45,510
a disguised form of social
and political commentary

900
00:44:45,510 --> 00:44:47,030
on the present.

901
00:44:47,030 --> 00:44:49,740
And in this case, the
marshal's endangered.

902
00:44:49,740 --> 00:44:51,365
A lot of bad guys
are coming after him.

903
00:44:51,365 --> 00:44:54,200
He goes around the town asking
for help to set up a posse

904
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:55,719
to help him defend the town.

905
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:56,760
Nobody wants to help him.

906
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:58,950
He's left on his own,
and he has to fight

907
00:44:58,950 --> 00:45:01,760
against these guys on his own.

908
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,010
And the drama of the
film has to do with this.

909
00:45:05,010 --> 00:45:06,906
And as you'll see,
McCabe and Mrs. Miller

910
00:45:06,906 --> 00:45:08,530
ends on a similar
note, in which McCabe

911
00:45:08,530 --> 00:45:14,120
is up against a force of men
far larger than he, and also

912
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:15,880
professional killers.

913
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,780
And in that sense,
the end of McCabe,

914
00:45:19,780 --> 00:45:21,700
the whole last
section of McCabe,

915
00:45:21,700 --> 00:45:24,990
which involves McCabe defending
himself against assassins

916
00:45:24,990 --> 00:45:28,030
who have been dispatched
by a corporation

917
00:45:28,030 --> 00:45:29,507
that has tried to
buy McCabe out.

918
00:45:29,507 --> 00:45:31,090
And when he's refused
to sell, they've

919
00:45:31,090 --> 00:45:32,550
said, OK, we'll
take another route.

920
00:45:32,550 --> 00:45:35,070
We'll eliminate him.

921
00:45:35,070 --> 00:45:38,070
So Altman's telling
the story of capitalism

922
00:45:38,070 --> 00:45:41,515
at its most aggressively
evil, instead

923
00:45:41,515 --> 00:45:43,640
of the kind of fairy tales
that were told about how

924
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:50,160
the West was made by certain
mythological, optimistically

925
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:53,260
mythological Westerns.

926
00:45:53,260 --> 00:46:01,010
So when McCabe defends
himself at the very end

927
00:46:01,010 --> 00:46:03,800
against these larger forces,
one of the things that gives him

928
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,280
an advantage-- and one of
the most interesting passages

929
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:08,969
in the film occurs
here-- has to do

930
00:46:08,969 --> 00:46:10,260
with his knowledge of the town.

931
00:46:10,260 --> 00:46:11,410
He helped build the town.

932
00:46:11,410 --> 00:46:13,700
So he knows every nook
and cranny of the town.

933
00:46:13,700 --> 00:46:17,320
And he's able in part to hold
his own against four other men

934
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,930
who are actually much better
with violence than he is,

935
00:46:20,930 --> 00:46:22,760
because of his
knowledge of the town.

936
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:24,390
Something of that
same kind of thing

937
00:46:24,390 --> 00:46:26,110
happens at the end of High Noon.

938
00:46:26,110 --> 00:46:28,760
The beginning of High Noon
is exciting because what

939
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,220
it shows is the film is
exploring the territory that it

940
00:46:31,220 --> 00:46:33,280
will later return to.

941
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,070
So I'm showing it
to you because I

942
00:46:35,070 --> 00:46:36,510
think in part it's interesting.

943
00:46:36,510 --> 00:46:37,700
It's a nice contrast.

944
00:46:37,700 --> 00:46:39,530
There's no question
that Altman expects

945
00:46:39,530 --> 00:46:41,075
us to have this
film in our minds

946
00:46:41,075 --> 00:46:42,200
when we're watching McCabe.

947
00:46:51,380 --> 00:46:55,835
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

948
00:47:00,290 --> 00:47:02,270
Do any of you
recognize this actor?

949
00:47:02,270 --> 00:47:03,755
His name is Lee Van Cleef.

950
00:47:03,755 --> 00:47:05,735
He played bad guys for
most of his career,

951
00:47:05,735 --> 00:47:09,200
and then spaghetti
westerns came in.

952
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:10,470
He was reversed.

953
00:47:10,470 --> 00:47:14,916
He began to play
less evil characters.

954
00:47:14,916 --> 00:47:17,353
But he's an actor who's
associated with evil roles

955
00:47:17,353 --> 00:47:18,575
in a series of Westerns.

956
00:47:29,780 --> 00:47:31,720
The singer is Tex Ritter.

957
00:48:11,096 --> 00:48:12,720
I also wanted you to
see this beginning

958
00:48:12,720 --> 00:48:15,390
so you could hear this ballad
and contrast it with Leonard

959
00:48:15,390 --> 00:48:19,200
Cohen's stoned aria.

960
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:21,194
Leonard Cohen sounds
like he's singing out

961
00:48:21,194 --> 00:48:22,110
of the counterculture.

962
00:48:22,110 --> 00:48:25,660
And watch the different
subject matter.

963
00:49:04,780 --> 00:49:07,110
Only someone who had
never seen a movie

964
00:49:07,110 --> 00:49:10,240
would fail to recognize
that these are bad guys.

965
00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:12,570
Now how do you know
they're bad guys?

966
00:49:12,570 --> 00:49:13,570
They're unshaven.

967
00:49:13,570 --> 00:49:15,300
They have black hats.

968
00:49:15,300 --> 00:49:17,340
There's a kind of
implicit symbolism

969
00:49:17,340 --> 00:49:19,640
that the conventional
Western, even subtle ones

970
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:21,390
like this one, which
is a grownup Western,

971
00:49:21,390 --> 00:49:24,240
it's an adult Western,
still make use of.

972
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:26,910
Altman will throw all
those kinds of markers out.

973
00:49:26,910 --> 00:49:29,720
He thinks they're foolish.

974
00:49:29,720 --> 00:49:30,660
Another church.

975
00:49:30,660 --> 00:49:35,115
[CHURCH BELLS RINGING]

976
00:50:06,207 --> 00:50:07,290
Think that's heavy-handed?

977
00:50:18,123 --> 00:50:21,220
So you see how what's happening
here is a kind of visit

978
00:50:21,220 --> 00:50:22,050
through the town?

979
00:50:22,050 --> 00:50:23,758
It isn't until later
in the film that you

980
00:50:23,758 --> 00:50:25,860
realize that every
space you go by

981
00:50:25,860 --> 00:50:28,700
should have registered with
you, because the later action

982
00:50:28,700 --> 00:50:32,120
of the film will take place on
these streets, in these barns,

983
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,612
on these balconies.

984
00:50:35,612 --> 00:50:40,004
[INAUDIBLE]

985
00:50:54,055 --> 00:50:55,300
Now, watch this shot.

986
00:50:58,786 --> 00:51:03,700
And there's Gary Cooper,
who will be our hero.

987
00:51:03,700 --> 00:51:07,430
And in fact, he's marrying
Grace Kelly, who in this film

988
00:51:07,430 --> 00:51:08,640
is a Quaker.

989
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,700
And guess what one of the
climactic events in the film

990
00:51:11,700 --> 00:51:13,110
is?

991
00:51:13,110 --> 00:51:16,320
The Quaker lady fires a
gun to save her beloved,

992
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,470
violates her moral
principles and kills someone

993
00:51:19,470 --> 00:51:21,559
to save her man.

994
00:51:21,559 --> 00:51:23,411
OK.

995
00:51:23,411 --> 00:51:24,800
[END PLAYBACK]

996
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:30,720
Now, I don't want you to think
that I'm suggesting that High

997
00:51:30,720 --> 00:51:32,701
Noon is not a remarkable movie.

998
00:51:32,701 --> 00:51:33,200
It is.

999
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,820
It's one of the very,
very good Westerns.

1000
00:51:35,820 --> 00:51:39,780
It has great subtlety
and power in its own way.

1001
00:51:39,780 --> 00:51:42,450
But I think that Altman
definitely wanted

1002
00:51:42,450 --> 00:51:45,070
us to think about the
radical differences,

1003
00:51:45,070 --> 00:51:47,530
between the universe
imagined in McCabe and Mrs.

1004
00:51:47,530 --> 00:51:55,680
Miller and the world as it's
imagined in even subtle, adult

1005
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:57,340
'50s Westerns.

1006
00:51:57,340 --> 00:52:01,030
So many of these things
are crystallized for us

1007
00:52:01,030 --> 00:52:04,990
in the remarkable
conclusion of the film.

1008
00:52:04,990 --> 00:52:08,120
And I hope that you'll pay
a lot of attention to that.

1009
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:09,930
It's an extended sequence.

1010
00:52:09,930 --> 00:52:14,590
And it operates according to a
principle of parallel action.

1011
00:52:14,590 --> 00:52:16,800
The church I mentioned
earlier catches fire.

1012
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:18,260
Watch why it catches fire.

1013
00:52:18,260 --> 00:52:20,320
It's connected to the plot.

1014
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,240
And while the church is
burning, most of the town

1015
00:52:23,240 --> 00:52:25,680
gets together in a kind
of comic bucket brigade

1016
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:29,180
to put the fire out.

1017
00:52:29,180 --> 00:52:31,340
They are partly
aided by a new fire

1018
00:52:31,340 --> 00:52:33,410
engine, a mark of
the town's growth

1019
00:52:33,410 --> 00:52:37,090
that arrives at a certain point
in the history of the town.

1020
00:52:37,090 --> 00:52:39,360
The fire engine, I believe,
arrives at the same time

1021
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:41,340
that Mrs. Miller
arrives in town.

1022
00:52:41,340 --> 00:52:43,590
They're both equally
important historical events

1023
00:52:43,590 --> 00:52:45,360
for the town's future.

1024
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:47,610
But the arrival of
the engine suggests

1025
00:52:47,610 --> 00:52:49,140
the coming of civilization.

1026
00:52:49,140 --> 00:52:52,970
And there's a certain
sense in which

1027
00:52:52,970 --> 00:52:55,740
the fighting of the fire,
it's actually almost treated

1028
00:52:55,740 --> 00:52:57,930
like a slapstick event.

1029
00:52:57,930 --> 00:53:01,590
Real film buffs would actually
recognize visual allusions

1030
00:53:01,590 --> 00:53:05,300
or references to the
Keystone Kops era.

1031
00:53:05,300 --> 00:53:07,530
I don't want to exaggerate
this, but you'll see it.

1032
00:53:07,530 --> 00:53:08,530
I mean, there
actually is someone

1033
00:53:08,530 --> 00:53:10,970
carrying a bucket that has a
hole in it, water's falling,

1034
00:53:10,970 --> 00:53:11,860
that kind of thing.

1035
00:53:11,860 --> 00:53:13,700
And they're
incredibly ineffectual

1036
00:53:13,700 --> 00:53:15,200
in their trying to
put out the fire.

1037
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:16,880
I don't think they
succeed very well.

1038
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:18,889
The church essentially
is destroyed,

1039
00:53:18,889 --> 00:53:20,430
or at least the
steeple is destroyed.

1040
00:53:20,430 --> 00:53:24,120
But what happens nonetheless
is the town has come together.

1041
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,120
And it's actually a moment
in which you actually

1042
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,240
feel that the town's
identity is being forged

1043
00:53:29,240 --> 00:53:31,300
as these disparate
people-- the whores

1044
00:53:31,300 --> 00:53:33,090
and the barbers and
the respectable people

1045
00:53:33,090 --> 00:53:35,050
and the saloon keeper
all get together

1046
00:53:35,050 --> 00:53:36,470
to try to put the fire out.

1047
00:53:36,470 --> 00:53:39,490
So it is a moment in which
the town is really aborning.

1048
00:53:39,490 --> 00:53:41,490
While that is
happening, McCabe is

1049
00:53:41,490 --> 00:53:43,550
being stalked by the assassins.

1050
00:53:43,550 --> 00:53:46,470
The creator of the town,
the founder of the town,

1051
00:53:46,470 --> 00:53:52,660
is in a fight for his life while
this slapstick fire fighting

1052
00:53:52,660 --> 00:53:53,680
is going on.

1053
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:55,910
Watch how that works itself out.

1054
00:53:55,910 --> 00:53:58,090
And then pay
special attention to

1055
00:53:58,090 --> 00:54:01,200
the profound, disturbing
ambiguities of the ending.

1056
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:04,780
One of the reasons I admire
McCabe and Mrs. Miller so much

1057
00:54:04,780 --> 00:54:10,640
is that it seems in many ways
to satisfy the desire one

1058
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:15,950
has for the trappings of
a conventional Western.

1059
00:54:15,950 --> 00:54:18,620
All of the elements
that you think

1060
00:54:18,620 --> 00:54:21,570
should belong to a serious
Western are present.

1061
00:54:21,570 --> 00:54:24,840
But they're present in such
ironized, such damaged, such

1062
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,590
inverted form, that
they make you rethink

1063
00:54:27,590 --> 00:54:31,010
not only those particular
conventions, but the larger

1064
00:54:31,010 --> 00:54:34,990
mythological and
ideological work

1065
00:54:34,990 --> 00:54:38,990
that the Western mythology has
performed in American society

1066
00:54:38,990 --> 00:54:39,840
up to this time.

1067
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:42,140
So it makes McCabe and
Mrs. Miller not just

1068
00:54:42,140 --> 00:54:44,010
a wonderfully entertaining film.

1069
00:54:44,010 --> 00:54:46,890
It's full of comic moments
and brilliant performances.

1070
00:54:46,890 --> 00:54:50,090
It is in its own
right a great work

1071
00:54:50,090 --> 00:54:52,800
of imaginative intelligence.

1072
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,570
But it is an even larger
thing, it seems to me, because

1073
00:54:55,570 --> 00:54:57,720
of the intelligence
with which it engages

1074
00:54:57,720 --> 00:55:01,950
in this systematic
conversation with its aesthetic

1075
00:55:01,950 --> 00:55:06,800
and moral ancestry in the great
founding story of the Western,

1076
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:08,930
which I suppose
must be identified

1077
00:55:08,930 --> 00:55:11,800
as America's most
distinctive and in some ways

1078
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:18,480
most disturbingly revealing
story about itself.