McCabe & Mrs. Miller

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

Timing: 2:0 (120 min)

7.2/10
436

7.278/10
2530

7.6/10
30000

All about film

Video 5

Photo 22

Actors and characters

Release date

1971-06-24

Country

United States

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre

Western, Drama

Budget

$0

Revenue

$0

Website

Director

Robert Altman

Actors

Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, René Auberjonois, William Devane, John Schuck, Corey Fischer, Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

David Foster, Mitchell Brower

Operator

Vilmos Zsigmond

Composer

Leonard Cohen

Artist

Audition

Graeme Clifford

Editing

Lou Lombardo
All team (45)

• The film is based on the novel by Edmund Norton, 'McCabe' (1959).
• Director Robert Altman (1925-2006) and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (1930-2016) initially decided to “fog” the negative and then apply a wide variety of filters to the cameras, rather than process the film during post-production. However, this wasn’t done in the last 20 minutes of the film because Altman wanted to emphasize the danger facing McCabe (the difference from the previous scenes is noticeable when McCabe comes to, picks up the sawed-off shotgun, and heads towards the church).
• Warren Beatty loved to shoot numerous takes of scenes he was in. Once, when Robert Altman was already intending to wrap up the shooting day, Beatty insisted on shooting new takes of material that had already been filmed. Altman left, and tasked his assistant with reshooting what Beatty insisted on. At the actor’s insistence, over 30 takes of the same scene were shot. Altman later repaid him in kind, demanding 25 takes of a scene with Beatty in the snow.
• The film involved over 50 extras. Robert Altman allowed them to familiarize themselves with the huge set near Vancouver for several days, then offered them to choose their own roles (barber, lumberjack, saloon owner, housewife, and so on), and then to independently select clothing for their character and remain in that role for the next three months.
• The locomotive that Mrs. Miller arrived on is authentic and operational; the film crew used it to power the sawmill.
• The carpenters in the film were both locals and young men from the United States who were evading the draft for the Vietnam War; they were dressed in costumes appropriate for the period and used tools from that era, so they could go about their business in the background while the plot unfolded in the foreground.
• The film was shot in West Vancouver and Squamish (a small town) in almost sequential order, which is extremely rare. The film crew found a suitable location and built sets there, just as McCabe built the town in the film.
• Filming the confrontation and the church fire took 9 days. When only these scenes remained to be shot, it started to snow. Warren Beatty didn't want to film during the snowfall, but he had to, as everything else had already been shot. During breaks between takes, the cast and crew built snowmen and had snowball fights. The snowfall eventually stopped, but filming continued, so falling snow had to be added to the footage during post-production.
• Hoses were run (and camouflaged) throughout the town so that they could film rain when required by the script. The weather in Vancouver is typically rainy, so the hoses rarely needed to be turned on.
• The film is based on Edmund Naughton’s novel “McCabe” (1959).