Chapo Trap House - Movie Mindset 05 Teaser - Talkin' Altman

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Will, Hesse and E1's Andrew Hudson discuss Robert Altman's 1971 revisionist Western classic “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” Subscribe today for access to the full episode and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse

And, you know, that's really where the movie begins. We're introduced to the rain-soaked Pacific Northwest of the late 19th, early 20th century, and welcome to the town of Presbyterian Church, Washington, a burgeoning mine community full of good cheer and good people. And now, listener, if you are not a fan of the music of Leonard Cohen, then Buddy, turn back now. Because even the action scenes are when something crazy is happening. Here comes, here comes Leonard Cohen.

The first time I saw this movie, I distinctly remember rewinding in the first scene and shazamming it, because I was like 13 or something and didn't know who Leonard Cohen was. And I was like, whoa, this is like the most, this is the deepest song I've ever heard. Yeah, no, exactly. Just some Joseph looking for a manger. And it still goes so hard. And I love how all the songs, I mean, this is just Leonard Cohen, where he's just like, you know, she's not your lady, but you do just want to see her, and she gives you all

kinds of stuff, and you know that she won't love you. And just like, it's all about just all the songs just about like, this lady's so fucking hot and I love having sex with her, but I know she won't want to be with me. This lady's a fucking smoke show, dude, it's like a highway in a lot of ways, if you think about it. I always think. This lady's so hot, she's like Jesus' mother, but I'm just the guy who's traveling with her, but I'm not the father of our Lord and Savior.

I just want to have sex with Julie Christie. And you know, like, that's kind of what Macabre and Miss Miller is about. It's as far as Warren Beatty as McCabe. And that's the funny thing about McCabe is that's not even his name. We don't even really know what Warren Beatty's character's name is. He just arrived in Presbyterian Church and in the, you know, in the ultimatesque bit of overlapping conversations and sort of this like game of telephone among these, among the local yokels, they're just like, Hey, who's that guy?

And then someone's like, Oh, it's McCabe, the gunfighter. And he just has out of nowhere, he just has this big rep. And he's like, Oh, like, you know, I will, I'll, I'll, I'll go round tree. Yeah. He shot. That's Pudgy McCabe. I think he says in the movie, he's like, I think in the movie, he does say, it's my name's John like as McCabe, cause he says like, he's trying to deny that he like denies

that he's Pudgy. And like, you wouldn't think that he's a gunsling or anything. We'll talk about that later cause there's a scene later on that's really funny. That's my favorite scene in the movie when it's the saddest scene, I think to it's like him at his lowest, I think in the entire movie, because, um, well, he like, he rolls into town and the first scene smarter than everyone else. Yeah, I have my notes here, it's a, it's, it's McCabe, the, the stranger who comes to town and he's the guy with the cool fur coat, the good stars, the best certified, certified

clothes, which pretty much puts him in the running for the smartest, swaggiest man anyone in this absolutely primitive shithole has ever encountered. He's, he's, it's not even so much that he's smarter than everyone. He is, he is smarter than everyone there, but he just has so much. He's just so swagged and he's dripping with charisma, gets his red velvet tablecloth to play cards. Yeah. He's, he's so, these guys have been playing poker on like mud, yeah, until McCabe comes

to town. Like betting for pebbles and rocks, he wears a bottle here from she and the, the like the barkeep, the guy who owns the pub or like the tavern restaurant. He's basically like, um, Sharon, tell you what, you put one coat of white paint on this fence and give me a bottle that will split and he's like, okay, sounds good. And like, I really wanted to talk about like this opening scene where McCabe comes to town and, and starts up a card game at Sheehan's, Sheehan played by the great Renee Obergen Wa sort of like a, a stock character and Altman stable of weird guys.

Uh, you know, he was in mash. He's the, he's actually plays Julie Christie's husband in images. And then of course he, he will always be Odo from Deep Space Nine for me. But yeah, like, I mean, just like, just personally for me, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, I also saw it when I was about 13 years old. And this movie really holds like, it's one of those movies that like it's, it's import in my life is magnified so greatly because it's a movie that I associate with my dad so much because it was a movie that he put me on too.

And, and, and at that age when I was like, he decided that I was old enough to start seeing like serious R rated movies and he showed me, you know, the good fellows and the Godfather and then McCabe and Mrs. Miller was really like the, the outlier because it's so unconventional and I didn't quite know what to make of it when I first saw it. But by the end of it, God, it just, it sunk, it's, it just, it sunk itself so deep into me and it stayed with me my entire life. So I'm thrilled to share it with everyone on Movie Mindset now, but like, let's talk about the opening scene where he shows up at Sheehan's, which is like the, it's the,

the bar, restaurant, hotel and livery, it's, it's everything for this town. And what I think is so amazing about it is that like, the first scene is so muddy and I mean that in like, like in, in, in this sort of brown color palette, the darkness of it, but also the muddiness and how convoluted the action is. It's just like, it doesn't go here to anything. It's, it's, it's protean. It's this like, uh, primitive space. Yeah, they put like, um, a filter on the lens and they like flash the film negative

so that it's like, you lose a bunch of detail. It's like, it's, it feels like it's filmed on a daguerreotype, like somehow. Well, Altman said himself that he called this movie an anti-western because he didn't want it to feel like a western and he does a pretty good job because he's like, oh, I'm going to make the setting, not the desert or Utah or wherever, Oklahoma, it's going to be Monument Valley and Washington along the coast where it's just always raining or snowing. Just like the wettest place you could possibly be. And it's so sick for it.

Like it looks so different from every other western besides like, I don't know, the great, the great silence or something, but another outlier. Yeah. And I really also think like, uh, the TV show Deadwood is very, very indebted to McCabe and Miss Miller because it, you know, it also portrays this kind of like primitive proto-America, like almost like America before America existed literally in Deadwood, but it also very much is about like the sort of like the social body and like how like the individual constituents of this community, like how it's just sort of how community and how a nation itself is

formed. And then in this kind of like new Hollywood milieu of like Altman is this very like subversive filmmaker, like you said, Andrew, the character of McCabe as sort of the anti-John Wayne of the Western hero who only has a rep as a gunfighter, but is actually like, as one of the characters says later in the movie, that man's never killed anyone in his life. And he's just this half smart pimp who comes to town with like, you know, the modest dream of selling women. Literally a pimp.

Literally and figuratively a pimp. I realized this last night, he reminds me of why it should be the other, it's the other way around, I guess, but George Clooney and no brother were at that, who's just a liar, like a fake lawyer. And he tries to talk, he talks, he talks to looks like this. He talks all smart. He uses big fancy words and like McCabe talks the same way, where he's just like, he's very determined and he presents himself as being smart and he might have a few, you know,

expensive words. Tricks up his sleeve. Yeah. And people are like, oh, this guy knows what he's talking about. Because they're a bunch of like Irish dolts in the hills, you don't know how to do anything. Everyone in the town of Presbyterian Church is an NPC. Yes. I saw you earlier this morning.

I loved your idea for a McCabe and Mrs. Miller, like paradox video game called Morehouse Tycoon. Yeah. It's like, um, oh, um, Madame Bovary is encroaching on your territory. Do you want to like spread the clap at her establishment or like, you know, you can like, you pull out like, you pull out like his, um, his, his one liners to advance the dialogue tree. Like you got to, what's the matter?

She and you got a turd in your pocket or something. He goes, listen, if a, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bounce his ass so much. And I just, I just love all of the McCabe isms where he just comes in and starts spitting all this game and like glad handing and wheeling and dealing and all these, all these absolute oaths are just so seduced by him immediately. They're all just like, Oh, we want to play cards with McCabe. He's the coolest guy we've ever met. Buy some whiskey.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Back then that's like, I mean, that's still like what, what people just want to do is just hang out and drink. Back then that was definitely the only thing to do. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Like when he first walks into Sheehan's place, this is just like a full episode. Just a vision of what everyone in like the late 19th, 20th century was doing on a Friday night, which is like sitting in a room with a, with a dirt floor, staring at each other. Maybe some guy would be playing a fiddle in the background and like, but that's what's so funny about all the overlapping dialogue is like these little snippets of conversation that you see among these guys, like the two guys who are like talking about, should I get a haircut or not? Yeah.

What do you see on later? What do you have? Then there's a scene where he shaved, subscribe at patreon.com slash chopper trap house. And they're like, they're like, he's like, do you notice anything different? And they're like, what? No. Like that's like, that was the only thing to talk about, you know, get a mail order bride. You know, maybe the male or the bride.

The introduction of women into this like totally homosocial world is also for the full episode. Subscribe at patreon.com slash chopper trap house.