UW Cinematheque: Robert Altman - Five Masterworks

In the late 19th century Pacific Northwest, John McCabe (Beatty) enters a growing mining community hoping to achieve the American Dream in collaboration with whorehouse Madame Constance Miller (Julie Christie). Using a wintry production design, realistic and frumpy costumes, overlapping dialogue, and Leonard Cohen’s mesmerizing music, Altman revitalized the Western genre with this moody character drama that is unlike anything that had been seen before.