Photo: Robert Altman on set
For our second Friday Night Movies offering, we screen two iconic westerns from 1970 that both simultaneously subvert and exalt the genre. Robert Altman’s "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and Geroge Roy Hill’s "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" emerge during a transformative period in Hollywood cinema. While distinct in their storytelling and thematic focus, both films offer a revisionist take on the Western genre, departing from traditional narratives and embodying the spirit of the counterculture's “New Hollywood” era of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Photo: McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1970)
The first film of the evening Robert Altman’s "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," is characterized by its realistic portrayal of frontier life, emphasizing the harshness and moral ambiguity of the Old West. The film's narrative revolves around a gambler (Warren Beatty) and a madam establishing a brothel in a mining town (Julie Christie), challenging the conventional heroism and clear-cut morality often found in earlier Westerns. Its visual style, marked by the use of natural lighting and a muted color palette, along with Leonard Cohen's haunting soundtrack, creates a melancholic and introspective atmosphere. Of course, being Altman, the use of lavalier mics to create overlapping layers of improvised dialogue and sound creates an immersive quality that few films had ever achieved up to that point. The revelation was applying this style to a period piece.
Photo: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," directed by George Roy Hill, was a revolutionary film in its time. William Goldman’s magnificent screenplay presents a romanticized yet equally revisionist view of the West. With contemporary music from Burt Bacherach, a winsome feeling of unattainable longing pervades this story similar to McCabe and Mrs Miller. Starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as aging outlaws in a world that’s rapidly leaving them and their whole way of life behind, the film mirrors gorgeous exterior landscapes with a sense of a hollowing out inner world. For a western to unearth the universal experience of time slipping away in such an intimate and melancholic way was unusual at the time.
Photo: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Both films share a critical examination of the Western mythos, presenting a more nuanced and less glorified vision of the American frontier. They explore themes of change, modernization, and the end of an era by challenging the conventions of their time. What emerges are two seminal works in the evolution of the New Hollywood of the 70s that create a more complex and realistic portrayal of the American West and its legends and that resonates with the counterculture of the time.
Friday, January 26th, 2024
DINNER RESERVATIONS AT THE STAGECOACH TAVERN
6-11pm
In the Barnspace at Race Brook Lodge
864 South Undermountain road ( AKA Rt 41 ) Sheffield, MATickets: $8 advance, $10 at the door
Race Brook Lodge is a hidden gem in The Berkshires, at the foot of Mt. Race and a short hike from the Appalachian trail. The yoga & event barn at Race Brook is simultaneously rustic and sublime, steeped in hundreds of years of New England history. The Stagecoach Tavern is unpretentious fine dining, exquisite farm-to-table cuisine in a relaxed atmosphere. Much of the food is sourced from Race Farm, right on the property!
