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| McCabe & Mrs Miller |
On its release Pauline Kael pronounced
McCabe & Mrs Miller "a modern classic" - a mantle Altman's melancholy, revisionist western wears well.
Warren Beatty's John McCabe has bluff and an opportunistic streak working in his favour when he arrives in a fledgling mining town, but he is no match for the feisty and unsentimental Constance Miller (Julie Christie), who shows him how to establish a quality bordello and turn a profit.
Altman achieves the rare and subtle feat of interrogating the mythology of America's founding ideals under cover of an achingly tender frontier romance. Leonard Cohen's spare, plaintive songs seal the deal.
