McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Last night I was watching a 1971 film called McCabe & Mrs. Miller, directed by Robert Altman. The film's set in the late 19th Century in a small mining town called Presbyterian Church, where gambler John McCabe (played by Warren Beatty) decides to set up a brothel. He manages to build a very makeshift, small-scale affair, when tough, opium-smoking Constance Miller (Julie Christie) decides to go into business with him to make the place a much more up-scale joint. As their professional and personal relationship deepens, the brothel becomes a huge success, and helps put the town on the map. Then McCabe is approached by two representatives of a wealthy oilman who wants to buy up McCabe's business and the town's mines. McCabe refuses in the hopes of a better offer, but soon finds himself in serious trouble. The film is made in Altman's semi-improvised "naturalistic" style, frequently using over-lapping dialogue, and often letting events in the background move into the foreground and vice versa. Shot with a murky, golden glow, it subverts a lot of the Western traditions, with it's nominal 'hero' portrayed as a selfish, dim-witted, if charismatic, pimp. The few gunfights tend to be short, brutal affairs, with most of the casualties being shot in the back, or while completely off-guard. A frequent technique in the film is to show people in the town's streets going about their everyday business, and then zooming in to show the protagonists, no more or less important than anyone else in the town. Shot near Vancouver, the bleak, winter landscapes adds to the film's bleak, gloomy tone. The down-beat tone is also helped by a great soundtrack by Leonard Cohen.

Last night I also finished reading my bedside book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. It's a psychological crime thriller about an FBI criminal profiler who became famous for his previous case which lead to the arrest of notorious serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter (better known to the media as "Hannibal the Cannibal"). However, the events of the case had so traumatised him that he resigned and headed for a quiet life in Florida. However, when two families are brutally killed by a savage killer (the self-dubbed "Red Dragon"), he is brought back to the FBI, and finds himself having to seek help from his old adversary Dr. Lecter, who is playing a sadistic game of his own. It's a pretty suspenseful book. The identity of the "Red Dragon" killer is revealed pretty early on, so the suspense of the book is whether he'll be caught before he kills again. The book, which has been filmed twice, is the first appearance of Hannibal Lecter.

Today has been another fairly quiet day at work. Pretty much the same as usual.