Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Tuesday, October 19, 1971
1 !__________--__ --
"a
McCabe:
A
transitional
Western
By NEAL GABLER
When it comes to myths, we
Americans are really p r e t t y
lucky. Poor Europe is too old,
too far removed from the strain-
ing muscles that got her where
she is today, and consequently
her Beowulfs, Rolands and Sieg-
frieds seem fossils from some
raw, ancient past wholly dis-
connected to the dull, sedentary
present. Our history is more
organic. We.have our Old West
just an historical skip away,
and even a New Yorker descend-
ed from Poles can't help but feel
that a frontiersman's blood flows
through his veins. Maybe that's
why the Western has remained
such a popular American form.
Certainly it has dramatic sweep
and two-fisted action, but it
also binds us, in a way no med-
ieval epic could, to values we
like to think are peculiarly
American.
Put another way, the Western,
as it encapsulates rugged Amer-
icanism, is history without the
blemishes. We could see our for-
bears, armed with a shovel, a
shotgun, two good hands and
gutsy individualism carving a
nation out of a land, battling
the elements and if need be bat-
tling each other, with a f a s t
gun and a strong sense of pur-
pose their only law. There was
no need for an impartial ar-
biter because morality was sim-
ple, right and wrong easily di-
vined: And in this setting the
only fatal flaw a man could
have" was irreverence toward
the forms of honor.
Though we're loath to admit
it, we've come a long way from
that frontier individualism to
modern suburban other-direct-
edness. Where once - or so the
myth goes - gunfighters would
stomp down Main Street for a
showdown, today most of us
would cower if we saw even our
own kids being attacked; ma-
terialism has a funny way of
emasculating people. But if ur-
banization and suburbanization
have wrought some strange
transformation in the way we
operate, they have also t r a n s-
formed the way we look at our
history, especially among t h e
young. Fortunately, one of the
virtues of having an epic genre
rather than a single epic work
to glorify o.our past, is that a
genre can grow and change as
our view of history changes.
ThaL's precisely what's happen-
ing to our Westerns.
Sam Peckinpah's Ride the
High Country with Joel Mc-
Crea and Randolph Scott as two
old gunmen who had largely out-
lived their usefulness, was
among the first converts from
paean to dirge. For a genre
whose protagonists had always
been young and sleek, the grey-
ing of the gunfighter was quite
an admision; but the theme of
obsolescence through age gain-
ed strength from the undeniable
fact that McCrea, Scott, Wid-
mark, Mitchum, Fonda, Stewart
and Wayne were getting too old
to be credible Western heroes-
Their gunbelts should have been
pased to a new generation, only
in Hollywood as in the towns of
the transitional West, no one
was there to take them.
Later Westerns, by shucking
the traditional motif of good
versus evil for the new motif
of :individualism versus indus-
trialization, even more pointedly
reflected our growing dissatis-
faction with corporatism. Kirk
Douglas's Lonely Are the Brave
was an early prototype of 'he
revisionist Western chronicling
the anachronism of individual-
ism in a technological society.
Focusing on our conflict of
values, it came up with the in-
evitable conclusion: Somewhere
along the line we'd blown it.
Now we have Robert Altman's
McCabe and Mrs. Miller, like
Lonely Are the Brave a beautiful
elegy to the loss of independence
that come with the domestica-
tion (read 'industrialization') of
the Old West. The year is 1902-
a time when Easterners w e r e
still trekking out to the coast,
and a time, fittingly, w h e n
Ida Tarbell was beginning her
assaults on Standard Oil. The
place is Presbyterian Church,
Washington, a little ramshackle
town that owes its existence
solely to the zinc deposits near-
by. The man is John 'Pudgy'
McCabe (Warren Beatty), a
frontier gambler-gunman w h o
cockily ambles into town attired
in a huge shaggy fur coat, a
bowler, cravat ana stickpin.
Tired of the nomadic life and
running out of territory anyway,
McCabe decides to settle down
among the scoundrel miners and
builds himself a combination
saloon-casino-Whore house. So
when saloonkeeper Sheehan
Rene Auberjonois) sidles up to
McCabe and snivels, "Gunfight-
er?" and the poker-player
chomps on his cigar, "Business-
man. Businessman," we are see-
ing the first step in the un-
greening of our traditional hero.
McCabe, however, despite or
perhaps because of his trans-
ition from frontiersman to busi-
nessman remains typically, my-
thically American. He is an in-
dependent who has always lived
the only people in the film who
remain even nominally .inde-
pendent.
When the hired killers ride
into town, McCabe begins to
realize that his ingenuous cajol-
ery is no match for the imper-
sonalization of The Company.
In desperation he turns to a
lawyer for assistance. A middle-
class Populist with a picture'of
Wiliam Jennings Bryan on his
wall, the attorney tells McCabe,r
"The law is here to protect the
little guy like yourself. When a
man goes out into the wilderness
and builds a small enterprise
... no dirty sons of bitches are
going to take it away from him.'.'
And he adds, "Working within
free enterprise we can protect
the small businessman and the
big businessman."
It. might hit you that there is
a falacy here. Free enterprise,
and for that; matter any arm
of materialism, can't protect the
small businessman. Quite t h e
pany; after all, there is a code
among giants. Their salvation
must lie in some kind of spirit-
ualism. In a way, religion would
have seemed tailor-made for the
task if it hadn't already proven
inadequate up against the Social
Darwinists. But as the Spencer-
ians hacked away at the dogma,
religion usually responded by
clinging more tenaciously than
ever to its outmoded literalism.
Then as now, this couldn't help
but discredit the Church.
But there was an even great-
er obstacle to religion's possible
messianic role: as President
Nixon is fond of telling us, it
was the old Protestant Ethic
that helped spur the industrial
imperative in the first place. In
the beginning perhaps, there
might have been a kernel of
spiritualism in the notion that
hard work will be rewarded by
God. Sadly, industriousness soon
overshone any spiritual goal,
and the building of civilization
ligion and Mammon the new
god.
What it all boils down to is
that the spiritual condition of
Presbyterian Church is not unlike
our own. We are all victims of
the contagion. Religion is empty,.
detached; and though Presby-
terian Church's Reverend lab-
ors stoically and solitarily build-
ing his house of worship, he
knows there will be no congre-
gation when he's through. But
if spiritualism via God has fail-
ed, then McCabe's House of
Fortune signifies the degrada-
tion of the pioneer's last, des-
perate hope - namely love.
That is one of the few things
The Company can't reckon
with. Gamely, McCabe does
struggle to reach Mrs. Miller,
to make her forget about t h e
five dollars she usually g e t s
from her customers. The troub-
le is he and the townspeople
have ,so internalized the capital-
ist ethos that they find them-
selves incapable of anything
more than hoopla.
Maybe that makes McCabe a
truly capitalist love story. Our
young nation, with its mania
for speed, went about coloniz-
ing the country as quickly as
possible. But the short gesta-
tion period almost insured that
these towns couldn't be com-
munities in any real sense, as
the Chinese ghe.tto in Presby-
terian Church painfully testi-
fies. Instead, they are economic
colonies of disillusioned pioneers
who long ago had hoped to find
their fortunes in the West and
now find themselves doomed as
cogs in an ever-expanding ma-
chine. In short, Presbyterian
Church, born of exploitation,
doesn't know agape.
I'm not casting stones here.
Obviously, none of us is free
of the taint of materialism; but
the degree of our sin is often
a matter of scale. There can be
no doubt that McCabe is an
exploiter; he makes-his money
off women. His saving grace is
that his exploitation, operating
on a personal level, can be dealt
with. It's only as scale increas-
es, as more Companies burgeon
and spread their tentacles (iron-
ically, McCabe's distributor,
Warner Brothers, is owned by a
conglomerate), that free enter-
prise becomes inescapably op-
pressive. You can't love or joke
or reason or even fight faceless
men. These bureaucrats, how-
ever necessary to our expanding
economy, are the components of
an unshakeable power. W i t h
their rise - and let's not for-
get that most of us will soon
be faceless men - each of us
loses a bit of his humanity.
Because we all fancy o u r-
selves iconoclasts fighting t h e
Establishment, there are pro-
bably only a few people in high
places who will take offense to
McCabe's message. More, how-
ever, have already faulted i t s
style - a crazy-quilt of idyl and
cinema verite. Unquestionably,
director Robert Altman has ex-
ponentially enlarged, the e 1 e-
ments of his M*A*S*H. The re-
sult is an infinitely more Unor-
thodox, and more personal film.
I wouldn't say McCabe is more
enjoyable than M*A*S*H; it is
simply richer and better, a class-
ic of its kind.
In the nature of things, a
film as ambitious as this is
bound to overreach itself oc-
casionally, which is another way
of saying McCabe has some un.
evenness. Surprisingly, most of
its faults are on the side of
convention rather than on the
side of hellzapoppin. Leonard
Cohen's score is spare and
sweet, but it's almost aural un-
derlinging. ("He was just some
Joseph looking for a manag-
er . . .") In the same spirit of
over-explicitness is some heavy-
handed symbolism left over, I
guess, from Altman's Brewster
McCloud. I'm beginning to ex-
pect Jesus any time a guy with
a beard comes on the screen.
Maybe it's just too much Berg-
man, but when McCabe stretch-
es out his arms, a materialist
crucified by his own religion, I
shuddered. Couldn't we keep
Him out of this for once?
But it's the film's frenetic
construction, and not this sym-
bolism, that riles most viewers.
Be forewarned: the trick of ap-
preciating McCabe and M r s.
Miller is to settle back and let
it gurgle over you. You may
find yourself confused, e v e n
bored, but that is precisely Alt-
man's point. We are intruding
on the lives of people, and one
of the real testaments to t h e
film is that the more times I
saw it (i.e.. the more times I
intruded), the more I was able
to understand about Presbyter-
ian Church.
This "organic" cinema achiev-
es its effect through a diversi-
fied attack. For one thing, Alt-
man's knack for casting people
See TALE, Page 6
The Visual Arts:
A Film Survey
RENAISSANCE
PAINTING
TONIGHT 7:00
R.C. Aud. FREE
TUESDAY ONLY
OF MICE
AND MEN
Dir. Lewis Milestone, 1939. Ad-
aptation of JOHN STEINBECK'S
powerful and touching story
about a middle-age man with
the mind of a child. His only
desire is to "tend the rabbits"
ARCH ITECTURE
AUDITORIUM
Q
GRAD COFFEE HOUR
Thurs,., Oct. 21
CIDER
and
DOUGH NUTS
4-6 pm.
RACKH AM 4th Floor
BE THERE!
4
THE U-M PROFESSIONAL THEATRE PROGRAM
USHER APPLICATION
FOR
THE PLAY-OF-THE-MONTH SERIES
NAME
ADDRESS
PHONE U-M ID No.
I wish to usher for {indicate choice of series, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th):
11
Series AB_
"ME NOBODY KNOWS"
C D
Nov. 14
Mat.
"BUTTERFLIES"
Dec. 9.
"RED HOT LOVERS"
Feb. 3
Nov. 12 Nov. 14 Nov. 13
Dec. 10 Dec. 11
Mat.
Feb. 4
Feb. 5
Mat.
Dec. 11
Feb. 5
Mar. 18
"COMPANY"
Mar. 19
Mat.
Mar. 19 Mar. 18
Mat.
"PROMISES"
Apr. 9 Apr. 9 Apr. 8 Apr. 8
Mat. Mat.
REPORTING TIMES: 2 p.m. matinees; 7 p.m. evenings
This application MUST BE MAILED AND POSTMARKED NO
EARLIER THAN OCTOBER 20. U.S. MAIL ONLY. ONE APPLI-
CATION PER ENVELOPE AS PLACES ARE LIMITED. YOU MUST
BE A U-M STUDENT TO USHER.
Mail to: PTP Office
Mendelssohn Theatre, Michigan League
Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104
Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope to expedite
notif ication.
Read and Use Daily Classifieds
TO KEEP
AMEIRICA-
BEATiFL
Suzanne Dieckmann and Fred Ollerman are two of the graduate students in theater who will
direct Showcase Productions for University Plryers. Showcase Productions will attempt to fill
the special needs of both University theater stulents and the specialized college student audience.
by wiles and now draws on that
same resource to parlay three
ugly whores and three d i r t y
tents into a comfortable little
empire. Naturally, it isn't long
before others try to grab a
piece of his action, and so he
is soon confronted with deals-
deals which become progressive-
ly more constraining. Sheehan
is the first to propose a part-
nership, to which McCabe snaps,
"Partners is what I came up
here to get away from." Then
comes Mrs. Miller (Julie Christ-
ie) describing the advantages of
specialization: She'll run t h e
whore-house and they'll split
the proceeds 50-50. With t h e
promise 'of vastly increased pro-
fits, McCabe could hardly re-
fuse.
And in the best tradition of
business administration, their
arrangement proves quite suc-
cessful, so successful in f a c t
that "The Company" sends two
of its representatives to buy out
the enterprise. These intermed-
iaries are the new men of t h e
West-weak-stomached, foppish.
functionaries of the business
bureaucracy. They will spend
their lives serving their e m -
ployer, asking no questions,
avoiding trouble, and living as
safely as possible without turn-
ing into carrots. McCabe, of
course, refuses to kow-tow to
a business suit, but he under-
estimates his opponents. Un-
able to bargain with the gamb-
ler, The Company readily dis-
patches the Butler Gang. These
three "don't make deals." Rath-
er, their guns smooth the way
for the relentless push of pro-
gress. Co-opted, they are s t il l
contrary, having once used Mc-
Cabe and others like him, free
enterprise has now plunged him
into his predicament. But free
enterprise can't protect the big
businessman either. Materialism
is soulless, concerned with re-
sults not people. It will c h o p
down trees, pollute streams and
kill Indians to achieve its re-
sults. Soy in this economic "sur-
vival of the fittest," the lawyer's
pious pronouncements are no
answer. Ultimately, McCabe is
left with just his gun and a fu-
tile show of force. He can't de-
feat progress.
What McCabe and Presbyter-
ian Church need, then, is a force
big enough to combat The Com-
pany's rampant materialism,
which builds the country by de-
stroying people's freedom. They
cannot rely, however,,on a com-
mercial rival for The C o m-
somehow came to be an end in
itself; whether it was a matter
of co-optation or displacement,
materialism became the new re-
G.B. SHAW;
Caesar
and
Cleopatra
OCTOBER 20-23; Curtain at 8 P.M.!
Box Office opens at 12:30
UNIVERSITY PLAYERS-POWER CENTER
i
i uIENRY@IBSQM
Because it's my country.
And it's getting dirty. _.
That's why.
-. i
0"
f
"
U
DIAL 5-6290
HELD OVER
UAC MUSKE T'S
FU- 1N I YG. I
MASS MEETING!
Sunday, October 24, 8:00 P.M.
Union Ballroom
4
4
6 J
I
I
KeepnAmerica Clean.
Keep America Beautiful.u=FCO
Adver t sng cnti buted
4e.
..... _
_
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, October 20 & 21 }
DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH STUDENT
LABORATORY THEATRE presents:
THE HOUR GLASS
by W. B. YEATS
NOON by Terrence McNally
ARENA THEATRE, Frieze Building
Promptly at 4:10 p.m. or earlier
if the theatre is filled. Admission free
WARREN
BEATTY
JULIE
CHRISTIE
McCABE &
MRS. MILLER
PANAVISION @ TECHNICOLOR @
Next
"DANCE OF DEATH"
Meet the m t alt Batty
SENIOR EDITORS
at the
LSA
Student-Faculty
Coffee Hour
i
- _,
7:00 and 9:05
75c
Wednesday, October 20
3:00-4:30 p.m. 2549 LSA Bldg.
Cider and Doughnuts
-
CHANGE THE,,
MWORLD, (Ann Arbor too!)
REGISTER TO VOTE!
TODAY'S LOCATIONS
1 D..,.l- , LJal l I .d kI , 2"fl Q.fl
I
the ann arbor film cooperative presents
MICHEALAGELO ANTONIONI'S
L'AVVENTURA
1
DIAL 8-6416
TONIGHT AT
7 and 9 P.M.
.a5w<?':: '777 m i ."'...:.... ... .fir: b^#5fik 7 !t' . r .tirti:Ft:",
i