Monday, January 4, 2016

McCabe and Mrs Miller

Robert Altman, West Vancouver, British Columbia, 1971, photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond (June 30, 1930 - January 1, 2016)





This was Vilmos Zsigmond’s first time working for Altman as director of photography.  He said that their work together here led to his career taking off, which is understandable given the distinctive quality of the images produced.  His very next job was for Peter Fonda, photographing the Hired Hand, another unconventional western.  Of course he went on to shoot bigger films, like Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, but nothing better than this one, his first big film (with big time movie stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.)  As a result, forty five years later, he was still signed up to shoot more films when he died the other day.
















"McCabe and Mrs Miller was the movie where Altman and myself went as far as anyone can go against the existing style of the period we lived in Hollywood. We took the risk of being fired and left out of the studio system forever. We believed that we were doing something special and creative. However it took a long time for the critics and the audiences to appreciate our work."

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