Thursday, April 9, 2020
End of the American Dream?
At the end of McCabe & Mrs. Miller, McCabe may have defeated the bounty hunters sent to kill him, but he can only stumble through the snow, slowly bleeding to death. What does this film say about the small-time entrepreneur and the Goliath corporation? What does this movie tell us about heroes and the ideal of the rugged individual? Is the American Dream dead? Or is this film more about the era of Vietnam and Watergate?
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I think the most interesting point of the movie is that McCabe ends up bleeding out in the snow while Mrs. Miller is unaware and knocked out away from him. Although the movie has themes and similarities to action films we see today, what distinguished it from the rest was the ability to overcome in the movie as McCabe, a gambler by trade, is a scammer through and through. With high aspirations for the town Presbytarian Church with his brothel McCabe ended the movie deprived and dying in the cold snow as the entire theme of nature repeated through the movie. It's typical that western movies end with a shootout and McCabe and Mrs.Miller is no different. Even before the fight though McCabe is found reaching for last straws to resolve his problems without fighting, atypical of a western film. The violence was highly contested with McCabe avoiding it as much as possible. From paying for love to dying alone in the snow, the movie filled with sex, guns and deceit is an introduction of a new type of American Dream and action movie in Hollywood. The hero, McCabe, is less than ideal as a protagonist but that's what drives the movie forward and distinguishes it from others. Rather than have a cheesy and clique ending with the hero walking away with the girl and riches, the intricate relationships he builds with those around him creates a fascinating effect.
ReplyDeleteThe film McCabe & Mrs. Miller stays through the main characters that there is no beating big time corporation, and that the American dream, is merely that, a dream. Sure anything is possible, but what is probable? If you are facing people with all the resources to drain yours, it is not very probable that you will be able to survive, your business, or whatever it may be. In this case, McCabe does not try to give in to the big corporations, but stick to his own life and "American dream". He gives it everything he has, fighting and killing people as he limps around with bullet wounds. In fact at the end, he is shot in the back and falls down to what seems like his death. And while he could have just died there, he continued to fight on and limp his way off until he finally died. For McCabe, this was one of the best case scenarios where he took everyone out, yet he went down to accomplish that too. This shows that even if you can take down the big corporations, or Goliath figure, it will take everything you have to do it, taking you both down. Yet while this may show the improbability of the American dream, at the same time, it makes the smaller David figures more like heroes. That the people who are able to overcome the improbabilities are heroes. In conclusion, this film shows that the American dream is a very improbable dream, that may be not worth it, but for those who do make it, you really will live the dream.
ReplyDeleteMcCabe & Mrs. Miller is a deconstruction of the American dream and the people who set out to follow it. The film shows a grittier reality of trying to accomplish your goals in the wild west that many westerns of the time idealized. McCabe doesn’t end the story surviving and getting to tell tall tales of how he bested the big corporations through good old American grit, he dies in the snow bleeding out. It makes a statement that, when it comes to being an self-owned entrepreneur in the west, you are either forced to join larger corporations to stay afloat, or risk wasting all of your assets trying to keep them away to the point of bankruptcy. This message is the complete opposite of what classic Hollywood westerns promoted at the time, saying how if you put enough blood, sweat, and tears into your dream you could obtain the unreachable. McCabe does that throughout the entire film. He rejects the advances of larger corporations, fends off bounty hunters, and ends up dead instead of thriving. The films deconstruct these tropes by setting them up only to tear them down with the harsh reality of the west. This deconstruction is further proven due to how our lead is working towards having a prospering brothel, something that directly goes against the squeaky clean dreams Hollywood was selling at the time.
ReplyDelete- Katelyn Shakir
I feel that one of the themes that was very interesting to me about this film that we had not seen in many prior American films is the protagonist isn't necessarily a great person. He uses women and their sexuality to profit for his own gain, although this quite honestly was the root of capitalism in this time. There is a chain which I noticed and that being the whores are being used by McCabe meanwhile McCabe is being used by the large corporations. The lower class workers are being profited off of in order for someone with more money to make more money. Even though this tone was underlying throughout the film it goes to show a lot about how the American capitalist system at this time was set up so that the small fish would stay at the bottom while the big fish keep eating them up.
ReplyDeleteIn McCabe and Mrs. Miller, it is made clear that the "American dream" idea is nothing but pointless hope for a goal that is constantly being smothered by big-time corporations. McCabe is one of the few men who were actually very successful in what they were doing, so bigger corporations felt the need to shut him down. McCabe isn't a character in this film that we should necessarily like (he runs a dirty business and makes money off of the over sexualization of women's bodies), yet I still found myself wanting him to succeed because he is "the little guy" that is standing up to the big corporation bullies. However, despite the fact that he eventually is technically successful in taking down the men sent to kill him, McCabe still ends up bleeding out in the snow. He dies, his business no longer has an owner, but the big corporation that sent men to kill him is still thriving. This is how the harsh realities of the "American dream" are portrayed excellently in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and I think this is an important film for people to watch because some of the ideas can still be seen today. Sure, there are people and companies solely dedicated to the advancement of small businesses around the world, but there will always be the huge company that controls an entire market, and will do anything necessary to keep it that way.
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