On Saturday, February 20th, the Hamptons International Film Festival will present a Winter Classic Screening of “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” Taking place at Guild Hall, Alec Baldwin will host the evening.
The 1971 Robert Altman Western stars Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane, and John Schuck. After John McCabe (Warren Beatty), arrives in the Pacific Northwest mining town of Presbyterian Church, he decides to open a brothel. The smooth talking gambler impresses the locals with his confident demeanor and aggressive personality, but his gushing fan club doesn’t extent to Constance Miller (Julie Christie), a devious lady of the night. Even so, Miller agrees to help manage McCabe’s venture as long as she gets a cut of the profits, but their success is threatened when a powerful corporation decides that they want a piece of the duo’s pie.
The film received four stars from critic Roger Ebert. “Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another, but one of them is perfect, and that one is ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ (1971),” said Ebert in a review. “This is one of the saddest films I have ever seen, filled with a yearning for love and home that will not ever come — not for McCabe, not with Mrs. Miller, not in the town of Presbyterian Church, which cowers under a gray sky always heavy with rain or snow. The film is a poem–an elegy for the dead.”
General admission is $22 and $20 for Guild Hall Members. The viewing begins at 7 p.m.
Guild Hall is located at 158 Main Street in East Hampton. For more information, call 631-324-0806 or visit www.guildhall.org.