McCabe and Mrs Miller is the both a great Western and outstanding film. Warren Beatty and Julie Christie and Robert Altman at their best. The grit and newness of the mining camp captures an aspect of the West that none of the ‘aged’ sets of other Westerns have. The rugged rawness of trying to take a camp of soggy tents and turn it into a town, and to transform the quick draw justice into moral cohesion, is fascinating. In no other film can you smell the fresh cut pine of the new buildings, sense the slog of getting from place to place, and the absolute cushioning beauty of a thick layer of fresh fallen snow.