John McCabe: An Alternative Male Identity

The construction of the Alternative in McCabe & Mrs Miller

1. Alternative Society

1.1. John McCabe as Alternative to the male identity
One of the title-giving characters in this film is John McCabe. He is the male protagonist and the first person the viewer meets. The first seconds of the film consist of a pan through a wood, accompanied by the howling of wind and Leonard Cohen singing: “It’s true that all the men you knew, were dealers who said they were through with dealing every time you gave them shelter” (McCabe & Mrs Miller, 00:14-00:30). And it is during this first line that a man on horseback appears from behind trees. The figure, quite far away keeps riding closer to the camera and after some more time, the audience can see the person wearing a fur coat but with his face hidden.
As he keeps riding across the screen, with the wind continuing to howl and a heavy rain, the camera cuts to a close-up of the strangers packing horse, and for a few seconds, the stock of a rifle is visible. The camera pans to

McCabe comes into the settlement as a complete stranger and he also appears as such to the audience. The western hero as an unknown stranger has been an often used device. One must only think of Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, or, in his later film The Pale Rider. In McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the audience only indirectly learns McCabe’s name as Sheehan, the pub-owner, asks the protagonist if he was “Pudgey McCabe. The Gunfighter” (McCabe and Mrs. Miller 11:30) which McCabe neither directly confirms nor denies. He only replies that he all he is is a businessman. So, by keeping the backstory of the main character hidden to the audience, the director, Robert Altman, as Engle argues, “follows conventions […] by giving him no specific history other than to suggest, through Sheehan’s suspicions, that he may be the infamous gunfighter Pudgy McCabe” (Engle