3 Women (The Criterion Collection)

3 Women is one of the most compelling films I've seen in a long while. In some ways it features all of the familiar Altman traits (the quirky characters, the bizarre locations, the off-beat music, and the staggering this way and that storyline that, at times, threatens to dissolve into incoherence) but it also offers something that only a few of Altman's other classics have: moral depth.I've tried to view all of Altman's seventies films but a few of them remain hard to track down. After many years I finally located California Split (recently released on DVD) and Thieves Like Us (still only available on VHS) but my favorite two Altman films are McCabe and Mrs. Miller (DVD) and The Long Goodbye (DVD). At least these two were my favorites before I viewed the most difficult to track down of all Altman films, 3 Women. Now its availbale on DVD but for years the only way you could see it was on late-night cable or in a New York art house revival of old Altman films. Nothing against 80's and 90's Altman but 70's Altman is where cinema begins and ends for anyone who grew up in that decade because Altman puts his finger right on something that no one even seems to see: that characters are always mysteriously disconnected from their surroundings, and that pop culture leaves its inhabitants curiously marooned in an artificial world and starved for connection to something real.Altman has an uncanny knack for picking remote locations that simply re-inforce the feeling that each character is alone and buttressed by nothing but their own ingenuity. Whether its the beach house in Long Goodbye (which was Altmans own home at the time) or the rural suburbia of 3 Women these locations seem like utopian California dreamscapes that can with the bat of an eye turn into frightfully arid zones of psychic disintegration.Altman was a painter for a time and though I am not aware of which painters he preferred I imagine he was influenced by the Bay Area figuritive artists like Diebenkorn whose Ocean Park series captures at once the lustre and menace of living in an enternally sunny oasis.3 Women is frightening. Sissy Spacek is perhaps the most effective actress in recent cinema to make vacuity and emptiness seem so frightening. Shelly Duvall is equally good at conveying vacuity and emptiness but she fills her character "Millie's" void with an endless flow of words that at least provide her with the illusion that she is a coherent and functioning whole, thus rendering herself less vulnerable to the dissolution that Spacek's "Pinky" is powerless to ward off.3 Women is best viewed with little foreknowledge of the story so I will not elaborate beyond that as to the psychic unraveling of these two. Suffice it to say that these two work in a kind of spa for the elderly. Its a location as bleak as the desert that surrounds it and equally void of emotion and character; the spa is run by the book and there is no room for anyone to show any individuality or to connect with others in any way but through professional roles and channels. Therefore Shelly Duvall's chattering is a constant earsore to her superiors, though to Sissy Spacek her chattering is like the one bit of proof that the spa does in fact have a pulse and that life does in fact exist.The other two locations that figure prominently are the apartment complex (replete with seventies singles parties)and the desert bar where Millie and Pinky meet Willie, a highly eccentric artist-barkeep who expresses herself only visually. Her mosaics that decorate strangely unseen places like the unvisited and unseen oasis of a private pool bottom in the middle of nowhere are of haunting vengeful figures; the figures look Etruscan or Greek and they seem to forewarn of terrible things like the things in Greek tragedies.The psyches in this film are each like unseen and unvisted oasis. We know next to nothing about the talkative Millie, the reticent wallflower Pinky, and the decidedly silent but intense and resentful Willie. All three do share one thing: they are women.I urge Altman fans to view this, but also fans of Bergman's Persona, and DePalma's Sisters, and Polanski's Repulsion and fans of French directors like Claude Chabrol. This is an artsy (though in no way pretensious) film and not one you will ever fully cognitively master because it works at a level that defies rational, linear description.Nashville is undoubtedly Altman's big budget masterpiece, but I think this one (now that people are able to finally view it) is becoming known as Altman's low-budget seventies masterpiece.A film you will watch more than once, but I envy those of you who haven't seen it because the first viewing is the strangest. An absolutely singular experience.

There are a few films that I like to watch on a cold gray cloudy windy Sunday afternoon in November, and this is one of them. It ranks right up there with "The Last Picture Show." I mean if you're gonna live in the Great Lakes at that time of year, you might as well make the best of it, eh? At least this film takes you to the Coachella Valley (one of the sunniest places on the continent), so at least the bleakness around you is assuaged. I don't get the dream stuff people are talking about. What dream? I like to watch and interpret this film as realism - but then again, you'd have to have lived in proximity to dysfunctional people like I have; and secondly, have a craving for fleeing to the SW deserts when the climate up here turns gloomy. In that case, this is a character study and a travelogue. That's my interpretation. Dream schmeam.Shelly Duval and Sissy Spacek do a stellar job of acting in this one, and that makes this film a "must see" - if for that reason alone. Goofy characters are difficult to act out in a realistic, believable manner, but they sure do a good job of it! This film may be a "B" movie and a cult movie - but good acting is good acting, no matter what. They both should have gotten Emmys for their acting in this film.I appreciate the scenes up and down Dillon Rd (or Varner Rd - not sure which) in the area of Desert Hot Springs with the occasional glimpse of San Jacinto, and many views of the Santa Rosas to the south. They go out of their way to not reveal this as Palm Springs and vicinity - even I notice a lack of that in the scenery. Good job there. A resort town wouldn't fit the theme. Go to the Dillon Saloon sometime and tell me that wasn't the place they shot the saloon scenes.The Lillie character could have been deleted entirely. Putting a "Bay area" character in a desert setting kinda ruins the mood. But...it was the 1970's so I can see the necessity. Gotta sell tickets.The end of this film was the part I totally forgot about, and in fact, far as I'm concerned, you can shut the film off five minutes early and go wash dishes (or whatever). No comprende.Nevertheless - one of my top 5 faves! I like to watch this in the time period referred to above, so I can get off my lazy butt and get motivated to gather up my stuff, pack up the car and get the eff out of here and go soak up the sun for a few months. And, it works.As a non-liberal, non-superhung Palm Springs hobo-sexual snowbird (no smartphone) I can entirely relate to Shelly Duval's character; been there, experienced it - in the now almost entirely "gay" and partnered, size-obsessed population of Palm Springs where nobody of any interest even goes out to the beergarden anymore. Those were the days. Thankfully the sun still shines.