| 3 Women | |
|---|---|
.png) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Altman |
| Written by | Robert Altman |
| Produced by | Robert Altman |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Charles Rosher Jr. |
| Edited by | Dennis Hill |
| Music by | Gerald Busby |
Production company | Lion's Gate Films |
| Distributed by | 20th Century-Fox |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 124 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.7 million[1] |
3 Women is a 1977 Americanpsychological drama film written, produced and directed byRobert Altman and starringShelley Duvall,Sissy Spacek andJanice Rule. Set in a dusty California desert town, it depicts the increasingly bizarre relationship between an adult woman (Duvall), her teenage roommate and co-worker (Spacek), and a middle-aged pregnant woman (Rule).
The storycame directly from a dream Altman had, which he adapted into atreatment, intending to film without a screenplay.20th Century-Fox financed the project on the basis of Altman's past work. Interpretations of the film are centered around itspsychoanalytic elements and exploration ofidentity.
3 Women premiered at the1977 Cannes Film Festival and earned positive reviews from critics, who praised Duvall's performance. It was not a strong box office success despite Hollywood studio financing and distribution. After its theatrical release, the film was unavailable on home video for almost thirty years, until it was released byThe Criterion Collection in 2004.
Pinky Rose, a timid and awkward young woman, starts working at ahealth spa for the elderly in a small California desert town. She becomes enamored of Millie Lammoreaux, a relentlessly outgoing and self-absorbed co-worker who talks incessantly. Despite their stark personality differences, Pinky and Millie become roommates at the Purple Sage Apartments, owned by the drinking, womanizing, has-been Hollywoodstunt double Edgar Hart and his wife Willie, a mysterious pregnant woman who rarely speaks and paints striking and unsettlingmurals.
Millie takes Pinky along on her visits to Dodge City, a local tavern and shooting range also owned by Willie and Edgar, where Millie continues expounding her petty opinions and interests to her new roommate. Millie's babble alienates most of her co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances and would-be suitors; Pinky is the only person in Millie's orbit who enjoys listening to her.
Tensions begin to arise between Millie and Pinky after Millie's old roommate, Deidre, hastily cancels plans for a dinner in which Millie had invested much time and effort. Millie storms out of the apartment and returns with a drunken Edgar. Pinky begs Millie to consider Edgar's pregnant wife and not have sex with him. Millie, angry at what she perceives as Pinky's meddling and sabotaging her social life, yells at her and suggests she move out of the apartment. A distraught Pinky jumps off the apartment balcony into the swimming pool.
Pinky survives thesuicide attempt but falls into a coma. Millie, feeling responsible, visits her in the hospital daily. When Pinky still fails to wake up, Millie contacts Pinky's parents in Texas, hoping their presence at the hospital will help her regain consciousness. When Pinky wakes up, she does not recognize her parents and furiously demands that they leave. Once sent home to live with Millie again, Pinky copies Millie's mannerisms and behavior, including drinking, smoking, sleeping with Edgar, and shooting guns at Dodge City. She insists on being called Mildred, both women's birth name.
Millie becomes increasingly frustrated by Pinky's imitative shift in personality and begins to exhibit Pinky's timid and submissive personality herself. One night after Pinky has a bad dream, she shares a bed with Millie platonically. Edgar, soused again, enters their apartment and makes sexual overtures before casually telling them that Willie is about to give birth. Pinky and Millie drive to Edgar and Willie's house, where Willie is alone and in agonizing labor. Her baby isstillborn after Edgar abandoned her and Pinky failed to follow Millie's instructions to summon medical help.
Later, Pinky and Millie are working at Dodge City, having again changed roles: Pinky has reverted to her childlike timidity and refers to Millie as her mother, while Millie has assumed Willie's role in running the tavern, even imitating Willie's makeup and attire. When a delivery driver says it was a shame about Edgar dying, Millie offers a pat, hollow reply which suggests the three women are complicit in his death.
Altman has said the film is about "empty vessels in an empty landscape".[2] Writer Frank Caso identified themes of the film as including obsession,schizophrenia andpersonality disorder, and linked the film to Altman's earlier filmsThat Cold Day in the Park (1969) andImages (1972), declaring them a trilogy. Caso states critics have argued the dreamer in the film is Willie, since she says she had a dream at the end of the film, and Pinky had the "dream within a dream".[3]
PsychiatristGlen O. Gabbard and Krin Gabbard believed3 Women could best be understood throughpsychoanalysis and the study of dreams. In theory, a person dreaming can shift from one character into another within the dream. The three titular characters in the film represent the psyche of one person.[4] Whereas Pinky is the child among the three, Millie is the sexually awakened young woman, and the pregnant Willie is the mother figure.[5] The Gabbard siblings interpreted Pinky, post-coma, as transforming into Millie, while Millie became more of a mother figure to her.[6] Altman equated the death of Willie's child to the murder of Edgar, which the three title characters appear to have all participated in.[7] Author David Greven agreed psychoanalysis could be used, but saw the relationship between Millie and Pinky as one of mother and daughter, respectively, with Willie at the end of the film being the "grandmotherly figure" who defends Pinky from Millie's scornful mothering. Greven wrote that the film also demonstrated a focus on strong female characters.[8]
The setting is also a key feature in the film, with Joe McElhaney arguing the California landscapes "come to represent something much larger than a 'mere' location".[9] He states it is "a space of death but also one of creation".[10]
DirectorRobert Altman conceived of the idea for3 Women while his wife was being treated in a hospital, and he was afraid that she would die.[11] During a restless sleep, he had a dream in which he was directing a film starringShelley Duvall andSissy Spacek in anidentity theft story, against a desert backdrop.[12] He woke up mid-dream, jotted notes on a pad, and went back to sleep, receiving more details.[11]
Upon waking, he wanted to make the film, although the dream had not provided him with a complete storyline. Altman consulted authorPatricia Resnick to develop a treatment, drawing up 50 pages, initially with no intent to write a full screenplay.[12]Ingmar Bergman's 1966 filmPersona was also an influence on the film.[13]
Altman secured approval from 20th Century Fox, which supported the project on the basis of the success of his 1970 filmMASH.[12] Studio managerAlan Ladd Jr. also found the story idea interesting and respected the fact that Altman consistently worked within his budget in past films, as this was before Altman's 1980 film version ofPopeye considerably exceeded its initially approved budget.[14]
The film was shot inPalm Springs, including the apartment scenes, andDesert Hot Springs, California.[4][15] Although a screenplay was completed, actresses Duvall and Spacek employed muchimprovisation, particularly in Duvall's silly ramblings and advice on dating.[12] Altman also credited Duvall with drawing up her character's recipes and diary.[16]
For Willie's paintings, the filmmakers employed artistBodhi Wind, whose real name was Charles Kuklis.[17] The cinematographer, Charles Rosher Jr., worked with the intense sunlight in the California desert.[18]
During the shooting of one scene, Duvall's skirt got caught in a car door. Assistant director Tommy Thompson called for acut. However, Altman stated he "loved" the accident and had Duvall intentionally catch her dress and skirt in the door in several scenes.[19]
The film opened inNew York City in April 1977.[20] The film was also screened at theCannes Film Festival in May 1977, which was where Altman first admitted to Ladd the film was based on his dream.[21]
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3 Women received positive reviews from critics.[22] On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 83% of 54 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "3 Women is a strange, eerie portrait of late-'70s womanhood that upends and then defies all expectations."[23]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[24]
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, calling the first half "a funny, satirical, and sometimes sad study of the community and its people" and adding that the film then turns into "masked sexual horror".[25] Ebert added3 Women to hisGreat Movies list in 2004, deeming it "Robert Altman's 1977 masterpiece" and calling Duvall's expressions "a study in unease".[13]Vincent Canby, writing forThe New York Times, called3 Women a "funny, moving" film and Millie "one of the most memorable characterizations Mr. Altman has ever given us", giving credit to Duvall as well.[20] Writing forThe New Yorker,Michael Sragow remarked, "In the Robert Altman canon, no picture is stranger—and more fascinating—than this 1977 phantasmagoria", adding that it is "full of images so rich that they transcend its metaphoric structure", praising Duvall.[26]Molly Haskell, inNew York, ranked the film as the second best of the year, describing it as "ambitious, pretentious, gentle, goofy and mesmerizing".[27]
Texas Monthly critics Marie Brenner and Jesse Kornbluth stated that Altman likely aspired to be the "AmericanBergman", calling3 Women "an attempt at equaling Bergman'sPersona".[28] They credited Duvall with an "extraordinary performance" but lamented the film's shift away from a documentary style in its second half.[29]Charles Champlin of theLos Angeles Times wrote, "It needed no proving, but on the evidence of his '3 Women,' Robert Altman is identifiable anew as one of the most fluent, imaginative, individual and magical film-makers working here or anywhere else."[30]Gene Siskel gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, writing that he still did not understand it after seeing it twice. "The ultimate meaning of 'Three Women' may be known only to writer-director Altman," Siskel wrote. "After all, it was his dream. I didn't find enough threads of sanity to keep me interested in the film's final sequences."[31]
On home video, the film never received aVHS release. Altman said the film negative was deteriorating until it was restored and remastered.[37]The Criterion Collection released the film onDVD in 2004, including adirector's commentary.[37] In 2011, Criterion re-released the film onBlu-ray.[38]
