The McCabe & Mrs. Miller in Red Dead Redemption 2

By the end of McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the desire to inhabit Presbyterian Church, Washington, is overwhelming, a sensation I've only felt recreated by the environments of Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly the towns of Strawberry and Valentine. While a video game comparison might seem like a slant in a film review, this unique "lived-in" feeling is the key to understanding the film's enduring power.

I was somewhat robbed of the intended experience by previously watching inferior versions. The film's infamous opening, a beautiful mess of haze, layered dialogue, and muffled conversations, is often amplified into confusing noise on old VHS or TV sets. Catching a decent version on TCM was a revelation; I was completely enchanted and immediately ordered the Criterion Collection edition. The restored visual and audio quality is essential to appreciating Robert Altman's deliberate technique.

Warren Beatty's McCabe is one of the most authentically American characters ever put to screen. He's simply a man: not a legendary gunslinger, nor particularly smart, but driven by a fragile ambition. Altman described this film as anti-capitalist, but McCabe's drive kept him warm in a country that allowed him to have it. Julie Christie's Mrs. Miller is perfect for him, a wiser and more pragmatic, yes... yet undone by her own deeply human flaws.

Robert Altman wasn't merely crafting an "anti-Western"; he was telling a truer, messier story of the Pacific Northwest frontier. The town of Presbyterian Church astonishingly grows before our eyes, mirroring the organic development seen in RDR2. By design, it's not a well-built Hollywood facade. The production's choice to fill the town with a rough population of miners (men who were "hippies" dodging the draft in real life) results in an immersive, immense sense of place that is nearly unmatched in cinema.

This sense of tangible, visible growth is what Red Dead Redemption 2 directly captures. Whether it’s the visibly developing house in Valentine or the isolated, rain-soaked, and ramshackle frontier architecture of Strawberry, the visual and atmospheric parallels to Presbyterian Church are unmistakable. It confirms that the unique realism of McCabe & Mrs. Miller continues to resonate and serve as a touchstone for authentic Western world-building today.