Blu-Ray Review: Robert Altman’s ‘3 Women’ Remains Mesmerizing

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CHICAGO – One of the most remarkable things about Robert Altman was his refusal to give in to the pressures of pleasing an audience. He made films for himself. There may be no better example of this than “3 Women,” a film that defies too much examination in part because it’s purposefully vague as it was based on a dream of Mr. Altman’s. He had a dream, woke up, and turned it into a treatment, from which they shot the movie. It’s surreal, bizarre, and totally mesmerizing, and is one of the newest Criterion Blu-rays.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

“3 Women” came in a period of transition for Robert Altman. In the late ’70s, he was already an internationally renowned director, having released “MASH,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” and “Nashville” earlier in the decade. He would get more experimental in the ’70s (and then disappointingly less so in the ’80s), but a lot of this period of his career has been lost to history, often dismissed as the valley between the peaks in the ’70s and ’90s. I’ll admit that “3 Women” was a film with which I was not overly familiar and I’m grateful to the Criterion Blu-ray release for correcting that oversight.

The dreamlike nature of “3 Women” makes it a perfect choice for Blu-ray. It’s a movie that demands viewer immersion. Get sucked into its world without distractions and it attains a remarkable poetic rhythm in which one stops asking questions about the details of the plot or the direct meaning of the title. It’s a film based on a dream that is supposed to feel like one. And while one viewer could dive deep into the symbolism of the unusual story, another could appreciate the film purely for its striking visuals and stellar performances.

3 Women
Photo credit: Courtesy of the Criterion Collection

Two icons of the ’70s — Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek — play the leads, a pair of women at a commune in Los Angeles who become friends and slowly watch their personalities blend into something like a communal whole. Duvall is Millie, a woman who seems tough and confident when the movie begins. Spacek takes the role of Pinky, a naive woman who comes to be her roommate but hides a darker, sinister side and eventually attempts to take on Millie’s identity. Even before the film turns into something clearly inspired by “Persona,” Millie & Pinky appear to be shifting roles, one becoming less confident and the other more. The third woman of the piece is played by Janice Rule as a mother figure, a woman who paints murals around the complex.

3 Women Photo credit: Courtesy of the Criterion Collection

What does “3 Women” mean? Even a commentary track on the Criterion Blu-ray by Altman himself does little to illuminate it. In the end, I think it’s a question that defies answering for the film works better without concrete conclusions. Duvall and Spacek both won awards for their work here and they’re stellar but what stuns me about “3 Women” is Altman’s devotion to a vision that he even admits that he didn’t fully understand. Altman saw film as a personal journey, a way to express ideas that interested him, even if those ideas were still in the form of a dream.

Synopsis:
In a dusty, underpopulated California resort town, naive southern waif Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) idolizes and befriends her fellow nurse, the would-be sophisticate “thoroughly modern” Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall). When Millie takes Pinky in as her roommate, Pinky’s hero worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, this dreamlike masterpiece from Robert Altman careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.

Special Features:
o Audio commentary featuring director Robert Altman
o Galleries of rare production and publicity stills
o Original theatrical trailers and television spots
o Essay by critic David Sterritt

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com