What is noticeable about the women-centered films that have been discussed in this series is their commitment to realism. Dreams are rarely mentioned, much less discussed or depicted. John Cassavetes, in fact, cut a prolonged sequence in A Woman Under the Influence (1974) where the husband and wife talk about their dreams. In an interview, he said he thought it was a wonderful scene but did not fit with the focus on emotional tensions in relationships.
The last film we will discuss foregrounds dream logic, finding it an unforgettable way to depict the imbalances of power.
Not Buying What They’re Selling: 3 Women
(dir Altman 1977)
Because the film associates water with dream-states, it is possible that we enter into a dreamscape as soon as the opening scene unfolds: the camera’s perspective descends into a swimming pool at a health spa. Pretty much all logic is suspended as what we see gets progressively stranger (cued to a dissonant soundtrack that adds to the tension).
For the most part, however, the narrative does feel cohesive; the dread and mystery the film projects is suggestive of the horror genre, where the unknown is expected to lead to a nightmarish outcome. And given the pronounced erotic atmosphere, it seems predictable that boundaries between characters would be frequently broken or violated.
At the same time, there appears to be a guiding consciousness behind the dream we experience that creates a critical perspective. The early scenes have a satirical tone: the complete lack of emotional engagement in the workplace could be a somewhat exaggerated version of the corporate ideal. Except that it is rather difficult to imagine a health-care business that could remain financially solvent run by a clueless doctor and a hectoring, nit-picky administrator and staffed by overworked and underpaid employees. Or is it, really? Robert Altman’s capitalist critique can often strike us as insightful, even ahead of its time.
The other locales in the film have an artificiality to them, like a mirage in the California desert sun. The after-work watering hole resembles a Wild West saloon (even featuring a shooting range in the back), while the apartment complex takes on the appearance of a swinging singles resort, where the action revolves around the pool and patio area.
Largely in the background are the men who inhabit these spaces. There is little about them to leave a lasting impression. Blandly attractive, the male medical doctors and technicians are smug and act superior to everyone around them.
In contrast, the strangeness of the three women grabs our attention. Millie looks, acts and speaks as if she just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Pinky has a wide-eyed innocence and childish demeanor. Willie, who is silent and pregnant, paints murals depicting struggles among bizarre creatures that are half-human, half-monster. Perhaps these artworks signify the troubled relationship with her husband, Edgar, a cartoonish cowboy, formerly a stunt-double, who has his eyes on every woman he meets, including Millie and Pinky.
But the film at times treats these women with a barely concealed contempt, especially Millie. Her belief that every man is ready to fall for her, every woman prone to envy her, when she has at best the plastic attractiveness of a department store mannequin, comes off as delusional, if not pathetic. Unlike the men, the self-absorption of Millie and Willie registers as harmful. Millie’s being starved for attention keeps her from being more suspicious about Pinky’s infatuation with her. Willie’s obsession with her art prevents her from dealing with Edgar’s alcoholism and unfaithfulness.
Thus, it is not a stretch to think that the three women are created out of typical male nightmares: the fake lady (Millie), the woman-child (Pinky), and the female artist driven to madness (Willie).
What keeps the characters believable are the show-stopping performances by the female actors playing these roles. As Millie, Shelly Duvall shifts between frustration and hopefulness, while maintaining the blank contours of her self-image. Sissy Spacek keeps her character, Pinky, enigmatic, only giving away her intentions to take Millie’s place by very subtle voice inflections and sideways looks. Janice Rule has perhaps the most challenging role as Willie, who cannot vocally express her feelings, so she keeps them bottled up—but every now and then we get a terrifying glimpse of what she could do if she were to toss aside her inhibitions.
Likewise, the meaning of the crucial event in the film can most readily be explained from a male-coded psychological point of view. In an escalating game of sex and power, Millie goes off to sleep with Edgar while Pinky looks on, stunned, the bedroom door closed right in Pinky’s face. Pinky then falls into the apartment swimming pool and becomes comatose. This apparent attempt at suicide (self-destruction) symbolizes the dissolution of identity, marked by a return to water.
When Pinky awakens from her coma, her temporary amnesia gives her a cover for stealing Millie’s personality. Millie does not realize what is happening at first, but a scene on the apartment patio where Pinky becomes the object of desire for the men around her suggests that Pinky is better at playing Millie’s role than she herself is.
The intensity builds. Willie goes into labor during the night. Millie tries to help her, while sending Pinky out to get a doctor. Pinky, however, goes into a kind of trance. Willie’s baby—a boy—is stillborn.
For any chances of creation, the cycle of destruction has to end. Which it does: the camera pans across the desert landscape and into the bar. A delivery boy talking to Pinky mentions Edgar’s death, a “terrible accident” with a gun. Millie has become the head of the household, taking care of Pinky and Willie. Willie says she just had “the most wonderful dream,” which she can’t remember. The camera pans back over the landscape, then focuses on a pile of tires, where Edgar is possibly buried.
To speculate further, we can only briefly take in the surface features of this changed environment, because the male consciousness cannot imagine in any greater detail what a female, as opposed to a male, dream world might look like. Because the exploratory narrative can go no further, the film ends with an image of one of Willie’s murals.
We are left with a feeling of unease as tensions among the three women remain, even with Edgar out of the picture. What we see at the end is not a sort of unqualified female utopia; rather, in the conceptual language of a more egalitarian and progressive psychology, it is a “working through” of the psychic conflicts that have been submerged throughout the film—a process that tends to remain incomplete and ongoing.
Since we are invited, if not compelled, to go back to the beginning of the film to try to understand what has happened, we have to applaud Altman’s success at creating a female-centered film that ends on its own terms and is worthy of repeated viewings. 3 Women proves that a film need not be overly sentimental to depict the complex experiences of both men and women; if anything it ironically reflects a superficial soap-opera setting whose idealized portrayals of these experiences are often used to sell beauty products to its viewers.
Conversely, Altman is selling us (and, paradoxically, the Hollywood studio that financed his artistic vision) on the refusal to listen to advertising to tell us how we should look and act. How he tells us this may be rather cruel—but it wouldn’t be a film Altman wrote and directed if it backed away at the last moment.