3 Women
Watching Robert Altman’s “3 Women” for the first time was a jarring experience. In a good way, I should say. When I think Altman I’ve often thought of sprawling stories with massive ensemble casts, whether it’s “Short Cuts,” “Nashville” or even “Popeye.” In his 1977 film, he feels like he is doing a riff on Bergman’s “Persona,” while setting it in the modern US. The effect is curious, and fascinating to watch unfold.
The score by Gerald Busby sets the tone right away. It operates in short musical bursts over building themes, but that’s what makes it compelling. We get an ominous sense of uncertainty every time the score enters the soundtrack, and that sense of lives lacking focus- or lives being thrown out of focus- is great to watch unfold under Altman’s watchful, profound eye.
“3 Women” focuses on two young women who work as physical therapists- Pinky (Sissy Spacek), a shy teenager just in from Texas, and Millie (Shelley Duvall), who’s beautiful and vain, and takes Pinky in as a roommate. The two become friendly, but whether they become friends is another matter entirely. Millie is an extrovert who enjoys spending time with other people and partying; Pinky is introverted, and becomes co-dependent of Millie in her life. Their apartment complex is owned by Edgar Hart (Robert Fortier) and his artistic wife, Willie (Janice Rule), a mother-to-be who has created striking art in the apartment complex’s pool. Willie is the third woman of the title, and as the film builds closer to its climax, her part in the narrative will become clearer, as the women’s identities feel more and more intertwined.
It is said that the idea for “3 Women,” which Altman wrote with Patricia Resnick (who is uncredited), came from a dream Altman had, and that makes a lot of sense. The film moves with the free-form structure of a dream (which is to say, no structure at all), and in moments and situations where we feel as though reality is presented to us, something occurs that shatters that idea in our minds. We are unsure about the truth these women seem to possess in the beginning of the film by the time we reach the third act; their relationships with each other, and their lives, seem to shift and meld together in ways that are surreal, but also expertly controlled by Altman.
Watching Sissy Spacek at this point in her career is always an interesting experience. I saw “Carrie” and “Badlands” for the first time many years ago, but I’m much more familiar with her work in later films like “JFK,” “The Straight Story” and “In the Bedroom,” among others. It’s a night-and-day contrast with her in those later films compared to her as a mousy, unassuming young woman in these ’70s films, and “3 Women” just confirms that for me. (It’s been a while since I’ve watched “Badlands,” though, so that may be rewatched in the future.) As Pinky, her innocence and curiosity is beautifully contrasted by Duvall’s Millie, who is a woman who seems invested in her job, but also seems like someone who doesn’t want to do it forever. Outside of “Popeye” and “The Shining,” I’m not as familiar with Duvall, and this is a great film to begin expanding my familiarity with her with. She is remarkable as a woman who only needed a roommate for rent purposes, but finds that she is getting into more than she bargained for with Pinky. Pushed in one direction, this would be a “Single White Female”-type thriller, but the way Altman constructs it, we see women struggling to find their place in the world, and sometimes having to upend how they view life in order to accomplish that. It’s exciting to see how Altman and his leading ladies in this film find the right balance for this story. I’m grateful I’ve finally arrived to watching it.
