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Special Features
- New high-defination transfer with restored sound and image
- Audio commentary by director Robert Altman
- Stills gallery of rare production and publicity photos
- Original trailers and TV spots
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
"The cinema," Orson Welles famously noted, "is a ribbon of dream." 3 Women is one of few feature films on record as having taken form in a dream. The dreamer was Robert Altman, and although all his best work has an oneiric quality--the floaty zooms, the eerie pastels bleeding into one another, the slip and slide of characters' trajectories overlapping in the fluid accumulation of what passes for narrative--this last masterpiece in his amazing seven-year run of 1970s masterpieces is only more so. Shelly Duvall, that most unorthodox of Altman creatures, locks in the tone with her eerie portrayal of Millie Lammoreaux, a Texan hoyden whose nonstop prattle turns life into a stream-of-consciousness reverie even as most of the people in her vicinity studiously ignore her. Her primacy is worshiped, then emulated by a strange, certifiably dysfunctional childwoman named Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) who comes to work in the same old-age home as Millie, moves in with her, and progressively usurps her lifestyle and finally her identity. The third woman, Willie (the late Janice Rule), is a pregnant artist who paints reptilian humanoid figures on the floors of swimming pools. Willie's husband (Robert Fortier), a strutting gun nut who once had a bit part on TV's Wyatt Earp ("He knows Hugh O'Brian"), is just about the only male character of consequence in the film. This macho man gets his--but what "his" may be is only one of the movie's beguiling mysteries. It's only appropriate that the cameraman, Chuck Rosher, should be the son of the man who photographed F.W. Murnau's Sunrise. --Richard T. Jameson
Product Description
In a dusty, under-populated California resort town, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), a naive and impressionable Southern waif begins her life as a nursing home attendant. There, Pinky finds her role model in fellow nurse "Thoroughly Modern" Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall), a misguided would-be sophisticate and hopeless devotee of Cosmopolitan and Woman's Day magazines. When Millie accepts Pinky into her home at the Purple Sage singles' complex, Pinky's hero-worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, Robert Altman's dreamlike masterpiece, 3 Women, careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
80 of 83 people found the following review helpful
By joe449
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I first encounterd '3 Women' while flipping through the cable channels on a lazy summer day in 1997. I tuned into the movie right at the scene where Sissy Spacek was screaming at Shelley Duvall from a hospital bed, "DON'T CALL ME PINKY -- GET OUT OF HERE!" It was from this moment on that I became fascinated with Robert Altman's dreamlike masterpiece, '3 Women.' I made sure to tape it during a repeat screening, and for years hoped that it would make it to DVD, for it was never even released on VHS! So when I heard about Criterion giving it the deluxe treatment, I was very excited.
'3 Women' is not a conventional film by any means. Every person I invite over to watch it, either loathes it or is so utterly puzzled that they need to have a stiff drink afterwards. It is not a film that all audiences will appreciate. However, those with an interest in unusual characters or artsy cinema should find it a rewarding experience, especially with repeated viewings. It's not so much a matter the film being ahead of it's time -- '3 Women' is in a timespace all of it's own!
The strongest attraction of '3 Women' for me, is the remarkable performances by Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. Duvall brings a sense of pathos and false reassurance to Millie. Can't we all think of some Millie-types who we know that try so hard to fit in with society but just fail miserably? Spacek, on the other hand, gives Pinky an other-worldliness that at times borders on a personality disorder right out of the DSM-IV manual.
Like '2001: A Space Odyssey,' '3 Women' leaves several mysteries unanswered and leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks. For instance, why was Pinky was warned about the twins early on in the film? Why did Pinky give Ms. Bunwell Millie's social security number instead of her own? And of course, what was the inexplicable final scene all about?
Criterion's DVD presention is acceptable. Robert Altman provides a commentary track which is more than welcome. There's also some interesting period photos, a teaser trailer, the theatrical trailer and two TV spots. I would have loved a documentary or some interviews with the cast, but I am quite satisfied with what is presented.
Intriguing but never overbearing, '3 Women' is one of the most interesting and brilliant films of all time. Watch it with an open mind, and some wine -- perferably Lemon Satin or Tickled Pink, of course.
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By Carl Kelsch
Format:DVD
After watching the film a few times and enjoying the strangeness and ambiguity, it finally clicked as to why I enjoy the film so much. It's about something quite universal and offers a fresh insight into something that is an integral part of our culture: Motherhood.
If you haven't seen the film, stop reading. If you've seen it, bear with me. Many people have talked about the 'personality swap' that takes place between Pinky and Millie. That never rang true to me. They certainly don't swap personalities, although Pinky exhibits a new personality after she jumps into the pool.
This film is simply about what a mother experiences as her daughter grows into a woman. And so many details and moments in the film say volumes about the painful realizations and feelings that many mothers go through, feelings that have never been dramatized as creatively as Altman has done here. For this reason alone, this film is a gift.
Millie is introduced as a bit directionless, always trying to fit in, but never garnering the attention, respect or love she longs for. He coworkers ignore her rants, her neighbors dismiss her, and her former roommate blows her off. But along comes Pinky, strangely childlike considering her apparent age. She is simply the daughter that enters this lonely woman's life. Not literally, but none-the-less, the relationship proceeds this way. Millie is suddenly the center of her new daughter's universe. We see Millie blush at the attention and adoration she has never received. Like any mother, Millie is constantly guiding and teaching Pinky the proper protocol for every situation - from what to wear, daily routine, entertaining guests--and Pinky absorbs it like a sponge. For many of us who love the film, there has always been something very relatable about the way they connect, even if it's hard to put your finger on.
But the dynamics shift when Pinky goes through a symbolic puberty (jumping into the pool). Not coincidentally, this shift is set off by Millie's betrayal of the 3rd woman (Willie, symbolically the grandmother in some respects). After coming out of a coma, Pinky is suddenly a sexual being. Watching how Millie reacts to the new Pinky is quite illuminating, considering that most parents experience this surreal process during their life. The mother has to watch her daughter blossom and have it rubbed in her face that she is past her own sexual prime (this is dramatized by the way neighbor Tom gives Pinky the attention Millie never was able to get). The Mother has to see her own bad habits and traits reflected back via her daughter's behavior (Pinky's new smoking habit and garish use of makeup). And most painfully, the mother falls of her perch as center of her daughter's universe. For those of us who appreciate the film, this is the real heart of the watching Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek go through the surreal turns of this story. It is something absolutely universal. Something our parents silently went through as we became new creatures in our blossoming adolescence.
By not presenting Millie and Pinky as literal mother and child, Altman may alienate some less-discerning viewers. But what he achieves is worth it: He presents how surreal and alienating these parts of the parenting process are. It's a mysterious shift in balance of power, in focus of affection, in bond, and it ultimately leads to a disturbing realization... something that can't be expressed in a self-help book or a parenting manual, but it's hauntingly expressed in the still-birth sequence at the end.
The strange coda to the film, which shows the 3 women working at Dodge City with all male interference cast aside, has also baffled viewers. But I would argue that Altman smartly used this ending to provide a key to understanding the film. In this final scene, the women are blatantly portrayed as a family: Willie is cast as the grandmother, Millie as the mother, and Pinky as the daughter. It feels very different in tone than the rest of the movie: more theatrical and symbolic. This coda kept encouraging me to revisit the film and puzzle through its mysteries. Many reviews on this site insist that there is no method to Altman's madness. I would argue that it's an example of his genius. He may not have even defined them exactly as mother/daughter in his mind, but he was certainly interested in portraying truth, and that essential truth has made this a beloved film, even for those who prefer not to dissect it.
If you haven't seen the film, stop reading. If you've seen it, bear with me. Many people have talked about the 'personality swap' that takes place between Pinky and Millie. That never rang true to me. They certainly don't swap personalities, although Pinky exhibits a new personality after she jumps into the pool.
This film is simply about what a mother experiences as her daughter grows into a woman. And so many details and moments in the film say volumes about the painful realizations and feelings that many mothers go through, feelings that have never been dramatized as creatively as Altman has done here. For this reason alone, this film is a gift.
Millie is introduced as a bit directionless, always trying to fit in, but never garnering the attention, respect or love she longs for. He coworkers ignore her rants, her neighbors dismiss her, and her former roommate blows her off. But along comes Pinky, strangely childlike considering her apparent age. She is simply the daughter that enters this lonely woman's life. Not literally, but none-the-less, the relationship proceeds this way. Millie is suddenly the center of her new daughter's universe. We see Millie blush at the attention and adoration she has never received. Like any mother, Millie is constantly guiding and teaching Pinky the proper protocol for every situation - from what to wear, daily routine, entertaining guests--and Pinky absorbs it like a sponge. For many of us who love the film, there has always been something very relatable about the way they connect, even if it's hard to put your finger on.
But the dynamics shift when Pinky goes through a symbolic puberty (jumping into the pool). Not coincidentally, this shift is set off by Millie's betrayal of the 3rd woman (Willie, symbolically the grandmother in some respects). After coming out of a coma, Pinky is suddenly a sexual being. Watching how Millie reacts to the new Pinky is quite illuminating, considering that most parents experience this surreal process during their life. The mother has to watch her daughter blossom and have it rubbed in her face that she is past her own sexual prime (this is dramatized by the way neighbor Tom gives Pinky the attention Millie never was able to get). The Mother has to see her own bad habits and traits reflected back via her daughter's behavior (Pinky's new smoking habit and garish use of makeup). And most painfully, the mother falls of her perch as center of her daughter's universe. For those of us who appreciate the film, this is the real heart of the watching Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek go through the surreal turns of this story. It is something absolutely universal. Something our parents silently went through as we became new creatures in our blossoming adolescence.
By not presenting Millie and Pinky as literal mother and child, Altman may alienate some less-discerning viewers. But what he achieves is worth it: He presents how surreal and alienating these parts of the parenting process are. It's a mysterious shift in balance of power, in focus of affection, in bond, and it ultimately leads to a disturbing realization... something that can't be expressed in a self-help book or a parenting manual, but it's hauntingly expressed in the still-birth sequence at the end.
The strange coda to the film, which shows the 3 women working at Dodge City with all male interference cast aside, has also baffled viewers. But I would argue that Altman smartly used this ending to provide a key to understanding the film. In this final scene, the women are blatantly portrayed as a family: Willie is cast as the grandmother, Millie as the mother, and Pinky as the daughter. It feels very different in tone than the rest of the movie: more theatrical and symbolic. This coda kept encouraging me to revisit the film and puzzle through its mysteries. Many reviews on this site insist that there is no method to Altman's madness. I would argue that it's an example of his genius. He may not have even defined them exactly as mother/daughter in his mind, but he was certainly interested in portraying truth, and that essential truth has made this a beloved film, even for those who prefer not to dissect it.
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
3 Women is one of the most compelling films I've seen in a long while. In some ways it features all of the familiar Altman traits (the quirky characters, the bizarre locations, the off-beat music, and the staggering this way and that storyline that, at times, threatens to dissolve into incoherence) but it also offers something that only a few of Altman's other classics have: moral depth.
I've tried to view all of Altman's seventies films but a few of them remain hard to track down. After many years I finally located California Split (recently released on DVD) and Thieves Like Us (still only available on VHS) but my favorite two Altman films are McCabe and Mrs. Miller (DVD) and The Long Goodbye (DVD). At least these two were my favorites before I viewed the most difficult to track down of all Altman films, 3 Women. Now its availbale on DVD but for years the only way you could see it was on late-night cable or in a New York art house revival of old Altman films. Nothing against 80's and 90's Altman but 70's Altman is where cinema begins and ends for anyone who grew up in that decade because Altman puts his finger right on something that no one even seems to see: that characters are always mysteriously disconnected from their surroundings, and that pop culture leaves its inhabitants curiously marooned in an artificial world and starved for connection to something real.
Altman has an uncanny knack for picking remote locations that simply re-inforce the feeling that each character is alone and buttressed by nothing but their own ingenuity. Whether its the beach house in Long Goodbye (which was Altmans own home at the time) or the rural suburbia of 3 Women these locations seem like utopian California dreamscapes that can with the bat of an eye turn into frightfully arid zones of psychic disintegration.
Altman was a painter for a time and though I am not aware of which painters he preferred I imagine he was influenced by the Bay Area figuritive artists like Diebenkorn whose Ocean Park series captures at once the lustre and menace of living in an enternally sunny oasis.
3 Women is frightening. Sissy Spacek is perhaps the most effective actress in recent cinema to make vacuity and emptiness seem so frightening. Shelly Duvall is equally good at conveying vacuity and emptiness but she fills her character "Millie's" void with an endless flow of words that at least provide her with the illusion that she is a coherent and functioning whole, thus rendering herself less vulnerable to the dissolution that Spacek's "Pinky" is powerless to ward off.
3 Women is best viewed with little foreknowledge of the story so I will not elaborate beyond that as to the psychic unraveling of these two. Suffice it to say that these two work in a kind of spa for the elderly. Its a location as bleak as the desert that surrounds it and equally void of emotion and character; the spa is run by the book and there is no room for anyone to show any individuality or to connect with others in any way but through professional roles and channels. Therefore Shelly Duvall's chattering is a constant earsore to her superiors, though to Sissy Spacek her chattering is like the one bit of proof that the spa does in fact have a pulse and that life does in fact exist.
The other two locations that figure prominently are the apartment complex (replete with seventies singles parties)and the desert bar where Millie and Pinky meet Willie, a highly eccentric artist-barkeep who expresses herself only visually. Her mosaics that decorate strangely unseen places like the unvisited and unseen oasis of a private pool bottom in the middle of nowhere are of haunting vengeful figures; the figures look Etruscan or Greek and they seem to forewarn of terrible things like the things in Greek tragedies.
The psyches in this film are each like unseen and unvisted oasis. We know next to nothing about the talkative Millie, the reticent wallflower Pinky, and the decidedly silent but intense and resentful Willie. All three do share one thing: they are women.
I urge Altman fans to view this, but also fans of Bergman's Persona, and DePalma's Sisters, and Polanski's Repulsion and fans of French directors like Claude Chabrol. This is an artsy (though in no way pretensious) film and not one you will ever fully cognitively master because it works at a level that defies rational, linear description.
Nashville is undoubtedly Altman's big budget masterpiece, but I think this one (now that people are able to finally view it) is becoming known as Altman's low-budget seventies masterpiece.
A film you will watch more than once, but I envy those of you who haven't seen it because the first viewing is the strangest. An absolutely singular experience.
I've tried to view all of Altman's seventies films but a few of them remain hard to track down. After many years I finally located California Split (recently released on DVD) and Thieves Like Us (still only available on VHS) but my favorite two Altman films are McCabe and Mrs. Miller (DVD) and The Long Goodbye (DVD). At least these two were my favorites before I viewed the most difficult to track down of all Altman films, 3 Women. Now its availbale on DVD but for years the only way you could see it was on late-night cable or in a New York art house revival of old Altman films. Nothing against 80's and 90's Altman but 70's Altman is where cinema begins and ends for anyone who grew up in that decade because Altman puts his finger right on something that no one even seems to see: that characters are always mysteriously disconnected from their surroundings, and that pop culture leaves its inhabitants curiously marooned in an artificial world and starved for connection to something real.
Altman has an uncanny knack for picking remote locations that simply re-inforce the feeling that each character is alone and buttressed by nothing but their own ingenuity. Whether its the beach house in Long Goodbye (which was Altmans own home at the time) or the rural suburbia of 3 Women these locations seem like utopian California dreamscapes that can with the bat of an eye turn into frightfully arid zones of psychic disintegration.
Altman was a painter for a time and though I am not aware of which painters he preferred I imagine he was influenced by the Bay Area figuritive artists like Diebenkorn whose Ocean Park series captures at once the lustre and menace of living in an enternally sunny oasis.
3 Women is frightening. Sissy Spacek is perhaps the most effective actress in recent cinema to make vacuity and emptiness seem so frightening. Shelly Duvall is equally good at conveying vacuity and emptiness but she fills her character "Millie's" void with an endless flow of words that at least provide her with the illusion that she is a coherent and functioning whole, thus rendering herself less vulnerable to the dissolution that Spacek's "Pinky" is powerless to ward off.
3 Women is best viewed with little foreknowledge of the story so I will not elaborate beyond that as to the psychic unraveling of these two. Suffice it to say that these two work in a kind of spa for the elderly. Its a location as bleak as the desert that surrounds it and equally void of emotion and character; the spa is run by the book and there is no room for anyone to show any individuality or to connect with others in any way but through professional roles and channels. Therefore Shelly Duvall's chattering is a constant earsore to her superiors, though to Sissy Spacek her chattering is like the one bit of proof that the spa does in fact have a pulse and that life does in fact exist.
The other two locations that figure prominently are the apartment complex (replete with seventies singles parties)and the desert bar where Millie and Pinky meet Willie, a highly eccentric artist-barkeep who expresses herself only visually. Her mosaics that decorate strangely unseen places like the unvisited and unseen oasis of a private pool bottom in the middle of nowhere are of haunting vengeful figures; the figures look Etruscan or Greek and they seem to forewarn of terrible things like the things in Greek tragedies.
The psyches in this film are each like unseen and unvisted oasis. We know next to nothing about the talkative Millie, the reticent wallflower Pinky, and the decidedly silent but intense and resentful Willie. All three do share one thing: they are women.
I urge Altman fans to view this, but also fans of Bergman's Persona, and DePalma's Sisters, and Polanski's Repulsion and fans of French directors like Claude Chabrol. This is an artsy (though in no way pretensious) film and not one you will ever fully cognitively master because it works at a level that defies rational, linear description.
Nashville is undoubtedly Altman's big budget masterpiece, but I think this one (now that people are able to finally view it) is becoming known as Altman's low-budget seventies masterpiece.
A film you will watch more than once, but I envy those of you who haven't seen it because the first viewing is the strangest. An absolutely singular experience.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
In The Desert...
Robert Altman is one of eight or ten directors who can truly be called avant-garde. This is not to say that he was the most obscure, because we know that's not true. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Anthony B. Cline
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very creative movie
This is the 2nd time I watched this movie - I saw it when it first came out. Very unusual plot esp. if you are into psychological movies and the acting is really good.
Published 4 months ago by M. Conway
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the memerable movies ive ever seen...
This was the first Altman movie I'd seen, and it had a lasting impression on me. I realized at the time that Altman was a cinematic genius, and still feel the same way today.
Published 8 months ago by MarcS
5.0 out of 5 stars
Phenomenal. Stunning on every level.
This movie is what the 70's seemed like it was about. Incredibly drawn characters, fascinating, in depth character sketches, and just plain incredible filmmaking. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Bill
3.0 out of 5 stars
Moody, slow-moving, perplexing & creepy. It's half brilliant and half...
I'll admit it; I almost couldn't get through 3 WOMEN. When I reached a point where I was sure it was 90 minutes into the film, I put it on pause, and saw that I had only seen 45... Read more
Published 9 months ago by RMurray847
5.0 out of 5 stars
Robert Altman's '3 Women' is one of the best films of the seventies.
The seventies and the eighties were incredibly fruitful for director Robert Altman. After the success of `MASH', he was given carte blanche by Twentieth Century Fox. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Steven Adam Renkovish
4.0 out of 5 stars
ratio
love the movie. it was great seeing it again after so many years. but it was not the advertised 1.77 to 1 ratio, which i had wanted. it was wider, letterboxed.
Published 16 months ago by david drake
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ultra-strange unsettling mildly stunning comic surrealism....with a...
Fantasticly unsettling at all times with never a moments' rest to get a grip on what is actually going on. Continual uncertainty til the very end- and even then you're not sure. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Dr. Morbius
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sisters Christmas that was unforgettable
She got the blue ray from mom and dad, so having a fantastic movie to watch was icing on the cake!
Published 16 months ago by Jescka
3.0 out of 5 stars
Altman is an American master
There can be no dispute regarding the greatness of Altman but this is a lesser work. He is not at his best with this combination of imitation of European surrealism and old school... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Donald Cronin
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