My friend Lauren Cowdrey wrote a recommendation of Robert Altman’s 3 Women (1977) for VHS Tracking Issue 2. I finally watched it recently and thought it was great. Lauren’s review from the zine says it better than I could: “The first time I saw it I was struck by its beauty, like a painting both fluid and impressionistic. Visualised in a dream of his, it was created during that most fertile period of exploratory 1970’s film-making where cinema and art were so closely aligned. It slips somewhere between Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) and like a mirage, it is illusive and difficult to define. A wide-eyed and innocent Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) arrives in a dusty Californian town and begins work at a spa for the elderly. Immediately she is drawn with jealousy and awe to her colleague Millie (Shelley Duvall) a lonely, yet outwardly cosmopolitan woman. Once we are introduced to the spectral third woman, the artist, Willie (Janice Rule), a symbiosis of identities occurs and their psyches begin to blur and overlap. What unravels from that point on creates a deep sense of unease, dotted throughout by a clever, haunting score. Altman’s well known loose and collaborative style entrusts these actresses with improvisational freedom and their performances are fantastic. 3 Women is a surreal and completely compelling masterpiece.”
VHS Tracking 