And Then There's Robert Altman

As you can probably tell, I love movies. I love them unapologeticly. I would often rather go to a movie than have a good meal or sit by a roaring fire with a brandy or watch the waves of a blue and green ocean spread toward me an a beautiful summer day. As I say, I love movies more than is reasonable for an adult person. Because of that, I will often forgive in movies what might be seen as flaws. I also love passion and artistic risk, so some of my favorite films are those that don't quite work but the attempt was grand, movies like Altman's Quintet (was I one of perhaps three people who ever saw this film?) and 3 Women (which was inspired by a nightmare Altman had one night). Robert Altman is a film maker who often takes grand risks, sets himself grand challenges. Usually, the risks pay off and he conquers the challenges, but even when he fails, he does so brilliantly. It's no wonder all the big stars in Hollywood are willing to play cameos (and often parody themselves) in his movies.

The first Altman movie I ever saw was Nashville. It was sprawling and unwieldy and breathtaking, the story of several musicians, both established and new, talented and not, performing in and around Nashville during a political campaign and their fans and fanatics and the wannabe hangers on. Although Altman denies that it was his intent, it presents an odd, compelling, satirical cross section of Americana. (Barbara Harris is a revelation - why did she quit acting and become a casting director, I wonder.) From the opening credits, which hilariously resemble a frenetic television ad for a music compilation, to the political rally at the end, nothing is predictable, everything surprises and I was swept along the ride down the rapids.

The next movie of his I saw was A Wedding, which was much smaller in scale and didn't quite hit the mark as well. I still liked it of course. In that movie, Altman set himself the challenge of presenting a huge cast of characters in a single setting in such a way that the audience ends up knowing and following them all. On this point he was very successful and I really admire him for the attempt, but the movie itself didn't quite flow as well as Nashville did.

Another thing I admire about Altman is that he continues to produce, no mater what. He simply doesn't care. If people stop liking his movies, he does television. And it's always innovative television (Tanner '88 has been copied many times by lessor talents). If he can't get television work, he directs theater. And then he comes back to the big screen and produces something stunning like Gosford Park, which pretends to be a murder mystery but is really a biting examination of class distinction and social mores in 1930s England, just as the "privileged class" was beginning to disintegrate.

Altman has dabbled in surrealism (Brewster Mccloud, 3 Women), social commentary (Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts), war (M*A*S*H), character study (Vincent & Theo), translations of theater (Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and Streamers) and translations of cartoons into movie musicals (Popeye). Although I haven't yet seen everything he's done (he's done so very much) I will see anything he does.


Geoff Hoff is co-owner of Joseph Coaler Productions and, with Steve Mancini, co-wrote the satirical novel "Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend".