Robert Altman

I manipulate my Netflix queue as if it were a chessboard. I am constantly creating mini-film festivals for an audience of one. After the news came that Robert Altman was being awarded an honorary Oscar, I assembled a list of his films that I have not seen or not seen recently and bumped them up to the top of the queue. So far, I have watched The Player, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, California Split, and The Company. Sitting at home waiting for viewing are Nashville and 3 Women, while Short Cuts and Buffalo Bill and the Indians are still in the queue. I own M*A*S*H*, which I will be watching again soon (perhaps tonight). I saw Gosford Park somewhat recently, so it is fairly fresh in my memory.

I suppose like most film aficianados, my opinion of Altman is hit-or-miss. M*A*S*H* is one of my favorite films of all time, reinforced by the way it makes me think of my father, who is also a big fan of the movie. We are always quoting favorite lines from it to each other, especially the line that Henry Blake says to Spearchucker: "We need some plays." The Player is also a hoot. But there's some head-scratching work in the oeuvre as well, as Altman is not a man who just wants to churn out crowd-pleasing pablum. After watching some of his films back to back, and either listening to commentary or watching interviews in the featurettes, it is clear that he is all about confounding the viewer. This is most famously accomplished by his use of over-lapping dialogue. But it happens in other ways, too. He is not interested in story, he says, he sees filmmaking as painting. Thus we get a detective story (Gosford Park) which is interested in the whodunit, or a film about a ballet company (The Company) that has little conflict, other than that the ballet takes place or not. M*A*S*H*, for all it's rebellious charm, does not really have a plot, either, just one episode after another.


Altman seems to have dedicated his career to taking genres and turning them inside out. Whether it's the Western, the war film, the mystery, film noir, or what have you, Altman assembles actors and lets them improvise while he re-invents, painting pictures that are thought provoking, occasionally moving, occasionally head-scratching, but rarely boring.

He has had some turkeys, such as Popeye, Quintet (which was sci-fi), Pret-a-Porter (I saw that in a theater, and have no wish to see it again), and O.C. and Stiggs. But even in his eighties he continues to work, and I look forward to his next film, Prairie Home Companion. And, judging from his persona in interviews and commentaries, I think he'd be a cool guy to hang out with.