Robert Altman: In Memoriam

"Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes."
-Robert Altman

If anybody lived many lifetimes through his work in cinema it was Robert Altman. For nearly four decades he made films that weaved in and out lives, genres, time periods, styles and formulas. Altman made movies on his own accord. He ignored any kind of demands or conventions that filmmakers periodically have to succumb to. His movies were unique and unmistakably Altman. He passed away of natural causes last night, November 21st, 2006; leaving behind a great legacy that included some of the finest, most original films ever seen in Hollywood. Some of his credits include M.A.S.H. (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1975), The Player (1992), Gosford Park (2001) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006).

Altman claimed that he wasn't interested in telling stories; he was interested in observing characters and letting the characters tell the stories. His films were typified by a distinct style of sound recording in which the conversations of all characters in a location could be heard at once. There were main characters in his films, and main courses of dialogue but it was never his main focus. A typical Altman scene might show seven or eight different audible conversations going on at the same time. He believed that cinema should be a reflection of real life. In real life there is rarely an occurence where the only noise is a direct conversation between two people. Life is noisy, messy and loud. Altman's camera would move into a scene and you would hear overlapping dialogue. A lot of the time the main conversations didn't matter; the tone of the room mattered. The characters converging into one place having different discussions with one another were his main interest. If you watch any invididual scene in any of his films you will almost automatically know what director you are seeing. His camera was constantly moving, focusing on all of the action rather than a limited amount of it. It's almost akin to entering a noisy, crowded bar. You might go to the bar with a handful of friends but you're looking at everyone; hearing random conversations of strangers and separating yourself from ordinary, intimate conversation. Altman made films as he saw reality and in doing so created one of the most distinctive and unique styles of any director.

Altman's first successful film was M.A.S.H. (1970), the story of a surgical unit in the army during the Korean War which went on to spawn one of the most largely successful TV series of all time. M.A.S.H. dealt with characters who used audacious, comedic behavior to deal with the tragedy of the war that surrounded them. They spend their days hacking and repairing wounded bodies and their nights drinking, partying and playing pranks. While M.A.S.H. took place during the Korean War it was made during a time when the Vietnam War was causing major social upheaval in the United States. The film may have taken place during Korea but it's attitude reflected Vietnam. It was completely audacious for a filmmaker to use war as a comedic setting at the time but it struck a chord with people. It was the most successful (financially speaking) film of his entire career. M.A.S.H. wasn't necessarily about war, but about the complex ways in which people dealt with being at war and the comedic actions of the characters function both as a representation of these feelings but as a criticism of how casually the government was treating the war at the time.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller(1971) stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as an outlaw and a prostitute trying to start up a business in a western mountain town. In a scene typical of the Altman style, when Beatty's McCabe first enters the tavern inside of the town there is very little clear conversation heard. From that attitude of the murmurings in the room we can tell that McCabe is somewhat of an important man but we're not sure why he's there or what he's trying to accomplish. The town in general is a very dirty, grimy, cold, unpleasant location in the middle of nowhere that seems to have sprung up from the earth. There are archetypes of American Westerns in the film, but it's essentially about unpleasant, sad, lonely characters trying to make the best for themselves in a place where doing so is almost a lost cause. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a Western in the same sense that M.A.S.H. is a war movie. It's more about how the people function in their settings than the settings themselves.

Nashville (1975) is Altman's greatest masterpiece. It involves nearly 25 different main characters and follows them throughout the course of 3 days in Nashville, Tennessee. 25 characters may seem like to much to follow but the way he handles them in the film allows for each individual person to have unique personalities. He's draws sympathy for everyone and waves in and out of their stories effortlessly. The film deals with politics, women, the quest for fame, dissillusionment with fame, an assasination attempt, a rags to riches story, the ways that people who don't know each other can effect each other's lives and it also contains some wonderful musical numbers. It's a very broad film; one that's heavy in scope and many people have trouble answering what exactly Nashville is about. It's about a lot of things, but most importantly it's about life and how those 25 characters live it.

Some of Altman's other films include:

-The Long Goodbye (1973): Elliott Gould stars as legendary Raymond Chandler detective Phillip Marlowe, in a complete subversion of the genre. Marlowe was often a strong willed, hardnosed detective (famously played by Humphrey Bogart), but The Long Goodbye transforms him into a moderately dim, awkward simpleton who struggles with his job and his big case. Altman subverts the film noir genre, but like most of his films the movie isn't about the crime, but about the people involved.

-Three Women (1977): A frightening, surreal, nightmarish portrait about the relationship between two women. It's an often confusing film (Altman claimed that the entire story, right down to the casting came to him in a dream) and often very frustrating as well but the confusion and frustration underlines the message of women having trouble finding identity in society.

-The Player (1992): A wickedly sharp, biting satire of Hollywood starring Tim Robbins as a film producer accused of murder. Altman never had much a relationship with Hollywood studios (one of the main reasons that he was able to make whatever films he wanted for pretty much his entire career) and The Player depicts Hollywood as a savage place which can make or break lives and careers without pause as long as it's assembly line keeps churning. The film is more about Hollywood itself than it's characters and on that level it's a very personal film for Altman. It shows that real, artistic filmmaking often has to take place away from the confines of a studio and in the minds of the filmmakers.

-Gosford Park (2001): At the base level, it's an Agatha Christie murder mystery. On a deeper level, it's a sharp criticism of the upper class, the treatment of servitude, the mistreatment of women and the skeletons in the closets of the wealthy. The murder in the film and who committed it doesn't matter as much as the message and the impact the situation has on the people involved.

I haven't even lifted half of his films but I've listed ones that all have similarities. These movies are not necessarily about what happens in them, or how it happens. These films are not about the stories they tell but about the messages they are trying to convey, the characters who go through the experiences and how Altman personally relates to these stories. Among these films you see a Western (McCabe and Mrs. Miller), a musical (Nashville), a murder mystery (Gosford Park) and a detective story (The Long Goodbye) and a horror film (Three Women) but it's a stretch to claim that these films distinctly fit into any of these genres. Altman was a genre unto himself. He re-imagined the typical nature of genres and created his own visions of them. He placed characters into contexts and put forward messages about them. He made films with passion, humor, creativity and poignancy. One would have a very hard time classifying a film like Nashville other than stating simply that it's a Robert Altman movie.

Perhaps it's fitting that Altman's last film was this year's A Prairie Home Companion, the story of Garrison Keillor and his famous radio show of the same name. The movie deals with the fictional premise of Keillor's show being cancelled and the reactions of everyone involved. In one very poignant bit of dialogue in the film, Keillor states:

"I'm of an age when if I started to do eulogies, I'd be doing nothing else, I don't want them to be told to remember me."

A Prairie Home Companion is a celebration of Keillor's work and about how it will live on even if the show does go off the air. Perhaps Altman knew that he was heading towards the end of his life and wanted to make a statement about how great work will be remembered for being just that. I believe that Altman would rather have his life and his work celebrated than mourned. While it is a sad day when one of the greatest minds in the history of American filmmaking passes on, it is also a time to refelct upon the wonderful films that he made. At the end of his life, few people will need to be told to remember Robert Altman. His work will carry on his memory for a very, very long time.

Rest in Peace Mr. Altman.