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Robert Altman: Movies
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Robert Altman emerged from his long slump of the 1980s with this fascinating examination of the relationship between painter Vincent van Gogh and his artdealer brother, Theo. The ups and downs of Altman's career made him uniquely qualified for a movie that examines the compromises that art and commerce must make for each other. Tim Roth shines as the troubled painter.
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If Robert Altman hadn't directed this movie, the reviews would have described it as Altmanesque. It's a mixture of the bizarre and the banal, a slice of lives that could never have been led, a richly textured mixture of confessions, obsessions, and surprises.
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Altman's subsequent films were not as popular with audiences, but were critically and artistically important. He reworked several genres, making them realistic and character driven. The 1970 film Brewster McCloud was a fantasy focusing on a man who lives inside Houston's Astrodome and longs to fly inside it. In 1971, he made McCabe and Mrs. Miller, a so-called "anti-western." The unromantic movie made the previously heroic westerner type into an opportunistic capitalist. It ... featured some of Altman's trademarks, including overlapping dialogue on the soundtrack. He took on the film noir genre with The Long Goodbye (1973), using the Raymond Chandler detective character, Phillip Marlowe.
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“The people who get into this business are fast-buck operators, carnival people, always have been,” Mr. Altman said in a 1993 interview. “They don’t try to make good movies now; they’re trying to make successful movies. The marketing people run it now. You don’t really see too many smart people running the studios, running the video companies. They’re all making big money, but they’re not looking for, they don’t have a vested interest in the shelf life of a movie. There’s no overview.
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Over the course of his career, the sometimes feisty Altman was noted for working with large casts of actors, with performances by women often receiving particular acclaim in his films. Introduced as having worked with "every actor from Lillian Gish to Lindsay Lohan," by critic Peter Travers (who moderated last month's Hamptons conversation), Altman was asked what still excited him about making movies. "The cast," Altman responded immediately, "It's always the cast." He added, "As you pull a layer off, you realize they are really courageous, really gutsy...I admire them for what they bring to me (and) to the audience."
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Altman married his third wife, Kathryn Reed, in 1959. They remained married until his death. He had six children: Michael, Stephen and Christine from his first two marriages; an adopted son, Matthew; Robert, his son with Reed; and Konni, Reed's daughter from a previous relationship. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
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