My Altman Vacation Ends

Over a week and 13 films. Here are some thoughts:

1. Altman is an artist.
2. He is a quintessential American artist.
3. Mia Farrow is powerfully miscast in A Wedding.
4. Altman made bona fide masterpieces in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the first decade of the new millennium.
5. These blogs were an experiment for myself about an experimental artist.
6. Lists suck; as do some of these blog entries. However, there are some that I'm quite proud of.
7. Seven is a good number to stop.

A Perfect Couple (1979)

Dooley and Heflin are decent peeps. They're normal peeps. It's easy to want them to be together.

This, the last Altman film of the 70s, is more about the music. It's dated and it took me out of it. Easily the most commercial and traditional film of 70s Altman.

I would have been four this year and more than likely have been running around outside. I wanted to be doing that while I watched this film. Not a bad film and not a fair mood to be in while watching it. Easily the most forgettable of an unforgettable decade of cinema.

Quintet (1979)

Part of me or perhaps a lot of me has a profound dislike for logical and deductive reasoning. I rely upon it for the majority of the day. Language should be so freeing and discursive.

Quintet is a game. Its rules are never formally announced in the film. I ain't going to ask Sartre for a ruling neither. Vivia, Brigitte Fossey, and Ambrosia, Bibi Andersson, are wonderful characters and both actresses give wonderful performances.

This futuristic film feels set on a film set and looks like it. Even the snow feels artificial. Some beautiful quiet and vulnerable moments, mostly with Newman with Fossey and Andersson.

One film left in the vacation.

A Wedding (1978)

This film is the progeny of M.A.S.H. "Dairy Queen. Sound's perfect."

This is a film where the sane people are doped up which makes them crazy. It is also the film where shouting "don't panic" gets everyone into a panic.

Irony abounds. It's also a film where the filmmaker and the audience are on the outside looking in.

3 Women (1977)

A long, long time ago (1977) in a galaxy (California "which sure does look a lot like Texas") far, far away, there were three women: Pinky, Millie, and Willie.

This is the film I had in mind when I wanted to start blogging about cinema. I don't know what the future holds for the digital age of cinema. I have to admit I absolutely love softly- lit films. There's a certain lack of literal focus to the image, and the light hits everything in a wonderfully blended and blurred way.

I had no idea how little Sissy Spacek is; or maybe, Shelley Duvall is quite tall. No matter. Spacek has beautiful golden hair in this one. The painted murals in the pool are amazing against the backdrop of the desert. I love all of the images in the film of Janice Rule.

The score is something else; it's a mix of dark tones with whistles. See it...at least three times.

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)

Included as a supplement on the DVD is the original featurette, made by the studio, which lets potential moviegoers in the know. There are scenes of the film's star, Paul Newman, walking around with a cup of coffee in one hand and his script in the other. There are shots of the director, Robert Altman, directing the film's star in the film's final scene.

Sitting Bull is Buffalo Bill's newest diva. He competes only with Buffalo Bill for top billing and biggest ego. Annie Oakley's a star, as well, and from time to time, she lets everyone know that.

A film which is a curiosity at its inception is still a curiosity and an oddity, today. Absent are any Altman quiet moments, which I've grown accustomed to during this vacation. There is perhaps one, but it's lost on me. The scene comes off as a character, an aging star, having a bout of morning DTs. Little resonance beyond that.

This is a film more looked at than watched.

Nashville (1975)

The year of my birth. The preceding year, Nixon resigned, and the following year was an election year. I was born in Georgia and I remember my parents having a crazy amount of Carter buttons in junk drawers around the house. 1976 marked a special occasion for the United States of America.

I went to Opryland once as a child on a vacation and I don't remember it. However, I would probably remember all of the events of this film over the course of a couple days, regardless of my age.

I watched this film with English subtitles. I wanted to read the lyrics of all the songs. The subtitles were probably hell in the making for the person making them. However, almost every audible piece of language is transcribed. The subtitles do not distract from the images. I have no idea how Altman would have felt about subtitles for his film.

The actresses really standout in this one, all of them. Lily Tomlin, Karen Black, and Ronee Blakley standout amongst them. This is a wonderfully dated film which perfectly dates the period in which it was made.

California Split (1974)

This is a film about addiction and the people that you meet in addiction. It shows both the lonely side and the fun part and the result.

Like Thieves Like Us, there is another beautiful scene in a bedroom. Another quiet moment where two characters, thinking no one else is around, open up to each other.

I've never had a liking for casinos. Still don't.

There's a wonderful scene where Ann Prentiss digs her TV Guide out from under a couch cushion upon which George Segal is attempting to get some sleep. I love how she opens it up and reads a little bit of it and falls asleep. I completely understand that ritual.

This one's totally surreal and very real. Nashville's next.

Thieves Like Us (1974)

Mississippi during the Depression. Interestingly, Altman captured a real feel of the state. It's still a little surprising how much it hasn't changed.

This is a film about the transition from youth to adulthood. Carradine and Duvall really shine in their quiet moments together. I cannot think of another film where there was really vulnerability shown between two characters. I also love the old-time radio programs playing throughout the whole film, a very beautiful touch.

Another empty church appears off of a country road. Coke bottles and Coke signs are everywhere. The Coke imagery doesn't feel like a modern product placement. It feels very much like Americana and part of the landscape.

One of my favorite memories of 2008 was driving through the Delta and watching the sun come up over the fields. I love the open road with wide fields on either side. Old farm equipment and shacks, here and there.

This one's a real jewel in Altman's filmography. Like his previous films, this one has brilliant touches of the surreal. I love how he seemingly can tap into that vein with ease.

The Long Goodbye (1973)

The private eye film. I absolutely love crime fiction and crime films. This one's a real gem of not only the 70s but of all time. Gould's portrayal of Chandler's Phillip Marlowe as chain-smoking, mumbling, and to-the-point is classic.

I love the soft photography of the film. Los Angeles was certainly growing during this period. The shots of Gould standing near the shoreline of the beach, as a reflection in the glass are beautiful. Really indicative of the whole tone of the film--here's a loner and an outsider just reaching in to life in the big city. While it grows and changes, the city's culture grows and changes. Marlowe stays the same, but in the end, he's a little wiser for the better.

Images (1972)

The darkest film of Altman's, so far into the vacation. With the exception of Rene Auberjonois, there are not many familiar faces.

I am a very passive viewer of films. Mostly, they put me to bed after a long day. Sometimes I fall asleep after five or ten minutes and sometimes I can't get to bed and end up watching two or three.

This one I just let go. The reoccurring images of wind chimes, hanging prisms, and the like; the printed mirror; the idea that several actors are really portraying one or no men; York's doppelganger; and the wonderful Irish countryside. These are a few of the things that I caught.

I didn't pick up on the children's story that York narrated in voice over throughout the film. The credits reveal that she also authored the story. An obscure film, and I believe that the DVD is OOP.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

McCabe is shy, introverted, and inarticulate. He has a fondness for liquid courage. Mrs. Miller is direct, ambitious, and smart. She's quite fond of opium. Both fall in love with each other in this tale of American ambition set in the Northwest.

Wonderfully shot with a beautiful brown hue, it's totally nontraditional and surreal. I love the idea of the built-up town, wherein the church lies completely unused, save for a stockpile of junk. The idea that people's reputation often precede them is subverted and shown as quite often wrong. Moments of vulnerability are often shown alone. Warren Beatty's best scene is of him getting dressed, pouring his heart out to Christie.

Brewster McCloud (1970)

Pee Wee Herman's bicycle ain't in the basement of the Alamo, but Brewster McCloud lives in the fallout shelter in the Houston Astrodome. This is the "something else" from the director of M.A.S.H.

This was the only film of Altman's that was unavailable to me on DVD. I purchased a copy on VHS from a seller on the Amazon Marketplace. The over-sized, sun-faded VHS box brought back many a memory to me of video stores of VHS boxes lining shelves. This one must have sat near a window for many a day.

I currently hang my hat in Houston, and it was fun seeing a lot of Houston landmarks. Streets that I often drive are name-dropped. Places that I visit, like Humble, are sped through by the characters in this very surreal film.

This film makes fun of a lot films of its day and the evocative images within those films, such as the modern machismo of Bullitt and Shaft. Altman even makes fun of M.A.S.H., allowing the viewer the opportunity to see Sally Kellerman topless in a fountain, whereas in M.A.S.H. she was covered by well-placed benches, lighting, and her own towel. Shelley Duvall is about the cutest thing that I've ever seen. I absolutely love this one. Altman's batting two-for-two.

The Astrodome, bright and shiny and new in this film, isn't home to the Astros anymore. I don't know what kind of events are held there today. There might actually be someone living in the fallout shelter of the Astrodome today. And more power to them.

M.A.S.H. (1970)

While America was in the midst of the Vietnam War, Altman chose to make a film about the Korean War. It does not have one scene of combat.

When I was a kid, I often watched reruns of M.A.S.H. on television. I had no idea that it was first a film or that it was set in Korea.

Altman's film is truly a piece of Americana. It highlights the intellectual, logical, and dedicated doctors, who are very human. Intense on the job and mischievous and loose when off. Just about everything is ripe for comment: war, racism, religion, sexism, feminism, science, and politics.

I absolutely love the fact that Altman almost fills the final third of his film with a football game. I've always thought that no matter what was happening in the world that I would still be sitting in front of my television watching football on Sunday. The best scene in the film is when the wartime doctors take the young Korean kid, who they've been housing on their base, in to town. There is this overwhelming sense of humiliation and defeat in the scene as the crew realizes that their joke isn't going to work this time. Altman plays the scene with little melodramatic effect and most of the impact of the scene comes much later. In fact, a lot of this film stayed with me for a long time later. A must-see.

My Altman Vacation

I am really fortunate to have a working vacation during March, and for whatever reason, I've decided to watch all of Robert Altman's films from the 70s. Some I have seen more than once and some I have not seen at all. I miss Altman and really miss his creative spirit.