movies

Robert Altman (1925-2006)

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 2 Comments

A friend just emailed me the news that Robert Altman has died.

I emailed back:

It's too bad, of course, but not surprising, and it makes him one of only two major directors I can think of who went out at the peak of his powers, after a long career, and with a final film which was fitting (in subject and style) to be his final film. John Huston is the other, and he knew and planned that The Dead would be his last. Altman's situation was different (he wasn't directing from a hospital bed, for one thing), but he obviously knew it was possible it would be the last one. He knew that, at the end of A Prairie Home Companion, the person the Dangerous Woman was coming for might be him.

It's too bad there won't be any more, but there are a hell of a lot of good ones (and quite a few great ones) to look back on. Going out as he did, after a long life doing what he wanted, and doing it as well as anybody ever has, that's the best deal any of us can hope for.

So, see all his films, if you haven't (or even if you have), but most especially McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, Nashville, Kansas City, Gosford Park, and A Prairie Home Companion.

In other news, I scurried out today at lunch time and bought Against the Day, the new novel by Thomas Pynchon. I've read the first chapter already, and I'll write about that more here when I'm not supposed to be working.

Addendum:

I just read that Elliot Gould said of Altman, "He was the last great American director in the tradition of John Ford." I think this is very true, much more accurate than all the descriptions calling him a maverick and a Hollywood outsider. Ford, Hawks, Huston, these were directors who knew how to make the films they wanted to make, within the Hollywood establishment, entertaining and artistic and individual. As the saying goes, a film where you could tell who the devil made it, which was certainly true of Altman.

He was the last, the next generation were all the film school graduates: Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola (pere). A very different breed.

Addendum #2:

I talk about the honorary Oscar and Altman's influence on me here.

My Robert Altman reviews are here.

movie sex

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ Leave a comment

A reader commented that the sex scene here was, "probably some of the most down-to-earth writing about the realities of sex I've seen." Then he added, "But that's not saying much, as I rarely read about sex. 😉 "

Here was my reply:

My mother and I always laugh about "movie sex" (you know, the perfect lighting, the carefully arranged body parts, the slow motion, the smooth music, no sweat, no bruises or unexpected bodily noises). Let alone the emotions, where couples who are going to stay together always seem to have perfectly happy sex. You seldom see "I'm mad at myself and I'm not all that damn happy about you either" sex in movies, though it's not at all uncommon in reality.

Which is why I went more explicit with the characters in the scene I linked to above, since it was necessary to show how conflicted her feelings are (about a lot of things), and she mostly only expresses herself in sex (the rest of the time she's pretty careful what she presents to the world).

I was less explicit with the married couple here because what was interesting there was the conversation they had on the deck, not the sex itself. Which is another complaint I have about sex in movies. Conversation after sex is almost always mushy stuff, whereas in my experience post-coital conversation can range across any topic in the world (including, but certainly not limited to, the sex and the relationship). Which is why both couples at Perry's house cover quite a few different subjects in their "pillow talk."

I was less explicit with the younger lovers here, because of the reason above, but also because of a desire not to feed anybody's fantasies.

better than nothing

~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 1 Comment

This year, an honorary Oscar will be given to Robert Altman. That's always bittersweet, because it pretty much seals that he'll never get a real one. And, since he's been my favorite movie director for most of the last 30+ years, and he's still in his prime (at 81), that's really too bad. He's been nominated as best director five times, not always for his best work, and he's never won.

The most galling was 2002, when not only did he direct a masterpiece (Gosford Park), but there were even two other directors in the running (David Lynch, for Mulholland Drive, and Peter Jackson, for the first Lord of the Rings movie) who were, in my humble opinion, better than the actual winner (Ron Howard, for A Beautiful Mind).

But, to concentrate on the positive, Altman's movies are as good as ever, and he's still making them. A Prairie Home Companion comes out in June (though he's now at the age when he needs another director on set in case he can't finish a movie).

Once, years ago, he was asked how he felt about that the fact that, at that time, many of his best movies weren't available on video. He said, "What can I do? I make another movie."

Thinking back, I think I have been more influenced by Robert Altman's movies than by any writer I've ever read. For a specific example, the "big chapters" in U-town: Curse the Darkness, The Funeral and The Burning. All those characters, all those plot lines, all those conversations and cross-purposes. Where did I learn to do that if not from McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Nashville? I had a writing professor once who said that the hardest thing to write was a party, and, if I've done it well (a funeral, a large one, is structurally the same as a party), I didn't learn it from reading, but from seeing Robert Altman's movies.

For another example, as I wrote once, many of Robert Altman's films begin by thrusting us into the middle of a complex story and letting us figure out characters and plots and motivations (and even names) as best we can. Well, looking back at the beginnings of both A Sane Woman and U-town, it's pretty obvious that I do that, too.

I could go on, but you get the idea. By the way, there's a pretty good article about Altman and the Oscar here.

On other fronts, I am finally (more or less) better from the flu, and if it seems like a while ago when I first mentioned it, I agree. 🙂