{"id":1153,"date":"2004-11-14T13:12:34","date_gmt":"2004-11-14T17:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=1153"},"modified":"2010-10-02T01:15:58","modified_gmt":"2010-10-02T05:15:58","slug":"dr-t-and-the-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=1153","title":{"rendered":"Dr. T and the Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Women are incapable of being bad luck by \r\nthemselves. It's men who make them that way. Women, by nature, are \r\nsaints. They're sacred, and should be treated that way.\"<\/I><\/P> \r\n \r\n

– Dr. Sullivan Travis<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Robert Altman's movies often begin in chaos. The \r\ncamera moves, characters pass by, snatches of conversation are \r\nheard, and we seldom learn anywhere near as much as we want to, but \r\nalmost always enough to make us curious. The beginning of \r\n\"Dr. T and the Women\" \r\nis masterful, as the camera moves in and out and around and through \r\nthe waiting room and examining rooms of Dr. Sullivan Travis, a very \r\nupscale gynecologist in Dallas, Texas.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Robert Altman's movies often begin in chaos, and \r\nusually they coalesce, though not always. \"Dr. T and the Women\" is \r\nprecarious until the very end. I think that ultimately it does work, \r\nthough there is a sudden element of magical realism at the end which \r\nis neither appropriate nor necessary.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

However, I can certainly understand people who think \r\nthis movie doesn't work. What I don't agree with, though, is the \r\nargument that it's sexist. In talking about \"King Lear,\" \r\nOrson Welles\r\nsaid that someone like Lear, a \"man's man\" who lives with his knights \r\n(his Queen is long dead), totally clueless about women, was clearly, \r\nin Shakespeare's eyes, a real loser.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Altman has taken this idea one step further, showing \r\nus a man who is surrounded by women on all sides (his family is all \r\nfemale, his staff is all female, and, of course, so are his patients) \r\nbut is still as totally wrong about them as Lear. When Dr. \r\nT is out hunting with his buddies, the only time we see him with men, \r\nhe comes off as an authority on the subject of women, sagely giving \r\nthem the wisdom I've quoted above. \r\nIt reminded me of \"The Philadelphia Story,\" with all those \r\ndisagreements about whether Tracy Lord was like a goddess, or more \r\nlike a queen.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Another director might have thrown a wink at the \r\naudience, to make sure we realize that he knows what horseshit this all \r\nis, but (as I've said before) Altman always prefers to assume that his \r\naudience is paying attention and thinking for themselves.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Admittedly, most of Dr. T's patients (all idle \r\nupper-class women) are pampered and foolish and bitchy and vain, but \r\nthe point is that Dr. T encourages and enables all of this. He books \r\nrepeated appointments for women who have nothing wrong with them (thereby \r\nclogging his calendar and delaying the appointments of the few \r\npatients with actual ailments). He and his staff flatter all of his \r\npatients constantly. He indulges his patients in every way, most \r\nhilariously in the scene where he allows a woman to smoke while he \r\nexamines her.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

The ultimate result of all this is shown with Dr. \r\nT.'s wife, Kate, who basically reverts to being a child because for years \r\nhe's treated her like one. He wants to give her \r\neverything, shield her from things that are unpleasant or troubling, flatter \r\nand adore her, never thinking that this might not be what she wants or \r\nneeds at all. She is hospitalized after she takes off all \r\nher clothes and cavorts in a mall fountain, and her doctor explains to \r\nDr. T that she is suffering from Hestia Complex.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Hestia Complex (which does not really exist, as far \r\nas I can tell) is something that supposedly happens to women who are loved too \r\nmuch, but Dr. T doesn't understand how he could have caused this, or \r\nwhy he's not being allowed to see his wife.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

The other element in Dr. T's crisis is that he meets \r\nBree Davis, the new golf pro at his club. A former member of the pro \r\ntour, she's pretty and intelligent and funny, and they hit it off \r\nright away.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

And this is where Dr. T's cluelessness becomes \r\nimpossible to ignore. Bree seduces him on their first date, and he \r\nimmediately begins operating under the assumption that they're in \r\nlove (he doesn't seem particularly worried about the ethics of the \r\nsituation, either). As time goes on, he starts to make more assumptions about \r\ntheir relationship, completely ignoring all the realities of the \r\nsituation:<\/P> \r\n \r\n

1) He's a married man, devoted to his wife,<\/P> \r\n \r\n

2) his wife is institutionalized,<\/P> \r\n \r\n

3) Bree is a professional athlete, just taking a \r\nbreak from the pro tour, and<\/P> \r\n \r\n

4) her seduction of him is as brisk and efficient as \r\nany you're likely to see, in or out of the movies.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

In addition, this expert on women is \r\noblivious to the fact that his nurse is desperately in love with him, \r\nhe's oblivious (as far as we can tell) to that fact that his \r\nsister-in-law (who's living with him, along with her three \r\ndaughters) is a lush, and he's oblivious to the fact \r\nthat his daughter, who's about to be married, is gay and in love with \r\nher maid of honor.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

All of these threads come together at the end of the \r\npicture, along with some unnecessarily apocalyptic weather, to put Dr. \r\nT face to face with two things. He realizes that women may \r\nnot actually want the smothering devotion he calls love (he offers it to Bree, \r\ndescribing his vision of their life together in detail, and \r\nshe quite reasonably asks, \"why would I want that<\/I>?\"). And he \r\nrealizes, or remembers, that his original motivation to become a \r\ndoctor may have been for some reason other than providing flattery and \r\npampering to the wives of Dallas' elite.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

I won't reveal the final scene, except to say that I \r\nthink it works (once you get past the phony \"magical \r\nrealism\" transitional device, which is every bit as silly as the frogs in \r\n\"Magnolia\"), and to report that there was applause \r\nin the theater where I saw the film.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

I thought Richard Gere's performance was excellent, \r\nthough I admit that I don't have much to compare it to, since this is \r\nthe first film I've seen him in since \"Days of Heaven.\" Altman uses \r\nGere's movie star looks and demeanor just as he has in the past with \r\nPaul Newman. Outside of Gere and Helen Hunt, nobody in the cast has a \r\nwhole lot to do. This is not a multi-character fugue like Nashville<\/A> or \"Short Cuts.\" All \r\nthe characters are basically only there because of how they relate to \r\nDr. T.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

The best performance in the picture, besides Gere \r\nhimself, is Shelley Long, who plays Dr. T's adoring nurse Carolyn. I \r\nusually don't care for Long all that much, but once again Altman has taken \r\nsomebody we know mostly from television and figured out \r\nexactly what they could do best in a movie. She gets more laughs \r\naround the edges of many scenes than any of the other actors do \r\nwhen they're center stage.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Altman has used Lyle Lovett in minor roles in \r\nseveral films, but this time Lovett doesn't appear on screen but \r\ninstead provides the soundtrack, and it's very good. The music (by \r\nLovett and his Large Band) is light and mostly understated, subtly \r\ntelling \r\nus how to take certain scenes. For example, it's really the music \r\nwhich makes sure we see Kate's dip in the fountain as sad rather than \r\nfunny. Also, Lovett's songs \"You've Been So Good Up To Now\" and \r\n\"She's Already Made Up Her Mind\" run through Bree's seduction of Dr. \r\nT, commenting on the action without being at all redundant.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

There are two things which keep this from being in the first rank of \r\nrecent Altman films. One is the ending, which is flawed, as I said. \r\nThe other is that its concerns are so narrow. It has one basic theme, \r\none story to tell and one point to make, and this makes it pretty thin \r\ncompared to \r\n \r\nCookie's Fortune<\/A> and, especially, \r\nKansas City<\/A>. But still, it's \r\nworth seeing.<\/P> \r\n \r\n

Dr. T<\/B>: Do I make you happy?<\/I><\/P> \r\n \r\n

Bree<\/B>: I'm a very happy person.<\/I><\/P> \r\n \r\n

Dr. T and the Women<\/BIG>
(2000)<\/SPAN><\/B>
\r\nDirected by Robert Altman
\r\nWritten by Annie Rapp
 
\r\nCast:<\/SPAN><\/B>
\r\nDr. Sullivan Travis : Richard Gere
\r\n \r\nBree Davis : Helen Hunt
\r\n \r\nKate Travis : Farrah Fawcett
\r\n \r\nPeggy : Laura Dern<\/A>
\r\n \r\nCarolyn : Shelley Long
\r\n \r\nConnie : Tara Reid
\r\n \r\nDee Dee : Kate Hudson
\r\n \r\nMarilyn : Liv Tyler
\r\n \r\nHarlan : Robert Hays
\r\n \r\nBill : Matt Malloy
\r\n \r\nEli : Andy Richter
\r\n \r\nDr. Harper : Lee Grant\r\n

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