"I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me."

Robert Altman
Filmmaker

Robert Altman began what would become a lifetime of prolific filmmaking in the 1950's in his native Kansas City, making industrial and documentary films at the Calvin Company. His feature directorial debut, made in Kansas City, was the teenage gang drama The Delinquents (1957). Altman then spent several years directing episodes of top television series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Bonanza. He quickly moved on to feature films, directing the taut space drama Countdown in 1968 and the enigmatic thriller That Cold Day in the Park in 1969. When his next film M*A*S*H hit screens in hit screens in 1970, it signaled the arrival of a master artist. It was singular, signature filmmaking. An irreverent black comedy about surgeons in a Korean War medical unit, it won the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival, and firmly established Altman as a major American director.

M*A*S*H was an experiment of craft and comedy. At first, the camerawork is reminiscent of Bresson, seeming to stand apart, glancing over the big picture with cool detachment, but Altman's lens ultimately forces you to read the details. When Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and Trapper John (Elliot Gould) parade past corpses in garish golf gear, the film discovers its axis, perched tenuously between madness and melancholy. The moment is funny, but not the obvious slapstick of the final football sequence; and it is disturbing, though not nearly as poignant as bloody surgery scenes that Altman demanded stay in the final cut. It is this intelligent, underlying balance that informs the film's humor; it's the Altman punch-line.

M*A*S*H featured a sprawling cast of largely featured a sprawling cast of largely unknown actors, so naturalistic that you might assume that they are purely improvising, except that the arching nuances and comic timing hit all too perfectly. Sutherland and Gould's characters embody Altman's split perspective on America, full of anti-authoritarian cynicism and swaggering braggadocio. They are neither the accidental heroes, nor the slow-witted innocents of traditional combat films. They are wise-cracking revolutionaries, smart enough to see through the charade and insanity of war. In general, it is not a fixed disdain for authority that Altman expresses in his films. Instead, he simply combines an outsider's view with a little wit and lets the absurdity of the establishment reveal itself.

This type of metaphoric political posturing would recur in Altman's career, and have significant influence over filmmakers from Hal Ashby (Being There) to Steven Soderbergh (Traffic). By the release of Nashville in 1975, Altman had already perfected it.

Nashville was not conceived as a film about a city and its industry but as a film about America and its obsession with fame and success. Altman merges 24 vaguely interwoven stories set in the world of country music and contemporary politics. It is a film of superb improvisational performances, heart-wrenching sadness and vulnerability, and madcap satire and fun. What Altman began with his use of the loudspeaker in M*A*S*H, becomes a fully realized innovation of multi-track sound editing in Nashville. Actors' dialogue, original song lyrics, snippets of overheard conversations, radio soundbites and the ever-present political slogans of candidate Hal Phillip Walker create a lush and layered soundtrack, a subconscious character made up of quirky references and gags. Film critic Pauline Kael called Nashville "The funniest epic vision of America ever to reach the screen."

What Altman achieved with Nashville has influenced an ethereal, atmospheric style of filmmaking that relies on story, mood and character situations without depending on strict plot formulas. While wholly structured, the film has a meandering quality, combined with a mythic treatment of its locale and inhabitants. Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia is a sprawling ode to L.A. and Altman himself.

In a 2001 interview for DGA Magazine, Altman was philosophical about his own successes. "M*A*S*H is 30 years old now and Nashville is 25; and I've gone back and seen these films. I still think they're terrific. So I haven't gotten any better. I won't get better. I got more facile, more efficient, I learned how to do things and achieve what I want more effortlessly. There's a big danger, though, that if you get too facile, you lose the art."

Altman's filmmaking is natural, unpredictable and versatile. His skill at braiding together large stories, emotional performances and political satire has characterized a number of his other films, including the scathing, paranoid film-industry odyssey The Player (1992); the gigantic, biting vision of love and death in L.A. Short Cuts (1993); and the irreverent class commentary-disguised-as-period mystery Gosford Park (2001).

Although Altman himself has never won an Academy Award, his work has received numerous accolades, including the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Emmy Award, Grammy Award, BAFTA Award, New York Film Critics Circle Award, Golden Bear Award, Golden Lion Award, IFP/West Independent Spirit Award, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, FIPA Award, Coppa Volpi Award, and the Writers Guild of America Award, among many others.

THE FEATURE FILMS OF ROBERT ALTMAN

• 1957 The Delinquents
  
• 1957 The James Dean Story
  
• 1964 Nightmare In Chicago
  
• 1968 Countdown
  
• 1969 That Cold Day In The Park
  
• 1970 M*A*S*H
  
• 1970 Brewster McCloud
  
• 1971 McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  
• 1972 Images
  
• 1973 The Long Goodbye
  
• 1974 Thieves Like Us
  
• 1974 California Split
  
• 1975 Nashville
  
• 1976 Buffalo Bill & The Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
  
• 1977 3 Women
  
• 1978 A Wedding
  
• 1979 Quintet
  
• 1980 Health
  
• 1981 Popeye
  
• 1982 Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
  
• 1983 Streamers
  
• 1984 Secret Honor
  
• 1985 O.C. & Stiggs
  
• 1985 Fool For Love
  
• 1986 Beyond Therapy
  
• 1987 Aria
  
• 1988 Vincent & Theo
  
• 1992 The Player
  
• 1993 Short Cuts
  
• 1994 Ready To Wear (Pret-A-Porter)
  
• 1996 Kansas City
  
• 1996 Robert Altman's Jazz '34: Rememberances of Kansas City Swing
  
• 1998 The Gingerbread Man
  
• 1999 Cookie's Fortune
  
• 2000 Dr. T & The Women
  
• 2001 Gosford Park
  
• 2003 The Company

Related Items:

Robert Altman interview. - DGA Magazine- January 2001