March 03, 2006
A Robert Altman Weekend, pt. 1
Earlier today, I was thinking about how I might begin my entry to the Robert Altman Blog-A-Thon. I was in the process of deciding to avoid any specific parallels to my life and my development as a filmmaker and just focus on the work when suddenly I realized: one of my earliest precognitive memories is - not just of film, but of anything - is vaguely Altman-related. This memory consists of a single face: that of Radar O'Reilly, played by Gary Burghoff, the one cast member from Altman's M*A*S*H who carried over to the television show. My parents were addicted to that show. It was in its final seasons when I was born, and (so they tell me) had long since ceased being any good; but they watched it to the end, and I was awake for enough of it to have that image of a bespectacled, befuddled face, framed in closeup, forever burned into the retinas of my infant eyes.
I'll now skip ahead a number of years, past many other peripheral anecdotes, all the way up to the other day, when I realized that I had misread the release date for the DVD of the film I was planning on writing about (Quintet), and that it wouldn't be available for another two months (in a box set with three other previously unavailable films that I've been dying to see, including A Wedding).
So instead, and in keeping with the idea that this blog-a-thon is more a celebration than a specific collected critical focus, I decided that I'd just watch as many of Altman's films over the course of the weekend as as I possibly could, and write about them all. Thus, this will be the first of several entries dedicated not just to individual works but to Altman himself - the greatest American filmmaker alive and working today.
It's going to be a good weekend.
1. O.C. And Stiggs (1987)
I figured I'd kick things off with one of Altman's more maligned films. O.C. And Stiggs was based on a landmark story from an issue of National Lampoon (which can be read in its entirety here). Here's what he has to say about it, in an interview included on the DVD:
"I said, 'This isn't my kind of film, I don't know how to do this kind of film.' That was a time when these teenage films were kind of in mode, and I hated them. I just hated them. And I thought, you know, here's a chance to do satire on something that I feel strongly about. So I said yeah, I'll do this. And I went after it in that manner. Well, of course that isn't what the studio wanted, or what anyone wanted."
As a satire, O.C. And Stiggs is far from sharp; this is the work of a hired gun trying to make do. It's an awkward mix. The script seems structured around big adolescent gags that never quite arrive, and instead, Altman can frequently be found plying his own brand of contextual comedy: the punchlines that are buried within his trademark overlapping conversations, often dropped casually at random points throughout a given scene. There are some good laughs, and there's a terrific running gag involving Jane Curtin's alcoholic tendencies, although by the time the conclusion rolls around (and at 110 minutes, its a bit prolapsed), both the joke and the film itself are getting old.
The film's stylistic pedigree is immediately recognizable, but so too is the fact that Altman is working against the grain as far as content goes, looking with that zoom lens of his for something, anything, with which to qualify this comedy about the misadventures of two high school charlatans. During the action-packed climax, the camera keeps getting distracted by a political pontificate on a television; here's something interesting, he seems to be saying - while also perhaps predicating his next film, Tanner '88 (and reading this appraisal of the film by David Sanjek, I now realize it's also a nod back to Nashville).
2. Images (1972)
Back to the beginning, now, to Altman's fourth feature film. It's easy to mention Images, along with the superior Three Women that would follow five years later, in conjunction with David Lynch. A more accurate point of comparison, however, would be to Bergman's Persona; it's an easy correlation to draw, since Altman openly admits to influence on both of his pictures. They're all deep nightmares of identity, but while I think Three Women is on the same level as Persona (in the same way that Woody Allen's equally Bergman-esque Interiors is every bit the equal of the work that inspired it), Images is a little bit less striking, and seems surprisingly mimetic; this is the rare Altman picture that isn't immediately recognizable as his.
It's very well made, of course; it's also very deliberate, very reserved, very careful. Carefully orchestrated to elicit the appropriate responses, carefully structured to support a specific conclusion.
Altman knew what he was doing every step of the way with this film, and I think that's actually part of the problem. The symbolism is all quite literal; the cameras, the mirror images, the apparitions - it's very clear that we're exploring a schizophrenic psyche. Resultingly, Cathryn (Susannah York) is defined from the beginning by this affliction and becomes a type, rather than a character.
On the other hand, there's Vilmos Szigmond's typically gorgeous photography (especially in the monochromatic interiors) and an early score from John Williams, augmented by what the opening credits refer to as 'Sounds' by Stomu Yamash'ta. There's the terrific scene where Cathryn invites a little girl in for tea and we're left in a dreadful state of suspense over whether what we've already seen on the living room floor will still be there. In fact, there's a delectable level of tension spread taught across the entire film, originating from an early scene where Cathryn embraces her husband and suddenly realizes, with a scream, that she's kissing a stranger.
It's a terrifying moment, and it puts us on edge even as it sets the film on its one track course. This moment, it turns out, was the seed for the entire film; the idea occurred to Altman, and he eventually took it to York, who turned it into a screenplay. This is similar to the conception of Three Women, which was inspired by a dream Altman had one night - except in that case, he would write the script himself.
Transcribed from an interview on the Images DVD, here's Robert Altman on directing actors:
"If an actor comes up to me during or before a film and says, 'listen, tell me how exactly you want me to play this scene,' I will do anything not to answer that question. Normally what I'll do is I'll look and say, 'oh, are you gonna wear those shoes? Listen, get the wardrobe girl down here. I think you should have brown shoes,' and that sort of thing. Anything to distract from that question."
Posted by David Lowery at March 3, 2006 08:41 PM