STORY TOOLS

Remembering Robert Altman

By Laurence Lerman -- Video Business, 11/22/2006

Lerman

NOV. 22 | Right at the top, I’ll admit I was never a huge fan of director Robert Altman, who died last week at the age of 81.

I was presented with his seminal ’70s oeuvre—M*A*S*H, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, etc.—via a creaky 16mm projector back in a college film crit class in the early ’80s (as was the case of many coming-of-age cinephiles of my generation). Yes, they were all involving and entertaining, but they just didn’t hit me on the visceral level that a New York-raised lad weaned on the visual theatrics of Hitchcock, De Palma or, hell, even George Lucas, was looking for.

Back then, I found Altman’s improvisational direction of actors and trademark use of multi-layered soundtracks distracting and, forgive me for saying this, not “cinematic” enough for what I felt were my “polished” tastes.

But with the arrival of video in my home several years later, its promise of a sleeker presentation of Altman’s sound and vision, the opportunity to pause, rewind and repeat and—I’ve got to say this—a few more years under my belt, my acceptance and respect for Altman was recalibrated and quickly jump-started.

I’m not going to review what I liked and what I didn’t, nor am I going to pinpoint the time when my opinion shifted—the truth is that there was no particular moment. But what was there was a substantial, complex body of work that required—no, deserved—more than one viewing, and that could now happen ad infinitum.

As far as Altman’s contributions to packaged entertainment, the moviemaker was a strong supporter of the DVD experience. He recorded commentary tracks or interview segments for the majority of his DVD releases, including his final film, A Prairie Home Companion, which he promoted last month in one of his final public appearances at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. (The event was reported
on by VB contributor Ed Grant on Nov. 10 on DVDialog.)

A look at the world of radio—indeed, an elegy of sorts about the death of radio entertainment—A Prairie Home Companion contains a touching sequence in which a distraught Lindsay Lohan, upset that radio monologist Garrison Keillor isn’t going to acknowledge a fellow performer’s death on the air, asks Keillor point blank, “You don’t want them to remember you [when you die]?,” to which Keillor responds, “I don’t want them to be told to remember me.”

Perhaps the ever-improvisational Altman, whose health had been slowly failing for years though many people didn’t know it, was offering a coda for his own inevitable exit. We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that the movie viewing public has access to the bulk of Altman’s 40-plus film legacy, which is forever preserved to examine and enjoy. Just don’t tell the late, great maverick that we told you.

Laurence Lerman is VB's product digest editor.

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Lovely column, Laurence. I shared ....
James van Maanen - 11/22/06

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