Robert Altman @ 100: "Short Cuts" The Film

a two part piece on Short Cuts (1993) to relaunch our Robert Altman tribute

by Eric Blume 

It’s a joy to rewatch Robert Altman’s 1993 masterpiece Short Cuts over thirty years later.  I hadn’t seen the film since seeing it in theaters, back in the sweet days where Fine Line Features was the “arthouse” division of New Line Features, a mini-studio from which so many fine films sprung.  

Upon revisit, it’s easy to see how this film is a perfect illustration of Lightning in a Bottle.  Among its incredible cast of actors are future Oscar winners (Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore), past and future nominees (Bruce Davison, Anne Archer, Lily Tomlin, Jennifer Jason Leigh), plus some other terrific actors who are always rapturous to watch (Fred Ward, Lili Taylor, Madeleine Stowe, Peter Gallagher, Matthew Modine).  And then pepper in Tom Waits and Huey Lewis!  The talent in this movie is off-the-charts and each actor feels individually inspired.  I’m not sure what Altman did to get them so invested in their small, individual stories but together they truly pack a wallop...

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Robert Altman @ 100: “Nashville”

By Juan Carlos Ojano

To continue celebrating Robert Atman’s centennial anniversary, I have decided to finally take care of a longtime cinematic blind spot: his seminal 1975 opus Nashville. Released during the heyday of New Hollywood, the film tracks the lives of twenty-four main characters — singers, dreamers, and others — as they navigate their lives in the titular city within five days as the presidential campaign of a populist candidate is set to mount a political rally cum concert. 

For my first encounter with this film, I decided to watch this film twice within a three-day period. And how powerful the experience is...

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Robert Altman @ 100: Susannah York was Almost There

by Cláudio Alves

For the second part of the Robert Altman tribute, consider a crossover with the Almost There series. Throughout his career, the director proved to be one of the best at working with actors within the New Hollywood state of play, whether his movies were tightly focused psychodramas or the more sprawling fare that we tend to associate with Altman. It's no surprise, then, that many of his performers received some buzz, often figuring in the awards season, whether or not they got an Oscar nomination at the end of it all. Today, let's look at Susannah York in the second of Altman's portraits of women on the verge of madness. After That Cold Day in the Park, there was 1972's Images…

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Robert Altman @ 100: "That Cold Day in the Park"

by Cláudio Alves

One hundred years ago today, Robert Altman came into this world. A WWII veteran who got his start in industrial films, he'd become one of the most important figures in American cinema during the heyday of New Hollywood. His career is a sprawling tale of transformations, genre experiments, broad murals of humanity. Sometimes, his work could be claustrophobic, zero-ing on individual psyches, but it often reached for epic proportions and giant ensembles, juxtaposed dialogue galore. Over the next few days, various The Film Experience writers will say their piece about Altman, exploring his films from swinging sixties origins to 21st-century late works.

For our jumping-off point, let's go back to 1969, after Altman had moved from industrial shorts to theater to TV and then to feature cinema. Around the decade's twilight, the director kickstarted an unofficial trilogy about mad women that would later lead to Images and the glory of 3 Women. Yet, before those examinations of the feminine grotesque, it began That Cold Day in the Park…

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Late But Not Forgotten: Shelley Duvall (1949-2024)

by Cláudio Alves

Shelley Duvall behind the scenes of her last film, THE FOREST HILLS (2023).
First of all, preemptive apologies for the solipsism. 

For the past few weeks, I've been struggling with a mounting number of celebrity deaths, each deserving of a tribute. Yet, with every single one comes the need for research, and then, when I think I'll be able to write a good obituary, another loss hits. For a while, I considered doing a giant post, built from essential information on each dear departed artist. It wouldn't be akin to that extensive Donald Sutherland homage - to give an example - but it'd be something. Still, the work dragged on, the pressure mounted, and the delay was reaching absurd proportion. I can only say sorry, dear reader. 

This past Wednesday, as I celebrated my 30th birthday, such affairs still haunted me. And maybe because I was surrounded by friends, basking in sincere affection, perchance a self-pitying reflection or two on the passage of time and getting older, a new approach materialized. Instead of trying to encapsulate a world-class artist's entire history in a write-up, I shall instead ponder what they mean to me personally. Earnestness is the way to go, and hopefully, you'll share what these people mean to you in the comments, too. These pieces will be relatively brief but heartfelt, and they'll start with a star I loved like few others – the inimitable Shelley Duvall…

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