ROBERT ALTMAN Timeless Artist and Director

Robert Altman was born February 20, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri and died November 20, 2006 in Los Angeles, California.

Biography and Filmography from Wikipedia ~ Remembering the Player from Joe Morgenstern, WSJ

Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson Gosford Park ~ Kansas City ~ McCabe & Mrs. Miller Nashville ~ The Player ~ Short Cuts Thieves Like Us ~ Trixie ~ Vincent & Theo ~ A Wedding

Beyond Therapy (1987) Brewster McCloud (1970) California Split (1974) Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) The Company (2003) Cookie's Fortune (1999) Countdown (1968) The Delinquents (1957) Dr. T & the Women (2000) Fool for Love (1985) The Gingerbread Man (1998) Health (1980) Images (1972) M*A*S*H (1970) O.C. & Stiggs (1984) A Perfect Couple (1979) Popeye (1980) A Prairie Home Companion (2006) Quintet (1979) Ready to Wear (1994) Secret Honor (1984) Streamers (1983) That Cold Day in the Park (1969) 3 Women (1977)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, John Considine, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Joel Grey, Frank Kaquitts, Harvey Keitel, Burt Lancaster, Kevin McCarthy, Pat McCormich, Paul Newman, Bert Remsen, Will Sampson Executive Producer: David Susskind Screen Play: Alan Rudolph Studio: MGM Writer: Arthur Kopit   Year: 1976 "Even the least seasoned trapper will tell you if you don't know what you're after, you're better off staying home."

Gosford Park Cast: Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Stephen Fry, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Derek Jacobi, Kelly MacDonald, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Maggie Smith, Kirsten Scott Thomas, Emily Watson Production Design: Stephen Altman Studio: Universal Writer: Julian Fellowes   Year: 2001 "Well, that was fairly painless, wasn't it?" "No, it wasn't."

Kansas City Year: 1997 Stephen Altman, Frank Barhdt; Cast: Harry Belafonte, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Murphy, Dermot Mulroney, Miranda Richardson

The Long Goodbye Year: 1973 Raymond Chandler Cast: Elliott Gould, Sterling Hayden, Nina van Pallandt Marlowe ruled by Gould

"You make up the lists?" "Yes." "You do everything, yes?" "Yes." "Yes."

McCabe & Mrs. Miller Cast: Rene Auberjonois, Warren Beatty, Keith Carradine, Julie Christie, William Devane, Shelley Duvall, Robert Fortier, Michael Murphy, Bert Remsen, Manfred Schulz Music Composition: Leonard Cohen Production Design: Leonard Erikson Studio: © Warner Brothers Writers: Robert Altman, Brian McKay (based on Edmund Naughton's novel, McCabe   Year: 1971 "Time and money. Money and time." "Until people stop dying for freedom, we ain't gonna be free."

Nashville Cast: Barbara Baxley, Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall, Henry Gibson, Jeff Goldblum, Merle Kilgore, Michael Murphy, Dave Peel, Thomas Hal Phillips, Bert Remsen, Howard K. Smith, Lily Tomlin, Gwen Welles, Keenan Wynn Studio: © American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. Writer: Joan Tewkesbury   Year: 1975 "Congress is composed of 535 individuals. 288 are lawyers and you wonder what's wrong in congress." ~ lawyers in congress today from yourcongress.com but the link is dead ~

The Player Cast: Tim Robbins, Peter Gallagher, Whoopy Goldberg, Richard E. Grant, Brion James, Lyle Lovett, Dina Merrill, Greta Scacchi, Cynthia Stevenson, Dean Stockwell, Fred Ward Production Design Stephen Altman Writer: Michael Tolkin   Year: 1992 A movie about making a movie is a movie you have to see. "I don't go to movies." "Why not?" "Life is too short."

Short Cuts Cast: Anne Archer, Bruce Davison, Robert Downey, Jr., Peter Gallagher, Buck Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Lemmon, Jarrett Lennon, Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett, Frances McDormand, Andie MacDowell, Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Chris Penn, Tim Robbins, Annie Ross, Lori Singer, Madeleine Stowe, Lily Tomlin, Lili Taylor, Fred Ward, Tom Waits Music Production: Hal Willner Production Design: Stephen Altman Studio: Fine Line Features with Spelling Films International Writer: Based on Raymond Carver matieral   Year: 1993 "Do you want to have a go at it?" "Gonna get you outa Downey." "Well, I can see you've had some kind of problem here."

Thieves Like Us Year: 1974 Cast: Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, John Schuck

"Kitchie-Kitchie-Koo" and "Little Boy Blue"

Trixie Year: 2000 Alan Rudolph; Cast: Emily Watson, Nathan Lane, Dermot Mulroney, Brittany Murphy, Nick Nolte, Will Patton, Leslie Ann Warren; Composers: Mark Isham and Roger Neill

Vincent & Theo Cast: Paul Rhys, Tim Roth Music: Gabriel Yared Production Design: Stephen Altman Studio: © A Belbo Film in association with Arena Films (John Daly and Derek Gibson, presenters), Hemdale Film Corporation Writer: Julian Mitchell   Year: 1990 "There's God in everything."

A Wedding Cast: Desi Arnaz, Jr., Carol Burnett, Geraldine Chaplin, John Cromwell, Paul Dooley, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Dennis Franz, Peggy Ann Garner, Vittorio Gassman, Lillian Gish, Lauren Hutton, Jeffrey Jones, Viveca Lindfors, Pat McCormick, Dina Merrill, Delita Moreno, Nina Van Pallandt, Cedric Scott, Amy Stryker, Tim Thomerson, Virginia Vestoff with Bert Remsen as William Williamson Studio: Fox Studios (20th Century Fox) Writers: John Considine, Robert Altman   Year: 1978 "I'm just the nurse, your honor."

REMEMBERING THE PLAYER How Robert Altman pulled us into his vision of life Joe Morgenstern The Wall Street Journal, November 25-26, 2006 One day toward the end of 1969, a publicist from 20th Century-Fox called with an invitation to a late-night sneak preview at a little theater on West 57th Street in Manhattan. The movie was one I hadn't heard of, something called "Mash." (Telephones don't do asterisks or upper case.) "Nobody here knows what to make of it," the publicist said, "but let me know what you think." I've watched the film many times since, just as countless other movie lovers have, but I can still remember the surprise and delight of my first thought about it, as the few giddy minutes flashed by -- that what I was watching was new. Not new as in hasn't been released yet, or new as in the latest twist on a familiar genre, but joyously, shockingly new to the eye and ear -- and, as the surgeon heroes' humanity emerged from the gore and raunch, pleasing to the heart. It's astonishing to think that Robert Altman was 45 years old when he made "M*A*S*H." At an age when many filmmakers have already settled into a reliable style, and into the fixative of prosperity, Altman was just embarking on a life of chancy discovery in a medium that came as naturally to him as his dry smile. If he hadn't been a compulsive gambler, he couldn't have made "California Split," the best movie ever about the gambler's high. If he hadn't been a gambler at all, he couldn't have struck the artistic gold (along with plenty of fool's gold) that he did in the 36 years since "M*A*S*H" burst upon the scene. In four years he made three flat-out masterpieces: "McCabe & Mrs. Miller", "The Long Goodbye" and "Nashville." He followed them with an assortment of lesser films that were good or bad but never indifferent. (My favorites include "Thieves Like Us," the nutso-visionary "Popeye," "The Player" and "Vincent & Theo.") When studios and money men stopped knocking at his door, he found ways to keep working -- that's real-life heroism -- on a smaller scale and on smaller screens with new technologies. (Far from daunting him, digital photography intrigued him. He was the man, after all, who had understood, long before the studios and theater owners did, the potential of Dolby sound -- for giving sound tracks a new immediacy, and, not incidentally, for enhancing the clarity of his overlapping dialogue. Then, against all odds -- and, as always, pretty much indifferent to the odds -- he bounced back (though he had never really been away) with another string of features, among them three that only he could have made: the intricate and influential "Short Cuts"; the lovely comedy of manners-cum murder mystery, "Gosford Park"; and his last film, "A Prairie Home Companion," which opened in June and has already found its way to a happy afterlife on DVD. He was in fragile health when he directed it -- from a wheelchair, just as John Huston had done on his own exquisite last film, "The Dead" -- and after the movie was finished, Altman said it was about death. Sure enough, there's a reaper in it, but she's beautiful, not grim, and Altman's movie about death teems with good jokes, great bad jokes, marvelous stories, screwy songs and sweet reminiscences -- teems with life. That's not surprising, given the work that came before. I'm properly in awe of the best that such American masters as Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg have been able to put on the silver screen. But I've never been in awe of Altman, my favorite American director; his best has always pulled me in and made me feel welcome, if sometimes drunk on the flow and swirl of it all. "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" conjures up a whole world in its story of life -- and death -- at the turn of the century in a Pacific Northwest mining town. Conversations are both heard and overheard: Altman wasn't conducting an elocution class, he wanted to make us tune in carefully on the torrent of language and life. "The Long Goodbye" plunks a superannuated Philip Marlowe -- Altman thought of him as Rip Van Marlowe -- into a 1970s world of shimmering wealth, pothead violence, casual betrayals and radiant nymphets doing yoga, a world so alien to Marlowe's film noir mindset that he keeps saying, with blithe bewilderment, "It's OK with me." (While the movie was in production, Altman, who loved actors as they loved him, hired a skywriter to fly over the Malibu house of his star, Elliott Gould, and write "It's okay with me too.") Students of Altman's technique like to talk about his fluid camera, and his fondness for zoom lenses. True enough, but his technique was only a means to his ends of filling the screen with life's flow, and mysterious ebbs. The fact of his death is a bewilderment -- no more Altman films to look forward to -- and it's not OK in any way but one, the public treasures he has left behind. Life flows on in them.

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