"This Film Is About Death"

"No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

That's what Robert Altman said when accepting his lifetime achievement award at 2006's Oscar ceremony.

He died this Monday.

I'm really bummed, but I'm gonna try to find words for a eulogy even slightly worthy of a great artist who touched, awed and motivated me in my former life as an aspiring filmmaker, and in my current life as an aspiring decent fella.

Altman was both, a filmmaker and a decent fella. More, in my opinion: an extraordinary example of each.

His style of visual storytelling - that of the casual but deeply interested observer, sweeping his camera across shoals of interpersonal connection, collision and separation; sometimes zooming in like a voyeur, sometimes passing by and letting his eye (and ear - Altman painted as much with sound as he did with image) drift elsewhere, in search of something new - is an acquired taste. But like fine wine, once you've been exposed, it sure is tough to accept lesser substitutes.




My first exposure was in 1993, when another influential hero of mine, my dear friend Bill, took me out to see Short Cuts in its year of release (it may even have been opening weekend). It was our first year of film school, and this flick was one of only two (the other being Spice World) Bill and I saw outside the classroom and annual Toronto International Film Festival circuit. In other words, the only film in regular mainstream release, neither prescribed by professors (though in second year, a certain fellow introduced us to Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller in a lecture setting), nor selected from the Fest schedule with the intention of broadening our filmic horizons - which was, I assert, the most valuable end purpose of movie skool: to see what we had not seen before, and so be changed by it.




Well, that afternoon in TO I saw something I had not seen before. And oh, was I changed. I remain so to this day; Short Cuts holds up dazzlingly well across more than a decade. It's a remarkable film that renders bits and pieces of Raymond Carver short stories to the big screen with the same attention to detail and fascination with people (at their best, but more often their worst) that Carver exhibits in his fiction on the page. Such characters! Such situations! And an ending that haunted me then, and still haunts me today on repeat viewings (I'm happy to finally have Short Cuts on DVD, and I urge you to check it out for yourself).




Look at this cast: Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Lori Singer, Lyle Lovett, Huey Lewis, Jack Lemmon...

JACK. EFFIN. LEMMON, who delivers the finest monologue of the flick, a wrenching centerpiece that ties all the disparate stories (mostly about struggling couples) together in one crystalline moment. It's the iconic scene, as I see it.




Those kinds of moments, and that kind of cast, are par for the course in any Altman film. Even with his less noteworthy projects (Dr T and the Women, Pret-a-Porter), he attracts and showcases a palette of gifted performers, and there is always at least one scene that knocks you flat, taking you out of your world into another that nonetheless reflects back on your own cherished presumptions and certainties, reminding you that you're only human, flawed and searching like the rest of us, and even down in that muddy ditch (to channel Oscar Wilde), you can stare at the stars and find epiphany. In this case, movie stars. But I digress.

Did I mention Altman makes this kind of thing look easy?

Watch his films and you don't feel the pushy, controlling hand of say, a younger, less assured director who's convinced his way of wanting to see the world needs to be imposed (and enforced) with strict, tightly-composed shots; precise, affected editing; heaps of art direction. To Altman, it's the confluence of people that determines the rhythms and impressions of his narrative, and though he very clearly has an aesthetic - a "way of forcing his audience to see the world", as film is so good at doing - it never feels 'constructed' to me. In his finest moments, you're sure he just turned the camera on and watched actors be actors.

Which is another thing you should know about Altman: he loved his actors. Ask any of those who've worked with him and I think you'd find they love him back, deeply, because he let them do what they were born to do, and gave them the freedom to explore and define their own characters while sparing them the oppressive hand of a leader who doesn't trust his own team. More often than not, scripts were mere starting points for an Altman feature, if they were formalized on paper at all; then his fine ensemble casts took their cues and wandered off into inspired and emotionally satisfying improvisation.

Again I find myself coming back to the idea of painting, this practice of starting from basics and flowing outward, layering, to discover the possibilities within a work of art - letting that journey suggest its own ends. To trace the process into music, think of an Altman film as jazz, a tonally consistent sonic tapestry with featured tangents and solos to reveal the beauty contributed by each of its component parts, or players, as the mosaic grows and develops. I think he would appreciate this comparison. Altman was a team player, arguably more comfortable with the collaborative aspect of filmmaking than other directors of his stature.

Though Short Cuts was my introduction to the man and cemented my admiration for him, many other flicks from his oeuvre had an impact on me. The Player was perfectly timed to match my disillusionment with Hollywood, partway through film school. Gosford Park was a welcome Christmas gift toward the end of 2001. I missed The Company in the theater but adored it on video, particularly the wonderful rainstorm dance. And I was sure to catch what is now Altman's swan song, the gentle and loving A Prairie Home Companion, at the cinema.




Let me spend a few moments on what will be his final film. Though many have dismissed it as Altman-lite, I would argue it's a fine closing chapter to his amazing career because it captures, and preserves (as in warm, sentimental amber), those things he held dear: collaboration with a diverse array of talented actors, the creative process as an organic evolution of circumstance and incident, people as the catalysts for drama and story.




This particular tale follows a radio play troupe as their form of entertainment is coming to its historical end. Singers, dancers and voice actors, they do their thing (even acting out advertisements) live on stage to be broadcast over the airwaves. But turns out the gang's playhouse is being bought out and knocked down. We get to watch their final show as a whole era winds to a close. The movie's based on the work of author Garrison Keillor, who headlines himself in the film as emcee:




I'd recently read this interview with Altman in Entertainment Weekly, where the 81-year-old director laid out his upcoming slate of new projects and looked back with perspective on his career as a whole. He was riding a train cross-country, surrounded by castmembers from A Prairie Home Companion and other loved ones, including his wife. There was a wistful undercurrent to the piece which made it feel, to me, like a farewell. When I sat down to watch the film, I read the whole proceeding as a meditation on loss: of an age, of an artform, and sadly, inevitably, of an artist.

"This film is about death," Altman said at a news conference.

In the movie, one of the radio play actors passes on during their final show, and there on-site, presumably to receive his soul, is an angel played by Virginia Madsen. She interacts with the entire troupe before taking her leave, sort of easing them out of the world they are departing, and comforting them in their passage.




I would like to say thank you, Mr. Altman, for everything you've given me. I hope an angel as lovely as Ms Madsen comes to collect you and gather you home.