1925 - 2006
Nov. 21st, 2006 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spatchM*A*S*H
Brewster McCloud
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Long Goodbye
Nashville
3 Women
Popeye
Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Vincent & Theo
The Player
Short Cuts
Gosford Park
A Prairie Home Companion
In A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman's final film (on which, honestly, he didn't do the bulk of the work; Paul Thomas Anderson took up most of the directing duties when Altman didn't have the strength) there's a scene where Garrison Keillor's character is asked to deliver a eulogy on the air for a beloved cast member who's recently died.
"I don't say eulogies," Keillor refuses.
"What if you die someday?" Lindsay Lohan's character asks him.
"Then I die."
"But don't you want people to remember you?"
"I don't want them to be told to remember me!" Keillor protests, as stubbornly and as defiantly as only a Minnesota Lutheran can, then walks out of the room.
Robert Altman has nothing to fear about that. He followed "show, don't tell" to the letter and the body of his work, often screened frame-by-frame by wide-eyed film students, definitely shows how much he'll be remembered and missed. We almost don't even need to be told.
and yes, I do consider Popeye to be one of his flawed masterpieces. so there.
Brewster McCloud
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Long Goodbye
Nashville
3 Women
Popeye
Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Vincent & Theo
The Player
Short Cuts
Gosford Park
A Prairie Home Companion
In A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman's final film (on which, honestly, he didn't do the bulk of the work; Paul Thomas Anderson took up most of the directing duties when Altman didn't have the strength) there's a scene where Garrison Keillor's character is asked to deliver a eulogy on the air for a beloved cast member who's recently died.
"I don't say eulogies," Keillor refuses.
"What if you die someday?" Lindsay Lohan's character asks him.
"Then I die."
"But don't you want people to remember you?"
"I don't want them to be told to remember me!" Keillor protests, as stubbornly and as defiantly as only a Minnesota Lutheran can, then walks out of the room.
Robert Altman has nothing to fear about that. He followed "show, don't tell" to the letter and the body of his work, often screened frame-by-frame by wide-eyed film students, definitely shows how much he'll be remembered and missed. We almost don't even need to be told.
and yes, I do consider Popeye to be one of his flawed masterpieces. so there.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-21 06:03 pm (UTC)I met him once at a screening of The Gingerbread Man. He was in Holly Springs shooting Cookie's Fortune and agreed to come up to Memphis for a fundraiser for something. He arrived after the screening, having been delayed for one reason or another, but did a nice Q&A session after the show and shook lots of hands and chatted with everyone.
AFI's top 100 movies list had just come out, and I'd mentioned to my then-girlfriend that we were going to meet one of the directors on that list. She ran down the list, noting possibilities: Speilberg, Lucas, Scorcese, Cameron, Coppola, and when she hit M*A*S*H she said, "Robert Altman--oh I don't want to meet him."
That pretty much summarized our relationship. She went anyway, and enjoyed the movie (which is a by-the-numbers thriller featuring a really bad Southern U.S. accent by Kenneth Branagh), and presumably had a good time.
No relevant point to that story, except to note Altman's graciousness and love for filmmaking, even when showing work that was less than his best.