The Cinema of ROBERT ALTMAN Hollywood Maverick
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the cinema of ROBERT ALTMAN hollywood maverick robert niemi the cinema of ROBERT ALTMAN DIRECTORS’ CUTS DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 1 13/10/15 12:48:52 Other selected titles in the Directors’ Cuts series: the cinema of SEAN PENN:in and out of place DEANE WILLIAMS the cinema of CHRISTOPHER NOLAN:imagining the impossible JACQUELINE FURBY & STUART JOY (eds) the cinema of THE COEN BROTHERS:hardboiled entertainments JEFFREY ADAMS the cinema of CLINT EASTWOOD:chronicles of america DAVID STERRITT the cinema of ISTVÁN SZABÓ:visions of europe JOHN CUNNINGHAM the cinema of AGNÈS VARDA:resistance and eclecticism DELPHINE BÉNÉZET the cinema of ALEXANDER SOKUROV:figures of paradox JEREMI SZANIAWSKI the cinema of MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM:borders, intimacy, terror BRUCE BENNETT the cinema of RAÚL RUIZ:impossible cartographies MICHAEL GODDARD the cinema of MICHAEL MANN:vice and vindication JONATHAN RAYNER the cinema of AKI KAURISMÄKI:authorship, bohemia, nostalgia, nation ANDREW NESTINGEN the cinema of RICHARD LINKLATER:walk, don’t run ROB STONE the cinema of BÉLA TARR:the circle closes ANDRÁS BÁLINT KOVÁCS the cinema of STEVEN SODERBERGH:indie sex, corporate lies, and digital videotape ANDREW DE WAARD & R. COLIN TATE the cinema of TERRY GILLIAM:it’s a mad world JEFF BIRKENSTEIN, ANNA FROULA & KAREN RANDELL (eds) the cinema of TAKESHI KITANO:flowering blood SEAN REDMOND the cinema of THE DARDENNE BROTHERS:responsible realism PHILIP MOSLEY the cinema of MICHAEL HANEKE:europe utopia BEN McCANN & DAVID SORFA (eds) the cinema of SALLY POTTER:a politics of love SOPHIE MAYER the cinema of DAVID CRONENBERG:from baron of blood to cultural hero ERNEST MATHIJS the cinema of JAN SVANKMAJER:dark alchemy PETER HAMES (ed.) the cinema of LARS VON TRIER:authenticity and artifice CAROLINE BAINBRIDGE the cinema of WERNER HERZOG:aesthetic ecstasy and truth BRAD PRAGER the cinema of TERRENCE MALICK:poetic visions of america (second edition) HANNAH PATTERSON (ed.) the cinema of ANG LEE:the other side of the screen (second edition) WHITNEY CROTHERS DILLEY the cinema of STEVEN SPIELBERG:empire of light NIGEL MORRIS the cinema of TODD HAYNES:all that heaven allows JAMES MORRISON (ed.) the cinema of DAVID LYNCH:american dreams, nightmare visions ERICA SHEEN & ANNETTE DAVISON (eds) the cinema of KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI:variations on destiny and chance MAREK HALTOF the cinema of GEORGE A. ROMERO:knight of the living dead (second edition) TONY WILLIAMS the cinema of KATHRYN BIGELOW:hollywood transgressor DEBORAH JERMYN & SEAN REDMOND (eds) DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 2 13/10/15 12:48:52 the cinema of ROBERT ALTMAN hollywood maverick Robert Niemi WALLFLOWER PRESS london & new york DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 3 13/10/15 12:48:53 A Wallflower Press Book Published by Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 /FX:PSLt$IJDIFTUFS 8FTU4VTTFY cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2016 Robert Niemi All rights reserved Wallflower Press® is a registered trademark of Columbia University Press A complete CIP record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-231-17626-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-17627-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-85086-5 (e-book) Series design by Rob Bowden Design Cover image of Robert Altman courtesy of Kobal Collection Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 00 PRELIMS.indd 4 8/1/16 08:15:57 contents Acknowledgements vii Preface JY Introduction 1 1 ɨSFF%SFBN'JMNT&YQMPSBUJPOTPG'FNBMF*EFOUJUZ12 2 &YQFSJNFOUTJO(FOSF3FWJTJPO23 3 Large Canvases 73 4 Falling from Grace 89 5 In the Wilderness 106 6 Return to Form 131 7 Final Phase: More Large Canvases and Minor Works 159 Coda 201 Filmography 202 Bibliography 213 Index 223 v DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 5 13/10/15 12:48:53 For Keechie (Connie), she of infinite patience and good cheer DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 6 13/10/15 12:48:53 acknowledgements I offer thanks to Kate Hutchins and Peggy Daub of the Special Collections Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where the Robert Altman Archive is housed. They and other archivists were most helpful in accommodating my research visit to the Altman Archive in the summer of 2013. A hearty thanks to St. Michael’s College, for generously subsidizing that important and inspiring trip through a faculty develop- ment grant – and for faithfully supporting my research and writing endeavours over the last twenty-five years through numerous other grants and three sabbaticals. I am blessed to work at such a place. Thanks also to the folks at St. Michael’s Durick Library, who were quick and efficient in fulfilling inter-library loan requests and purchasing Altman DVDs. I also want to acknowledge Ron Jacobs for being a friend, colleague, stimulating conversationalist and kindred spirit. His passionate, encyclopedic knowl- FEHFPGDPVOUFSDVMUVSFIJTUPSZBOESBEJDBMQPMJUJDTGBSFYDFFETNZPXO4QFDJBMUIBOLT to Lorrie Smith, who has been a supportive and emotionally generous SMC colleague and the kindest of friends. Thanks, also, to Bill Grover, Jeff Ayres, Richard Kujawa, Joan Wry, Toni Messuri, Bill Ellis, Herb Kessel, George Dameron, Katie Kirby, Phil Yates and Joel Dando for sharing stories about life in the (teaching) trenches and reflections on film, music, pop culture and politics. Their friendly collegiality is much appreciated. On the editorial front I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Yoram Allon, Commissioning Editor at Wallflower Press. This book would never have come to frui- tion if it were not for his patient commitment, a commitment which never wavered – even when mine did. Thanks, Yoram, for believing in me. You are a scholar and a gentleman. Finally, my warmest thanks go to my wife, Connie Dufour, who put up with this long ordeal, watched a lot of Altman movies with me, listen to me drone on, and came to share my passion for his work. You’re simply the best. vii DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 7 13/10/15 12:48:53 DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 8 13/10/15 12:48:53 preface Writing a book on Robert Altman can be a daunting, even scary undertaking. Ever since he started attracting notice in the late 1960s, up until his death in 2006 and beyond, some twenty books and hundreds of articles and reviews have been published on Altman and his uneven but magnificent body of work. What would justify another book on Altman? What can one say about this legendary American film director that has not already been said, and said well, by so many others? That question dogged me during the early, tentative stages of this project. Gradually, after a lot of thought and research and a number of false starts and conceptual dead-ends, a realisation began to take shape. It occurred to me that there has been altogether too much emphasis placed on the two most obvious aspects of Altman’s career: as an innovative cinematic artist and as Hollywood’s enfant terrible, an untamed and unrepentant rebel against film industry business practices and aesthetic conventions. Both these perspectives have great merit, of course, but it seems to me neither is sufficiently political in the deepest and most integrative sense of the term. Focusing on Altman’s artistic wizardry or his life-long battle against purely commercial filmmaking imperatives tends to obscure another and arguably more trenchant point of view, the one that considers Robert Altman as a social critic; or, to put it in more specific terms, a relentless debunker and demystifier of America’s dominant ideology, the winner-takes-all ideology of patriar- chal capitalism. Though putatively meritocratic and fair-minded, our long-reigning American Dream ethos has always been something of a hypocritical farce. Beneath all the carefully contrived and cheerful advertising that bombards the citizenry every day, cynicism, ruthlessness and a hyper-individualistic code of Social Darwinism prevails, one that fetishises personal wealth, success and fame without too many qualms about their manner of attainment or any other considerations, e.g. community, democracy, compassionate other-directedness or the cultivation of a genuinely creative inner life that stands apart from the single-minded pursuit of money. Unbridled artistic freedom BOE SFTUMFTT FYQFSJNFOUBUJPO XFSF "MUNBOT IBMMNBSLT CVU BT * XJMM BSHVF IFSF IJT motivating passion was to comment on the state of modern American society and the thinking individual’s relation to that society. Of the many books written on Altman, four of them subject varying parts of his body of work to penetrating ideological critique: Helen Keyssar’s Robert Altman’s America (1991), Robert T. Self’s Robert Altman’s Subliminal Reality (2002), Robert Kolker’s A Cinema of Loneliness (2011), and A Companion to Robert Altman (2015), edited by Adrian Danks. Keyssar’s monograph offers many valuable insights but is JY DC_Robert_Altman_pages.indb 9 13/10/15 12:48:53 TPNFXIBUQSPMJY BOEJTOPXEBUFEBTJUEPFTOPUJODMVEFDPWFSBHFPG"MUNBOTMBTU dozen films. Self’s impressive study manifests a remarkable mastery of postmodern critical discourse but covers only twenty-one of Altman’s three dozen films in depth, and tends to concentrate on formal and aesthetic concerns related to ‘art cinema’, i.e. ëMNNBLJOHUIBUEFëFT)PMMZXPPETDMBTTJDJTUOPSNT,PMLFSTFYDFMMFOUCPPL VQEBUFE over four editions between 1980 and 2011, does cover Altman’s entire oeuvre and is easily the best written, but does not have quite the necessary depth and detail insofar as his discussion of Altman constitutes just one chapter of a book that also deals with a half dozen other film major American directors. A Companion to Robert Altman is a superb compilation of twenty-three critical essays by various film theorists and critics, largely from historicist and ideological perspectives, but it concentrates on about fifteen of the most celebrated Altman films (and other topic areas as well, e.g.