Having served as a bomber pilot in the second World War, Robert Altman (1925-2006) made industrial films for the Calvin Company, a gig that led to his directing and producing The Delinquents and The James Dean Story in 1957. Altman subsequently directed strictly for television for many years until returning to cinematic roost with his science-fiction epic Countdown (1967) for Warners. Following a tepid love story, That Cold Day In The Park (1969), A carpe diem abiding Altman took his chances on Ring Lardner Jr's much rejected screenplay of M*A*S*H, a story which fused farce and anti-establishment satire with an authentic portrayal of life in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the height of the Korean War. Apart from making international stars of its leading actors - Elliot Gould, Donald Sutherland, Sally Kellerman - M*A*S*H exhibited Altman's distinctive use of naturalistic, over-lapping dialogue for the first time - an editing technique that audaciously mixed realism with parody. The film's essential glibness was overlooked by contemporary critics delighted to discover the next big American filmmaker.
Altman followed M*A*S*H with a self-indulgent satire, Brewster McCloud (1970) and a truly beguiling story of the Old West with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. This story of a little man (Warren Beatty) who builds a community with the help of a clever madame (Julie Christie) only to lose it to more powerful interests, is Altman's most astute visualization of the corruption of the American dream - a driving theme in his work. After an attempt at a soft-focus, European-style art film, Images (1972), Altman would produce three movies that focused on American society : The Long Goodbye, a clever update of the Raymond Chandler novel; Thieves Like Us (1974), a grim study of small time crooks in the South, set during the Great Depression; and California Split (also 1974) a smug satirical comedy regarding two ne'er-do-well gamblers (George Segal and Elliot Gould) on the make.
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| Bud is about to be Corting with disaster in Brewster McCloud |
Altman would reaffirm his reputation as a leading American director with the verite-like Nashville (1975) which expertly created a microcosm of American life and mores from the excesses of Nashville's country music festival, The Grand Ole Opry. It was succeeded by a spirited Western satire, Buffalo Bill and the Indians....or Sitting Bull's History Lesson and the self-important Three Women (1977), A Wedding (1978) starring Carol Burnett, A Perfect Couple, Quintet (both 1979) Health and Popeye (both 1980) quickly followed - none of them were to be considered great works, although all would host staggering sequences. Popeye proved to be the most financially viable . For several years in the Seventies, Altman had run his own company, Lion's Gate as a means of making his own films on the cheap, employing the use of first-class facilities, a regular 'stock company' of favored actors to support young filmmakers such as Alan Rudolph and Robert Benton. The demise of Lion's Gate meant that Altman had reached yet another turning point in his ever controversial career by the early 1980s, dependent on his priceless ability to inspire confidence in otherwise conservative backers.