#robertaltman

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Close-ups. 3 women, Robert Altman, 1977. #3women #shelleyduvall #sissyspacek #robertaltman #colorpencildrawing #carolineandrieu (à Desert Hot Spring, Ca) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnThLJAt5DW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[cinemasniffers]

CSS VOL 158 / McCabe & Mrs. Miller / Dir. Robert Altman, 1971

[edoardoaghost]

3 WOMEN - ROBERT ALTMAN / 1977 

FRAMES

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Shelley Duvall in Robert Altman’s movie ‘Brewster McCloud’ - 1970 #movies #movie #filmphotography #film #robertaltman #1970s #1970 #shelleyduvall #actor #actors #actress #acting #food https://www.instagram.com/p/B4bRtXWgboU/?igshid=7qe1lgknssxw

[bjasamuel-blog]

Robert Altman and Jazz Filmmaking

Robert Altman was an American filmmaker who made films from the 70’s through to the 2000’s. He had a very idiosyncratic style almost unique in American films.  His films also have a subversive anti-establishment streak.

Robert Altman grew up in Kansas City Missouri.  He went to school there and he lived in Missouri for many years before being shipped off to war in his 20’s. He returned to Kansas City after the war to become a filmmaker.  In his youth Altman was obsessed with Jazz.  Kansas City Jazz is a form of Jazz most famous for improvisational elements and a loose spontaneous sound, bands play from memory rather than sheet music and often break out into elaborate riffing between different sections of the band.  

Altman’s filmmaking is reminiscent of this form of jazz.  His films are unconventionally structured and have extremely unconventional use of dialogue and sound.  His films often feel as though they are created out of many different elements clamoring for attention and in that sense they reflect the auteurs word view.

The camera will often film a set up with a deep field of view and many layers within a frame.  The dialogue will emerge from different characters within the frame and sometimes hidden from view, then emerging suddenly as the camera picks them out.  Important dialogue is hardly ever flagged up merely remaining a part of the texture of the films soundscape. There is a tension as you watch his films that the entire narrative might collapse at any min, that Altman has pushed the limit of coherence. The dialogue comes at you in snatches sometimes over-layered with sound effects or competing dialogue.  A strange sort of controlled chaos occurs where the plot emerges through the disorder, where structure is a frame on which to hang the chaos.  Altman reused actors who were accustomed to his working methods allowing improvisation and a certain creative control over character elements.  He referred to the script as a “blueprint” much as bandleaders in Kansas City Jazz preferred memory and riffing to reading the sheet music.

The actor Tim Robbins described Altman’s working methods like this:

“He created a unique and wonderful world on his sets, . . . where the mischievous dad unleashed the "children actors" to play. Where your imagination was encouraged, nurtured, laughed at, embraced and Altman-ized. A sweet anarchy that many of us hadn't felt since the schoolyard, unleashed by Bob's wild heart”.

Geraldine Chaplin describes the first day of rehearsals:

“He said, "Have you brought your scripts?" We said yes. He said, "Well, throw them away. You don't need them. You need to know who you are and where you are and who you're with." . . . It was like being onstage with a full house every second. All the circus acts you had inside your body you'd do just for him”.

Altman clearly enjoyed the chaos and unpredictability of his working methods. His films often collapsed under the weight of the lack of structure and coherence, but more often than not they succeed. My own personal favorite films of his are ‘McCabe and Mrs Miller’ and ‘Short Cuts’.

In ‘Short Cuts’ form and content are in perfect alignment.  The filmmaking is extremely ambitious.  Seemingly disparate elements are fine-tuned into beautiful harmony. Often in multi-strand style films the structure expresses a world view of the interconnectedness of individuals and the many ways in which we are all connected to one another.  By the end of the film the structure allows a sense of meaning to emerge a comforting sense that we are all connected.  ‘Short Cuts’ expresses the opposite.  Although the stories are interconnected, the connections are slight or meaningless and the ways in which the characters connect with each other highlight the ways in which we affect each other without really knowing it.  That we can negatively affect others never knowing that our actions created a particular outcome.  The consequences of our actions are often something we never witness or could never have conceived of.

The party clown character played by Anne Archer chastises her husband for leaving a corpse in a river whilst fishing.  She is unaware that earlier in the film she killed a young boy by hitting him with her car.  She is disgusted by her husband’s actions yet indifferent when at a party the news plays in the background telling of the deaths caused in a recent earthquake. The connections are played out as mere coincidence and the morality of the characters is framed by disconnection and myopia.  We are unable to view the unforeseen consequences of our actions and therefore are unable to formulate moral or emotional responses to that which we are unable to connect with personally.

Robert Altman creates tension out of the chaos and contingency, the accident and the unforeseen.  He creates a loose structure out of the chaos and mess of life.  The editing brings the film to us in different rhythms and beats never adhering to a traditions structure, character placement or meaning invested in incident.  To the unlearned eye the lack of obvious structure seems so chaotic it could almost be an accident, the films a mess.  But no other filmmaker has applied such unobtrusive skill and masterful technique into creating beautiful music out of the disharmony and chaos of everyday lives.  In that sense his films are a true reflection of the Kansas style Jazz that he grew up with in his hometown.

[rossydepalma]

MondayChineseSmokingMood in @ysl #robertaltman 🎬#pretaporter Movie #lavieenrossy #rossydepalma #ysl ✨🦋✨❤️✨ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpy2n87gC8Y/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=18pwyodwhp4k1

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#JerryGarcia 1969 Photo: #RobertAltman

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