Robert Altman has died at the age of 81. He was one of my very favorite directors, and directed three of the greatest movies released in the 70's: M*A*S*H*, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Nashville. Most recently, he released another great ensemble film, A Prairie Home Companion. Robert Altman was enormously influential, quirky, and cranky, and he changed the way we make movies. Not a bad life's work.---o0o---
3 comments:
I loved Altman and he made many first rate pics in the 70s, I prefer "The Long Goodbye" to "MASH" but I am only quibbling. I guess I would say he made 4 of the 70's greatest movies and what a decade for movies that was! I felt he went south after "Buffalo Bill & the Indians", which I remember thinking was underrated and while I wasn't a big fan of "The Player" I consider "Gosford Park" to have been a return to form. But movies don't get much bettter than "Nashville" and "McCabe & Mrs. Miller".
Also, the NYTimes Obit is a good one with links to a filmography, wow, he never stopped working, that includes reviews for virtually everything he did.
He really never did stop working--amazingly enough, he bounced back from that period where he was doing movies of Broadway (off, really) shows and came back with The Player, Shortcuts (neither of which are my favorites), The fashion movie with the wonderful parade of naked models, and his last movie I thought was very sweet, with fantastic music.
I forgot about The Long Goodbye--it was excellent. Was that Elliott Gould's last winner? Actually the cameo he did in Bugsy was awesome...
Post a Comment