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Out of many voices: Altman
Director Robert Altman walks on the street outside the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn., to prepare for an outside scene during the shooting of the movie version of "A Prairie Home Companion" in 2005. Jim Mone / Associated Press file
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
Published: 11/29/2009 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 11/29/2009 9:20 AM
Of all the pop-culture figures whose lives have been recounted through "oral biography," the only one for whom the format really fits is director Robert Altman.
In films such as "M*A*S*H," "Nashville" and "Gosford Park," Altman made an art out of the natural cacophony of life. Characters would come and go through a scene, talking simultaneous and often at cross-purposes.
"Bob liked large noisy groups of people. And that's how he liked to live. And he liked them in his movies," said Bob Balaban, who served as co-producer and one of the actors in "Gosford Park." "I know people have said this, but in a way Bob's movies were all one long movie. And it was in some ways like his life."
That life began in Kansas City, where Altman went through most of the usual rites of passage — an altar boy, a Boy Scout, a military academy, the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II. Most of the films he watched at that time he viewed the way most people did — entertaining stories to pass an afternoon or evening.
Until he saw "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" — in which, as Altman said, "the hero was not a hero in the conventional sense" — followed by "Brief Encounter."
That David Lean film was "the first film that made a difference in my mind between a movie and a film," Altman said. The way this simple love story and its characters affected him was so powerful that "from that point on I started looking for those kinds of experiences in films."
It took a while for Altman to be able to provide such experiences himself. He began making industrial films in the 1950s, until an independent feature he made called "The Delinquents" was noticed by Alfred Hitchcock, who hired Altman to direct episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
Altman spent the 1960s directing TV shows like "Hawaiian Eye" and "Combat," before he took on a project a dozen or so directors had already turned down: a comedy about doctors working near the front lines in the Korean War.
"M*A*S*H" established Altman as an innovator — the movie's mix of blood-and-guts realism with sometimes surreal, sometimes slapstick humor startled a lot of people — and a provocateur. It was the first mainstream movie to contain the F-word (in an ad-libbed line by actor John Schuck), and it cheerfully slaughtered all sorts of sacred cows, from the Catholic Church to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Mitchell Zuckoff, a reporter for the Boston Globe, was able to spend a good deal of time with Altman prior to the director's death in 2006, just a short time after completing what would be his last film, "A Prairie Home Companion." He was also able to get the blessing of Altman's widow, Kathryn, to have free rein in addressing the less savory aspects of Altman's life — his treatment of his family, his temper in dealing with temperamental actors and clueless executives, the continuing battles to secure the money to make the films he wanted to make.
Zuckoff interviewed 145 people for the book, from actress Jane Adams to cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who provide a wealth of insight into some of Altman's lesser-known, often less successful but usually fascinating films, such as "Three Women," "A Wedding" and "The Company," as well as his foray into theater in the 1980s, when film offers became scarce.
It's a kaleidoscopic portrait of one of the true originals of American film, someone about whom there seems to be an endless fount of stories. Which is why Zuckoff ends the book with Altman's words about the sort of stories his films told: "Things never end. There are no ends. There are stopping places. So, you really choose a stopping place."
James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
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