TSPDT - Robert Altman

Robert Altman

TOP 100

21ST CENTURY TOP 50

Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)

Gerald Peary's Magnificent Seven (2006)

►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

See Also

Paul Thomas Anderson

Hal Ashby

Robert Benton

Peter Bogdanovich

Howard Hawks

Bob Rafelson

Karel Reisz

Jean Renoir

Tim Robbins

Nicolas Roeg

Alan Rudolph

Steven Soderbergh

Director / Producer / Screenwriter

1925 - 2006

Born February 20, Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Key Production Country: USA

Key Genres: Ensemble Film, Drama, Satire, Comedy Drama, Comedy, Crime, Psychological Drama, Americana

Key Collaborators: Stephen Altman (Production Designer), Geraldine Peroni (Editor), Shelley Duvall (Leading Player), Pierre Mignot (Cinematographer), Elliott Gould (Character Player), Leon Ericksen (Production Designer), Jean Lepine (Cinematographer), Lou Lombardo (Editor), Rene Auberjonois (Character Player), Paul Dooley (Character Player)

Highly Recommended: California Split (1974), The Player (1992)

Recommended: McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973), Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville (1975), 3 Women (1977), Tanner '88 [TV] (1988), Short Cuts (1993), Cookie's Fortune (1998), Gosford Park (2001)

Worth a Look: M*A*S*H (1970), Images (1972), A Wedding (1978), Secret Honor (1984), Vincent & Theo (1990), A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Salon Feature ] [ BBC Audio Interview (1990) ] [ Filmbug Biography ] [ Reverse Shot Interview (2006) ] [ Artline Article ] [ Film Scouts Interviews ] [ Boston Globe Article (2006) ] [ Telegraph Article (2006) ] [ Broadway World Photo Tribute (2006) ] [ Village Voice Article (2006) ] [ Observer Article (2006) ] [ indieWIRE Tribute (2006) ] [ Film International Article (2006) ] [ New York Times Article (2006) ] [ Gerald Peary Interview (2001) ]

Books: [ Altman on Altman ] [ Robert Altman: Interviews ] [ Robert Altman: Hollywood Survivor ] [ A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman ] [ Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff ] [ Robert Altman's Subliminal Reality ] [ Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman's Masterpiece ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973), Nashville (1975), The Player (1992), Short Cuts (1993)

21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films: Gosford Park (2001), A Prairie Home Companion (2006)


	"Robert Altman is American cinema's greatest iconoclast. Prolific, experimental, visionary and ambitious, he is a director whose career spans over five decades and includes over thirty feature films. Known as a maverick director (a label he denies), Altman eschews the market-oriented climate of Hollywood, refusing to bow to studio demands and insisting on total control over his material. The result is an eclectic body of work that moves across several genres, each picture effectively dismantling the generic conventions on which it draws." - Tanya Horeck (Contemporary North American Film Directors, 2002)

	"Altman's use of multi-track sound is also incredibly complex: sounds are layered upon one another, often emanating from different speakers in such a way that the audience member must also decide what to listen for. Indeed, watching and listening to an Altman film inevitably requires an active participant: events unroll with a Bazinian ambiguity. Altman's Korean War comedy MASH* was the director's first public success with this kind of soundtrack." - Charles Derry (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)

	"Altman is usually happier with large casts than small: while elegantly shot and acted, the intimate theatrical adaptations he was reduced to making in the 80s (he's always been an outsider in Hollywood) lack the social, historical and philosophical import of McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, the made-for-TV Tanner '88, The Player and Short Cuts - movies which confirm him, however erratic his output, as one of the greatest - and most stylistically innovative - filmmakers of the modern era." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

	"The director proffers an elliptical, poignant, often bitingly satirical vision of American sensibilities." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

	"Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people." - Robert Altman

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