IC Forum Archive

finnagain · Posts: 181

Robert Altman's dead. I just saw 'Prarie Home Companion,' last night -- which was okay but about an hour too long (I tire of the whole Prarie Home Companion style after about thirty minutes) -- but it sure didn't look like the work of a director about to die.

Sad.

evnvnv · Posts: 333

oh man.

this really sucks... this man could have gone on making brilliant movies for probably another 100 years. if there's ever been a candidate for brain reanimation...

every time i saw him in interviews or giving speeches or whatever, i was always so shocked at how old he was. you're right, his movies never really seemed like those made by someone who was getting old--gosford park especially seems as much like the work of a really inspired first-time director as it does the work of someone who has pretty much mastered the form. damn. this is sad.

finnagain · Posts: 181

When he got up to accept that academy award earlier this year, he seemed to be in pretty good shape -- although he did admit to having had a heart transplant a few years beforehand.

I really, really love(d) Robert Altman -- he seems to have invented the now ubiquitous genre of films, like "Babel," and "Magnolia," and that terrible "Crash" movie that one the Oscar a few years back, but no one did it nearly as well as he did. Even his bad movies are enjoyable. Even "Popeye," which is about the weirdest movie you'd expect Robert Altman to direct, is fun to watch.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is one of my favorite movies of all time, too.

I mean, he lived a long and productive life -- it is not a tragedy in the same way that a promising young director's death is -- but there's something unreal about it. He doesn't (didn't) SEEM like an old director.

digi · Posts: 25

fuck. this really sucks.

This first time i saw an image on Robert Altman was in an interview where the subject was Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon", and as old as he looked, he rambled with the air of a enthusiastic student.

Jokes that fell flat aside, 'Prarie Home Companion' was one of the most enjoyable times I'd had at the movies for some time.

dark steve · Posts: 3002

We always lose these guys one film too early.

Dude had a great run.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

Holy shit... that's pretty sad. I really liked the man's work.

Best film? Popeye of course. And I'm not really joking either.

finnagain · Posts: 181

digi wrote:

Jokes that fell flat aside, 'Prarie Home Companion' was one of the most enjoyable times I'd had at the movies for some time.

It was enjoyable -- but I suppose the 'Prarie Home Companion' radio show, and it's style of humor, just wears me out before too long. And why Guy Noir was made into a "real" person? That annoyed the hell out of me.

The great thing about the film, though, was the enthusiam all those big-name actors brought to the screen. That happens with a lot of his movies. People in the industry just liked the guy, liked working with him, and it's rare to see that. Fellini's pictures have the same sort of jovial feeling, too, but Fellini wasn't as broad a director as Altman.

finnagain · Posts: 181

FortNinety wrote:

Holy shit... that's pretty sad. I really liked the man's work.

Best film? Popeye of course. And I'm not really joking either.

Popeye is better than it had any right to be. But as the best film he directed? I dunno.

Because there are sooooooo many great films. Farewell, My Lovely; the aforementioned McCabe & Mrs. Miller; Three Women; Vincent & Theo; California Split; Godsford Park (nevermind that it was just a 'homage' to 'The Rules of the Game,' it was a great film); The Player; Secret Honor; Short Cuts; Boogie Nights (yeah, I know P.T. Anderson directed it. But whenever I watch that movie I always think Altman's directing it.)

And the really mean parts of M*A*S*H.

And those are the films I've seen -- he directed about 900, it seems like. I haven't seen 'Nashville,' yet -- although it's on the Netflix cue right now -- and many people call that his best film.

antitype · Posts: 1148

I loved 3 Women best.

R.I.P.

brainiac · Posts: 941

nobody ever says brewster mccloud.

George · Posts: 1656

Weird, I just saw The Player this week.

MASH is probably the funniest movie of all time. I really wasn't expecting him to die, either. But I'm glad he didn't pass after 10 years of retirement or something. I have a lot of respect for people like Kurosawa and Altman who died in their 80s but were still very active.

finnagain · Posts: 181

Espically in Altman and Kurosawa's cases, they weren't just still active but still making good/great films.

I don't have anything against someone like Ingmar Bergman saying "you know what, I think I've said all that I need to say," and hanging it up at a (relatively, in this company) age.

And I'm happy Kurosawa's suicide attempt failed, long before his natural death.

It still just seems weird that Altman is dead. All of his films seem like a excited little kid made them. Kurosawa's final film -- god, I can't remember the name of it right now -- the film about the professor who always toasted 'Not yet!' at each of his birthdays -- was a nice farewell.

skonrad · Posts: 76

Madadayo. The pacing in that movie is perfect.

George · Posts: 1656

Kurosawa was actually working on two movies when he was died. One was written entirely by him and ended up being directed by his son or something, and I think Mifune's son starred. Another was written by him and the 3 other most famous Japanese directors, and all of them died except Kon Ichikawa, who directed it.

I agree that Madadoyo made sense as a farewell film, however.

One reason Kurosawa could keep working till his death is that he fundamentally changed as a moviemaker. He couldn't make another Seven Samurai in his 70s, but he couldn't have made Ran in his 30s. Woody Allen, as much as I love him, is just remaking his old movies, and I wouldn't mind so much if he retired.

finnagain · Posts: 181

Woody Allen is a weird case, because he had, from "Take the Money and Run," to "Manhattan," a string of near-perfect comedies (with such a huge range, too -- I can't imagine the comedy auters of today hitting everything from slapstick to serious romantic comedy to quasi-philospical... Woody Allen comedy) but then he wanted to make "serious" movies that were nothing but Fellini and Bergman homage/blowjob films. And some of them are pretty darn good -- Hannah and Her Sisters is better than all the others, I think -- but after deserting his own style for so long, he lost it. Mel Brooks switched careers to Broadway and became relevant/funny again (so I hear, having not seen the stage production of the Producers); Allen should most likely just stick to his jazz music and creepy relasonship.

finnagain · Posts: 181

I agree entirely on Ran, too.

As pretty much every Shakespeare teacher I've ever had says, young people cannot fully understand King Lear. You gotta live a while to really understand Lear.

George · Posts: 1656

I really like Woody Allen's serious movie Crimes and Misdemeanors/Match Point, I'm just not sure that he needed to make it twice. The aristocratic London setting was something refreshing and new, but he could have tried a little harder to differentiate the plots.

108 · Posts: 2600

George wrote:

I really like Woody Allen's serious movie Crimes and Misdemeanors/Match Point, I'm just not sure that he needed to make it twice.

Well. The idea of a director making a movie twice is that he excuses the viewer for having not seen the first version. There are bands like that -- they go about revising their old technique to a razor edge, where you recommend them to someone by just telling them to get the latest album.

Those bands tend to not be very good, usually!

Still, I think "Match Point" had the right amount of wisdom behind its revisions. It was almost a very great film. Woody Allen has, what, three other films in the works right now? I wonder if any of them will be really good.

Altman, though, was pretty great. It too bad that he's dead, in a way it's too bad when anybody's dead, though it'd be hard to say he didn't have a full career and/or a diverse body of work.

I was just talking to a friend about Gosford Park the other day. We weren't really saying much about it. Which is about the best compliment I think you can pay it.

George · Posts: 1656

108 wrote:

Still, I think "Match Point" had the right amount of wisdom behind its revisions. It was almost a very great film.

Match Point was a character study of very rich, completely amoral people. Whereas Crimes and Misdemeanors was a more overtly philosophical movie about evil itself. So they had sufficiently different messages, but the fact that they used the same plot to do this was distracting.

I saw a preview of Emilio Esteves' Bobby today. It's an Altman movie minus the fun, improvisational feel. It's still pretty good.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

finnagain wrote:

Godsford Park (nevermind that it was just a 'homage' to 'The Rules of the Game,' it was a great film)

Hey, I didn't know that! Now I really have to check it out.

And I wasn't joking when I said that Popeye was his best. Okay, maybe not in a traditional sense, but its pretty damn amazing when you consider that its such an ambitious take on realizing a cartoon character. Everything, the the actors, the sets, the music... its a real achievement, one that gets dissed way too much.

finnagain · Posts: 181

FortNinety wrote:

And I wasn't joking when I said that Popeye was his best. Okay, maybe not in a traditional sense, but its pretty damn amazing when you consider that its such an ambitious take on realizing a cartoon character. Everything, the the actors, the sets, the music... its a real achievement, one that gets dissed way too much.

I was reading some of the old interviews with Altman that Roger Ebert did last night, and I noticed how vehemently Altman grew to hate the "new Hollywood," after making Popeye. Because it wasn't a flop at the box-office. It just wasn't as huge a hit as some expected it to be.

I'm glad you mentioned the music in Popeye, though. I should go find the soundtrack, somewhere, because it really was a great (and different) musical. I think Harry Nilsson did most of it.

EDIT: Yes, he did. Nilsson rules.

Adilegian · Posts: 124

finnagain wrote:

EDIT: Yes, he did. Nilsson rules.

Did you ever see that animated movie he wrote titled The Point? Ringo Starr narrated it. It was an extended allegory that I loved when I was five.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

finnagain wrote:

[I should go find the soundtrack, somewhere, because it really was a great (and different) musical.

There is none. Trust me, I've tried looking.

Laurel Soup · Posts: 244

Operation Keep Bergman Alive begins now

finnagain · Posts: 181

As far as the "great directors" go, Bergman seems the least likely to find a contemporary audience --- either because his films are too 'pretentious' or too damn depressing.

Not all of them -- but pretty much everything before Fanny & Alexander. Which was, if we ignore the film he made in 2005 (has anyone here seen it?) his last movie.

I have enough trouble selling Krzysztof Kieslowski to the people I watch movies with, and there is humor in most of his films. Blanc has moments in it that make me laugh out loud. I have no idea what to tell someone about Cries and Whispers that would make the film sound palpable.

"You should see this movie," I'd say.
"What is it about?" you'd answer.
"It is about a group of sisters [there is where your enthusiasm might begin to waver] one of whom is dying a terrible, slow death [lowering enthusiasm more] while the other two go about hurting each other, and their husbands, and themselves, in unbearable ways [maybe you are frowning, now]."

finnagain · Posts: 181

Adilegian wrote:

finnagain wrote:

EDIT: Yes, he did. Nilsson rules.

Did you ever see that animated movie he wrote titled The Point? Ringo Starr narrated it. It was an extended allegory that I loved when I was five.

No I haven't! As soon as I can access Netflix, I'll see if it's there. That sounds awesome.

skonrad · Posts: 76

I don't know. Persona is such an important film -- anyone who's a fan of Lynch can probably see where the work is slightly derivative of it. Toronto had a Bergman film festival a while ago that sold out on every night.

Are you talking about Saraband, or something else? It's really beautiful. One of the better movies I saw last year, and an appropriate note for Bergman to end on (more appropriate than Fanny Och Alexander). If you're at all a fan of Scenes from a Marriage, it's worth watching, and even if you're not it's reasonably accessible.

Bergman does a lot that I have an inexplicable attraction to -- his use of Verfremdungseffekt and his swan songs pretty much guarantee I'll love him to death and force all of my friends to watch his movies repeatedly.

Laurel Soup · Posts: 244

finnagain wrote:

Which was, if we ignore the film he made in 2005 (has anyone here seen it?) his last movie.

Yeah, it was about an old divorced couple hanging out together. I think I was actually a sequel. It had hella heart, but wasn't SuperCool or anything.

George · Posts: 1656

Yeah Bergman's last film was a sequel to one from 20 years ago.

I saw a play by Bergman called "Nora" that was just a really minor, pointless adaptation of Ibsen's "A Doll's House." It pissed me off because, while it wasn't worse than "A Doll's House," the changes weren't large enough for Bergman to deserve any credit for it.

boojiboy7 · Posts: 1104

Just posting to say, that as a kid who grew up listening to Prarie Home Companion while riding home from dinner at his grandmother's apartment (yay, MIDWEST FUCK-BLAMO!), that movie turned out better than I would have ever imagined.

I'm trying to think of how to phrase the whole Guy Noir thing, so bear with me a bit here. As a radio show, PHC has always had this weird winking sarcasm to it, like the show was so heartfelt and earnest, that it all had to be a joke. So the movie knew that, and made Guy Noir kind of the embodiment of it. HE is there as a joke, as somebody so clearly from a separate world that he becomes a metaphor for this show, which exists completely separate from the modern radio world, but doesn't. Guy Noir is a character from a radio play of the past just like PHC is a radio show from the past.

I don't know. I should watch that movie again, as I saw it right when it came out and I want to clarify my thoughts on it. I liked Guy Noir though, for whatever that means.

finnagain · Posts: 181

My complaint with the Guy Noir in the PHC movie is less directed at the (I think accurate) observation you made, but in the way his role was written and played.

I mean, Noir isn't supposed to be a dupe. On the show, he isn't. But the film changes the character into a bit of a buffoon.

I wish I could elaborate more, but it IS thanksgiving and I've been pretty busy with the cooking/cleaning/moviegoing/family-time experience -- I'll get back later.

Same thing with Bergman -- I have some responses but not the time to articulate them.

boojiboy7 · Posts: 1104

See I always thought that on the show, Noir kinda was a dupe. I mean, he was always narrating, so we could never trust his view of things, and he might just have been a buffoon there. I always got the sense that he was, so I guess his character in the movie didn't aggrivate me in the same way it did you. I could be wrong, it having been years since I was a regular listener to the show. The wikipedia entry makes hims sound kinda buffoon-y, noting that he and his partner shot each other pretty regularly, and that he seemed to make St. Paul out to be a very noir-ish place. Then again this is wikipedia, so year

Alternately, if he wasn't an idiot in the show, maybe the Noir character in the movie was meant to be the guy Keilor based Noir on, or something.