Richard Schickel wrote a book review of Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff. Except that, rather than review the book, he chose to review Robert Altman's capacity for drinking and dope-smoking:
It appears that from the beginning of his career until almost its end (when illness slowed him), Robert Altman never passed an entirely sober day in his life. When he was not drinking heavily, he was smoking dope -- often doing both simultaneously. When he screened dailies on location, he insisted the cast and crew gather to view them in a party atmosphere, with the merriment rolling on into the night.
Shocking, isn't it?
Schickel insists that the author, the 145 people Zuckoff interviewed for the book, and (by extension) the director himself, "never [come] to grips with the effect this had on his films." But, in fact, it's Schickel who doesn't. His review, which reads like it could have been dictated by a character in "The Player" (or someone offended by seeing it), is Schickel's way of saying he disapproves of how Altman made movies -- the "party" atmosphere, the emphasis on "behavior" over traditional notions of character and script, the overlapping dialog that he says made "sure the audience never quite understood what was going on" [?]. And, naturally, he deplores the results:
For a few years, Altman was indulged by many critics and some studios and, admittedly, there are artful passages in 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller' (a critique of nascent capitalism that is probably his best work), 'Nashville,' 'California Split' and . . . very little else.
Schickel, of course, is an acolyte (some say sycophant) of Clint Eastwood, whose conservative working methods could not be more different from Altman's. The one thing they have in common is that detractors of both have questioned whether their movies are "directed" at all -- with Eastwood delegating the work to expert Hollywood journeymen, and Altman creating an atmosphere in which he could sit back and watch what happens. Not that there's any reason to praise one at the expense of the other, but Schickel obviously prefers some directorial methods over... Altman's:
Thus this question: How did a man with no interest in the fundamentals of film get taken seriously for as long as he did? I'm not arguing that the well-made Hollywood movie is the only possible filmmaking mode. The likes of Renoir, Bergman, Buñuel decisively disprove that notion.
But the greats all share intentionality, the need to direct our attention to something that was on their minds. They did not leave their people flopping around until something printable happened.
Schickel's baseless assumption is that what Altman's approach to filmmaking made him a bad director -- when his unconventional methods were elaborately designed to create just the effects you see on the screen. Altman's films offer a means of experiencing the world, a way of experiencing movies, that's instantly identifiable as his own. Schickel doesn't like it, he can turn away from it, but the fact of it is undeniable, whether Schickel can see it or not.
That last line in the quotation above reminds me of something Scott Glenn once said about working on "Nashville." One of the main actors (individually miked) in a crowd scene asked how she would know when one of the cameras was on her. Altman told her she wouldn't -- but that if she did something interesting it might end up in the movie. I suppose you could, if you were so inclined, characterize that as leaving people flopping around in front of the camera -- as you could with any director who relies on improvisation, whether it's John Cassavetes, Henry Jaglom or Christopher Guest.
But Altman carefully assembled his movies (and most of all their fine-tuned Hawksian soundtracks) so that you weren't left with the spectacle of actors flailing away for something to do or say while the camera rolled, as is pointedly the case, for example, in Jaglom's insufferable movies. If an actor wasn't in character, or wasn't doing something worth keeping, Altman would lose interest, his camera would wander away, the dialog would disappear into the sound mix, or he would cut around the moment. If you watch (and listen to) Altman's movies closely, you can see the intelligent choices he's making, even while the experience itself feels open, free-wheeling, sprawling, chaotic, bustling or any of those other Altmanesque adjectives critics are inclined to use to describe his work.
Schickel prefers to criticize Altman for being Altman -- which is his prerogative, although it doesn't reveal much about the filmmaker or the films. Altman's way of working is indeed essential to the texture of his films, and it was a risky non-factory approach that by its very nature was destined to yield unpredictable results from picture to picture, depending even more than most movies (and parties) on the particular serendipity of the mix. In filmmaking, every picture -- every scene, every take -- is a roll of the dice, and Altman went all-in. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't, but the high-stakes gamble was built into the process, and that's what makes some of his films so thrilling. As for Schickel's verdict, critics far more astute than he have explored Altman's films in great detail. (See Richard T. Jameson's appreciation of "Nashville," "Writin' it down kinda makes me feel better." Or Roger Ebert's career-long engagement with Altman's work.)
Fortunately, LA Times columnist Patrick Goldstein took Schickel to task in the same paper:
My primary problem with the review is that if Schickel has no respect for Altman as a filmmaker, how would he possibly be in a position to give a fair review to an exhaustive biography of the man? And it's certainly obvious that Schickel loathes Altman's work, since he starts out by ridiculing "MASH" as "a basically witless film," then moves on to trash the rest of Altman's oeuvre, saying that "misanthropy -- with a strong admixture of misogyny -- essentially substitutes for ideas in his movies and his characters are, in effect, characterless."[...]
... Schickel seems obsessed with Altman's licentiousness, admonishing Altman over and over for his freewheeling ways, as if he were the first filmmaker ever to use and abuse a variety of intoxicants.
Director Alan Rudolph ("Welcome to L.A.," "Choose Me," "The Moderns," "Afterglow"), who once directed backgrounds for Altman on "Nashville" and other pictures, provided the last word in a magnificent letter, which Goldstein prints, and which does justice to the artist. I'm reprinting it here in its entirety:
Dear Editor,
Obviously your reviewer waited safely in his lair until Robert Altman moved on, then bravely said what's been eating at the traditionalist core of his film soul for years.
He negates Altman because of his life style. Would he dismiss Huston's drinking or Hitchcock's sexual repression as influences on their film gifts? Basically, this review says Altman was something new and different when he made his mark, but the reviewer never really bought it. So now Altman must be overrated and unimportant. What has been universally accepted -- that Altman was the one of the greatest American directors of his generation, an honor automatically inserting his name into every serious evaluation of cinema forever -- your reviewer claims was wayward opinion. He simply knows better.
Altman was an innovator. His films might seem casual, but intentionally so. They were behavioral in appearance, but carefully crafted with ideas, and strong on consequence. Having served as a screenwriter for Bob, I can personally attest to his rigorous attention to writing. He just didn't want the result to seem written. This wasn't a dismissal of screenplays or writers, but Altman creating. Your reviewer belongs to the legion of unsuccessful detractors of important artists when bold work never before encountered was first unveiled. Some just can't break with the past.
Directors, writers and actors don't have to replicate Altman for him to have impacted their sensibilities. The power of a major artist is that he or she is a force, standard, guide. What your reviewer doesn't grasp is that great artists always lead the way. The torch gets passed, the message out, the influence permanent. You don't have to be aware of originators to be modified by them. Bob's insistence on doing things his own way was essential. It's the major struggle. And Altman won. Which is the ultimate defeat for the studio ruling class and establishment apologists. Your reviewer uses Jules Feiffer's troubles with Bob as an example of overindulgence, but glibly dismisses Feiffer's description of Altman as a genius. In the critic's mind, Bob wasn't the right kind of genius.
Altman never changed. To have "comebacks" shows he never went away. Some of his films might have been less than others, but each had the stuff of brilliance, and was part of a larger collection. Bob knew that continuously working in the rough was the best way to find the jewel. His biting humor never spared reality nor himself. The painful absurdity of it all. There was nobody like him during his professional peak, and there isn't now.
Alan Rudolph
That says it. I'd hoped this approach had reached its tabloid nadir with "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls," which also concentrated on drugs instead of filmmaking. (I can't remember who said it, but the most penetrating comment about that book was that from reading it you'd never know these people had made some of the greatest films of their time -- which, you'd think, would be why you were interested in reading about them in the first place.)
The evidence of Altman's achievement is still with us: "MASH," "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "Images," "The Long Goodbye," "Thieves Like Us," "California Split," "Nashville," "3 Women," "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," "Secret Honor," "Streamers," "Tanner '88," "Vincent & Theo," "The Player," "Short Cuts," "Gosford Park," "The Company," "A Prairie Home Companion"... It don't worry me. Look at the movies -- many of which look better now than they ever did. Altman's reputation is solid -- it's there on the screen.
Biographies of artists too often revel in their so-called transgressions (as if drinking and smoking pot were ever really transgressive in the first place). Robert Katz's Love Is Colder Than Death starts off as a fantastic study of Fassbinder's life and work, but by the end Fassbinder is depicted as a fat Tony Montana, with his shirt unbuttoned and his head buried in a mountain of coke. The same could be said for Bob Woodward's biography of John Belushi (the title eludes me at the moment); I think it was Nathan Rabin who said that Woodward recounts practically every time Belushi ever shot up.
Patrick Goldstein made the best point, though: if you hate Altman so much, why on earth are you reviewing this book?
I'd be interested to know what Schickel thinks of Joseph McBride's massive John Ford biography, "Searching for John Ford: A Life".
I'm in the middle of reading it right now (currently covering Ford's WWII Navy career), and up until that point in his life (at least) Ford lived in an almost total drunken oblivion between pictures. And, the accounts of Ford's directing methods are strange at best. Most of his actors say that they didn't really receive much direction from him at all, but were somehow able to get what he wanted. He was brutal to many in his stock company, and a horrible father. Would Schickel chide him for these things?
The attack on Altman's directing methods is peculiar. In reading biographies and interviews, it seems that most every major director employs some level of sadism and insanity on their sets. They abuse people, and manage to create art out of it. Altman, who I haven't read as much on, appears to throw a party for his cast and crew. Why pick on Altman? Why not throw a few bricks at Fritz Lang or Lars von Trier?
But, since Ford is probably the most sublime example of classical Hollywood filmmaking (with Hawks at a very close second), I'm sure Schickel can forgive him his many sins. Altman, on the other hand, is a whole different story.
I'm actually surprised it took this long for you to mention Schickel's awful attack on Altman. When I read this, I almost wanted to throw up...and I'm not even a devoted Altman acolyte ("M*A*S*H* actually DOES strike me as dated and sophomoric, but Altman has done SO much more). It's just such an affront to the things I value in criticism...and all the more shocking because I had always kinda respected Richard Schickel as a critic (despite his unabashed love for all things Eastwood).
I don't know how you can watch "The Player", "A Prairie Home Companion", "Short Cuts" or "Nashville" and not sense complete control, even control over anarchy. Or if not control, then at least a pulsing artistic heart. David Edelstein once wrote in his scathing review of "Dogville" that the "hermetically-sealed" directors (be they the greats like Kubrick and the Coens or the insufferables like von Trier) that make sure their choices are noticed always get more huzzahs from critics than the more open, free-form directors...but both approaches require a set of immense skills. Schickel has made up his mind that because Altman was relaxed and having a good time making movies, he can't actually have been putting any thought into his work. Hogwash, plain and simple.
What happened to Alan Rudolph anyway? His last film , which was pretty good, was way back in 2002? Up until that point, he'd been making films at a pretty steady clip.
Popeye? I love that movie.
Are we really surprised Richard Schickel is passing judgment on Robert Altman (and his drinking)?
First, Schickel's always been a conservative critic, one who praises craftsmanship over innovation. His idea of a great auteur is Elia Kazan (about whom he shot a documentary in 1995 and wrote a biography published in 2005), since, as a critic, Shickel's always indicated that plot, character, and dialogue are what he appreciates most in cinema. Kazan's theatrical-style, overripe emotions, and exploration of "controversial" issues, apparently so fresh to audiences of the 1950s, seemed dated even a decade later. But at least for Schickel, Kazan always made sure "the audience understood what was going on." If all your concerned with as a critic is thematic content, then Altman's innovations with multi-layered soundtracks and pan-and-zoom cinematography might go over your head, as they have with Schickel. Altman's films are not just behaviorally-oriented, they are environments, cinematic landscapes linked together by rich, spontaneous sounding, though carefully crafted, soundtracks and a fluid, mobile camera that suggests the existence of a world beyond the margins of the screen. Unlike today's new classicism, where every actor uttering a line of dialogue must be shown so the viewer understands who's saying what and what's going on every second, Altman invited the viewer to actually watch his films, exploring his landscapes at our own pleasure. Sure we might not get every line of dialogue, understand what every character said, or who said it (or "understand what is going on" per Schickel), but Altman allows us to participate in the process of meaning-creation, something one who values plot above all things may have no use for, as apparently Schickel doesn't.
Second, Schickel's career has always, always gone the tabloid route. Just look at his bibliography--it's loaded with celebrity biographies that have absolutely nothing to do with what we would call "criticism." Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant, Lena Horne, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Schickel's written a biography for each. Don't be fooled by his "Men Who Made the Movies" series in the 70s, these celebrity tomes are his true focus.
Third, Schickel has shown a proclivity to trash great artists in the past. His atrocious "The Disney Version" almost single-handedly set the prevailing negative critical tone regarding classic Disney animated films for decades. David Bordwell, whose work on post-"Fantasia" Disney animation of the '40s is inspired, best sums up "The Disney Version" as "perfectly crystallizing that era's feelings about Disney's debasement of popular culture."
Finally, Schickel has shown an extraordinary ability to mis-read even the films of directors he cherishes. Really, Richard, does "Unforgiven" have a "happy ending" (per his audio commentary of Eastwood's masterwork)? Isn't it obviously a moral/spiritual relapse into the hellish violence of William Munny's youth, a rejection of the woman he loved, and a damning implication of the kind of audience (i.e. Schickel) that would root for a bloodbath resolution?
So this latest bit of inanity from Schickel should come as a surprise to no one.
P.S. I also pity any man who dismisses "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me" from Rio Bravo as "mere filler" (as Schickel does on his audio commentary).
I have to come to the defense of Richard Schickel here. Having read the whole review, I find that the outrage is largely misplaced and grounded in a rather skewed perspective of what Schickel wrote.
First off, to clarify my perspective I should say that I am only marginally familiar with Altman, having seen only six of his films: McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Player, Short Cuts, Cookie's Fortune, Gosford Park and The Company. That is not to say that I am not interested in seeing his other films but, to be honest, based on the ones that I have seen, I can see Schickel's point.
To begin, I think your cry of protest, Jim, against Schickel's focus on Altman's drug use is a tad misplaced. Schickel did not declare Altman's marijuana use as a problem in itself, but rather, as he clearly said, on the effect it may have had on his films. Schickel's focus is on Altman's filmmaking legacy, not his personal hangups; when he does mention Altman's less rosy traits, he stays within the context of the filmmaking. Schickel clearly sees a conflict in dabbling in intoxicating substances while on a film set when (and this is the point) their influence can be seen onscreen, to the film's detriment. Other commenters on here have pointed to John Ford as a example of a less-than-holy filmmaker when it came to his personal life choices. Yet for all the Ford films I have seen, not once did I get the sense that I was watching the product of an alcoholic. Schickel believes Altman's drug use is relevant to the analysis of the man's work, and Schickel's own distaste to it.
At the time when I saw the above-listed Altman films, I did not know of the drug use, but knowing it now, it does at least hint at one of the possible sources of my dissatisfaction with what I saw (and yes, heard). His films always seemed rather aimless and lacking in focus to me. Being a pot smoker myself, I can recognize that state of mind easily.
However, I do believe that Altmans filmmaking style is of much greater relevance when discussing the uniqueness of his films and whether they ultimately work or don't. This was yet another point of Schickel's that many have misread, in my opinion. To state that Schickel does not like Altman's films because of his filmmaking style is simply not accurate. It is BECAUSE Schickel does not like Altman's films that he brings up his style of working as a likely source of the problem.
It is pointless to argue whether Schickel is right or wrong in his opinion of Altman. I can understand people's appreciation of the man's work and respect it as a subjective preference. By no means do I view him as an inept filmmaker, just not a very successful one. My defense of Schickel here is not based on the fact that I pretty much agree with him, but that he presents a reasonable argument to support his dislike of Altman's work; it is not a smear-job, as has been suggested here and elsewhere. I myself tend to get defensive whenever I come across criticisms of my Kubrick, yet I can respect a differing viewpoint if it has a rational basis.
Regarding the Altman films that I have seen, other than "The Company" (which was a crushing bore), I actually found the other five films to be to a large extent enjoyable, if ultimately forgettable. I still intend to see the rest at some point, but having have gotten a sense Altman's style, I think Schickel is right to question his canonization among the all-time greats.
One last point regarding Patrick Goldstein's view that Schickel is in no position to review the book if he does not respect Altman as a filmmaker. That is a rather strange complaint to make, isn't it? It would make more sense to ask that question if Schickel himself undertook to write a critical Altman biography. The book was not rewiewed by the gardening-tips-column lady, for chrissakes. Schickel is film critic, and as such is fully qualified to review the subject matter. He has a minority viewpoint, fine, but he presents it fairly.
Also - given this is a book review, did Schickel say anything about the book he was reviewing, except that people quoted in it liked Altman?
I find the idea that Altman was uncinematical - "a man with no interest in the fundamentals of film" - impossible to grasp. Whatever looseness there may be in how he staged and shot the films on the set, his work always shows a strong editorial hand, carefully structured visually and aurally, within scenes, between scenes, over the whole film. They are full of elaborate formal patterns - patterns of imagery, shots and sequences that rhyme, or are arranged symmetrically, or form numeric patterns... At least Schickel seems to recognize that Renoir, Bergman and Bunuel are relevant to a discussion of Altman, but I'm not sure he notices how much Altman got from them, let alone how much his work extends their ways of working. (Especially Renoir and Bergman.)
This made me think of my first encounter with Altman, Short Cuts. I was but a twee, 13 or so, and had heard about Robert Altman somehow, at least I got the impression that he was this major director and should be checked out. So to Blockbuster I went and for some reason went with Short Cuts. I brought the vhs home and was almost immediately bored. I thought it was shot like a tv show, that every actor was doing something overtly actor-y and I couldn't understand where the praise for this guy was coming from. From then on I swore off Altman, who in my estimation made "blurry" pictures; movies that are at once boring and hard to put your finger on and in which you actually feel like your in a stuffy room with the heat turned way up. I couldn't explain why this Altman guy was in the greats category as far as directors were concerned and thus I dismissed him, his work, and his supporters.
Thankfully, my ignorance and lack of taste, I was 13 and had a great many things to learn, would not win the day. One day in college I was at the library which had recently come into possession of some DVD's suggested by the Film Professors. I looked through the list and saw Nashville was available. I think it may have been an Ebert great movies review or a professor urging me to take a look, I cannot remember, but I rented the DVD to give this Altman guy one more chance. Boy, to say I was stunned, immediately engaged, in disbelief over how ignorant I had been and kicking myself over what I almost had lost is quite the understatement. If I had stayed in my little cage of assumptions (...cage of assumptions?) I would have robbed myself of a great artist's brilliant career. After Nashville I couldn't wait to get my hands on all the Altman I could find and was left stunned as well by McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, etc. Strangely enough I still haven't gone back to Short Cuts, which might be one good thing this Schickel review has done, it rallies the troops and reminds us we cannot take our greats for granted. They need to always be rediscovered and reevaluated and to keep the discussion going helps to keep us out of our ignorance, our short-sightedness and yes the cage of our assumptions.
This caught me by surprise since I usually admire Schickel's criticism. But to be so reductive of Altman, a maverick independent if there ever was one, is extremely myopic. You are right to say, "If you watch (and listen to) Altman's movies closely, you can see the intelligent choices he's making..." He just happens to make a great deal of their choices in pre- and post-production. Which wouldn't make him that different from other greats, like Malick for instance. The results may sometimes be uneven. But I think Altman has enough classic films in his resume to justify all the praise.
And if Schickel even dares to suggest that Altman's movies are only as good as the people he hires to work on them... well, he should take another look at his own idol, Eastwood (who I actually admire too, for different reasons).
It is sad when a once great critic starts flirting with irrelevancy.
JE: Altman started directing in film and television in the early '50s. By the time he made "MASH" he'd been working in the industry for about 20 years. He knew what he was doing, and he chose to do things his way from then on. Schickel suggests he was just sloppy and didn't know what he was doing -- you know, 'cause he disdained conventional working methods and was drunk and stoned all the time. I'm sure Schickel has been in a dark room with Altman films before, but it's apparent that he's never seen one because he doesn't know how to see what Altman's movies do.
"P.S. I also pity any man who dismisses "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me" from Rio Bravo as "mere filler" (as Schickel does on his audio commentary)."
That's abigger strike against Schickel in my book: it's one thing not to get a director whose films you don't like, it's another to so thoroughly miss the point of a film you supposedly admire a great deal.
First of all, I share Alex Murillo’s sentiment: I'm surprised it took any of us beyond Patrick Goldstein and Alan Rudolph so long to mention Schickel's irresponsible, ill-informed and absurd attack on Altman. And I put that delay more on myself. I’ve wanted to sit down and write about this joke of a review for going on two weeks and haven’t had the opportunity. So I’m really happy to see that you’ve taken it up, Jim, and stated what needed to be said about the colossal mote in Schickel’s eye concerning Altman.
And as you say, it’s apparent from the first line of the review that Schickel has based his entire point of view about Altman on the director’s documented (and never denied) behavior, of which Schickel vehemently disapproves. For Schickel there is apparently no need to separate the artist from the art on this fundamental level, even though most all of us learned a long time ago that there can often be a gulf between what a man produces and the way he regards another person (or a substance) in social interaction. But to even consider this apparent truism so far as to have to mention it at all is to lend credence to Schickel’s fatally flawed point. The critic never approved of Altman’s lifestyle or the kind of hazy, dissolute quality he saw in his films, which he then couldn’t help but connect in his head. One might as well say that Jeff Spicoli would have turned out movies that looked and felt like Altman’s because, like Altman, he was a raging pothead. Yet that notion is only slightly more absurd than the one that Schickel peddles, which is that Altman’s substance abuse crippled his instincts as a filmmaker, and if we look back on them now, in sobriety, we’ll inevitably see Altman’s films as time capsules with nothing to say to our modern generation of filmgoers. They’re no good! Why? Because I said so! This is precisely the kind of huffy, baseless dismissal that some print critics (perhaps even Schickel) have slammed bloggers and other Internet-based film writers for—shoddy journalistic tactics and the inability or unwillingness to back up their grandstanding, attention-grabbing claims. It’s incredible to me not only that Schickel would construct a dismissal of a major filmmaker’s career on such flimsy grounds, but that the editor responsible for printing it in the Los Angeles Times would not, as Patrick Goldstein eventually did, call him out on it and simply reject the piece on grounds of insufficient journalistic standards. The review does nothing to prove Schickel’s premise, but it sure does drive another solid-gold nail in the coffin containing what’s left of his credibility as a critic.
I think your point here is critical, Jim:
“…Altman carefully assembled his movies (and most of all their fine-tuned Hawksian soundtracks) so that you weren't left with the spectacle of actors flailing away for something to do or say while the camera rolled, as is pointedly the case, for example, in Jaglom's insufferable movies. If an actor wasn't in character, or wasn't doing something worth keeping, Altman would lose interest, his camera would wander away, the dialog would disappear into the sound mix, or he would cut around the moment. If you watch (and listen to) Altman's movies closely, you can see the intelligent choices he's making, even while the experience itself feels open, free-wheeling, sprawling, chaotic, bustling or any of those other Altmanesque adjectives critics are inclined to use to describe his work.”
Matt Zoller Seitz, in a blog-a-thon a number of us participated in several years ago to mark Altman’s 81st birthday, memorably described going to a family party. As he surveyed the roomful of people gathered together, he found himself emulating Altman’s roving camera eye, sorting through the assemblage, choosing what to focus on with his eyes, his ears, noting the effect it had to choose a visual focus and yet emphasize the overheard conversation coming from nearby, unconnected to what it is he was seeing. It’s incredible to me that Schickel would even come close to implying that what Altman did was akin to letting the camera roll and dull-wittedly waiting for something to happen, to reveal itself. This was a notion that I gave credence to when I was 15 years old, when I had comparatively little life experience, when I wasn’t capable yet of processing, of understanding the complexity of vision that Altman had composed and was offering on his audio-visual canvases. I’m not suggesting that Schickel must appreciate everything that Altman does (even we Altman acolytes aren’t so blind), or that there is only one way to understand Altman’s films. But what is Schickel’s excuse, as a critic who presumably knows something about the way films are created, that allows him the luxury of such a thoughtless dismissal? What is his excuse for not having a greater cognizance of Altman’s methodology than a 15-year-old?
I once had the privilege of asking Altman himself, at a screening of The Long Goodbye at UCLA in the days just before The Player came out, whether or not he thought his films were manipulative. I asked the question because I’d been having heated discussions with someone who was intent on dismissing his visual style because of the way he used the zoom lens and other techniques to direct our attention toward certain aspects of behavior and performance. To this person, Altman’s directorial manner was too emphatic, too on-the-nose, as if Altman were saying, “Whoops, you won’t catch this unless I italicize it for you with my zoom lens.” My response to this argument was similar to the scenario Matt so memorably described, though no doubt not as cogently presented or argued. And I also countered that to suggest that Altman was manipulative above and beyond the methods of any other director in cinema simply because of this noticeable stylistic technique was to be willfully ignorant of the myriad ways in which directors as disparate as Hitchcock, Hawks, Godard and Herzog—in other words, just about any director you can name who can cut and juxtapose film or make a choice as to where to place the camera—use film to express their vision of the world. It was a joy to hear Altman respond to my question by saying, “Of course it’s manipulative! I want you to see things how I see them!” And he’s right—Altman’s movies are distinctive not exclusively because of their hazy, laid-back rhythms but because of how Altman employs that seductive pose to frame his investigative, searching, sometimes chaotic, nearly always visually thrilling approach That approach is not, by the way, directly transferable from film to film, even though anyone paying attention could see that the same man who directed M*A*S*H, Brewster McCloud, The Long Goodbye, California Split, Nashville and Buffalo Bill and the Indians also directed the relatively sparsely populated and meticulously observed Images, Three Women and A Perfect World with their relatively more tightly focused visual range. Without that manipulation, you’re left with Henry Jaglom, who disdains film technique, or at least the appearance of smoothness that technique would serve to create, who literally does seem to think that his duty is that of camera operator and that “the truth” will be revealed not by him but through the rambling improvisations of his actors. Could Schickel honestly look at a movie like McCabe and Mrs. Miller or Secret Honor or Buffalo Bill and The Indians or The Long Goodbye and truthfully suggest that these films came together not because of an artistic vision but in spite of a mediocre director’s pot-addled sensibility? Apparently. After all, he put his name on the review. It’s a shame that this punk excuse for criticism had to be the last thing of Schickel’s that I will ever read. Altman’s reputation remains unsullied in my eye, while Schickel’s—well, Schickel’s is in the tank.
It's mind boggling to me that this piece could be written given A Secret Honor; I know it's not a major release, but it seems in most film studies or film criticism circles, it's a big part of the Altman canon, and works wildly in opposition to Schickel's generic, generalized "everybody talking all the time" critique. But given that the critique doesn't hold much water in and of itself, I suppose this is a moot point.
"Altman's reputation is solid," you write. Solid. So I'm assuming that's why we needed a lengthy post defending his work? Protesting too much, perhaps?
JE: Yeah, I knew some people would probably see it that way. But I felt I had to debunk Schickel's unsound method of using his disapproval of the man as an approach to criticizing the movies.
Robert Altman was one of the greatest lessons I ever learned in film lecturing.
I lecture on film at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and about a decade ago, I wanted to do a lecture on The Cinema Of Robert Altman.
But the more I researched the life of the man, the more I came to dislike him. True, I had never met Altman and I was only going by accounts listed in books and interviews, but I found myself dismayed at Altman's prickly nature, not to mention his almost constant use of drugs and drink.
I had quite the opposite experience when I did a lecture on The Cinema Of Steven Spielberg. In that case, the more I researched the man, the more I came to respect him.
Perhaps Spielberg just garners better press because he has made more money for people over the years than Robert Altman has?
Ultimately, the personal life of the artist, while interesting, is not the most important aspect to consider when judging the importance of an artists work.
Because years from now, when the details of the artists life are little remembered, we will still have the work.
So, no matter how soused Altman may have been or how difficult he was, it all falls away when I consider the beauty, power and humanity in his films from MASH, to Nashville to The Player, to Short Cuts to even something as silly as O.C & Stiggs.
RIP Bob. I miss you at least.
OFF TOPIC:
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Altman's body of work speaks for itself. "Short Cuts", M.A.S.H.,"Gosford Park", The Player" and even "Kansas City" that is so underrated qualifies Altman as one of the great directors of all time. Not cool, Schickel!
Thing is, I too like more conventional kinds of movies where scripts are written in full and stories develop in clear ways, but it's possible to like that and still think Altman did great work. I don't see the benefit in any critic becoming so beholden to one way of doing art that other methods get dismissed.
More importantly, it is a bad book review. Reviews of biographies do often include a bit of the reviewer's thoughts on the person being profiled, to compare/contrast with the author's thesis, but it is the picture that the biographer gives that is the primary evaluation. I can't tell from that review what kind of portrait the book gives of Altman, other than that it's more positive than Shickel's. Which isn't saying much.
Altman will still be relevant in 50 years. Schickel will be forgotten.
I enjoyed "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls." You're right, though, it is basically an account of drugs and reckless behavior. The thing is, it's not as if that book shaped my view of these filmmakers. I knew their work and respected them long before I ever picked up the book. The book was a novelty. Since I was not even a twinkle in my mothers eye during the New Hollywood period (I was born 2 years after Raging Bull), I enjoy putting myself in the period in certain ways.
The book was amusing and fascinating in many ways to me. I keep it in perspective though.
I consider Altman's career to be a single-minded approach to recreate the amazing multi-level character study of The Rules of the Game. I get the same kind of thrill out of Altman's ensemble films that I got out of Renoir's masterpiece.
Gosford Park happened to be on a couple of weeks ago, and this was my second viewing, and I was amazed at how much I had missed the first time around. The genius of an Altman film is that, at some point, you need to go with the flow, abandon normal expectations of how a story progresses and enjoy the whole experience.
For me, Altman's best films are like a good Thanksgiving or Christmas family gathering, there's a whole atmosphere there. There are characters that come in and out of focus, they're the center of attention, then they're not, but they're still in the background. It sounds kind of corny, but they really are an experience.
I remember when my wife and I watched A Prairie Home Companion. She's not a big fan of "artsy" films, per se, but the ensemble was populated by actors so clearly enjoying themselves, that the fact that the story was so heavy sublimated, with only The Dangerous Woman to suggest some deeper and darker current, that you just lost yourself in it.
Oh, and I'm kind of a fan of the failures too. I'll confess, I love Popeye. I don't know why. By any reasonable standard it was a mediocre film, but once again Altman, even where things didn't work out (I understand there were budget problems), let his actors do what actors do and trusted his and their instincts, and a charming, if bizarre film emerged.
As to Altman's personal and private life, well, the cinema has long been populated by misanthropes and loonies of every kind. To pick Altman out, when there were (and are) far more hedonistic people making movies is kind of bizarre. It strikes me as ad hominem. A guy doesn't like his films (and that's allowed, to be sure), so decides that, on top of attacking his style of film making (which is also quite permissible, even if I think he's wrong), decides to bolster the argument with "he was a pot smoking drinker!!!"
I'm actually reading "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" for a school project and I had a similar reaction. There are some interesting filmmaking facts (my favorite is Coppola stealing film equipment from a studio a little bit at a time so that he could keep making movies if they fired him), but there is a lot of tabloid gossip. There is way too much time spent on who slept with who and who did which drugs. I don't doubt that many of the details are true and it is interesting to know that most (if not all) of the films from the greatest era in Hollywood had extremely difficult productions. It does show how difficult it is to make movies, but loses focus on the whole moviemaking thing.
One helpful thing about the book, though, is that it counters everything that Snickel says about Altman's problems with alcohol and drugs. According to "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls", almost everyone from that era had problems with drugs, alcohol, and sex. If you eliminate all of Altman's work because of drugs and alcohol, you must also eliminate nearly all of the films from the greatest era in Hollywood history.
JE: John Ford, Howard Hawks, John Huston -- just a few of the greatest American filmmakers who were fond of booze, and made films in which drunkenness was sometimes actually portrayed comically! We won't even get started on the actors, like Cary Grant who got into LSD (for therapeutic reasons)...
POPEYE is awesome, and a good example of how Altman's films are more controlled than you'd think. A lot of the seemingly random business in Sweethaven is drawn from E. C. Segar's old Thimble Theater strips, of which screenwriter Jules Feiffer was a fan. That clumsy blond guy who's always chasing his hat? That's Ham Gravy, Olive's boyfriend before she met Popeye (and before he was introduced to the strip.)
Alex, Dennis, et al. -- I stewed over this one for several days. On the one hand, Schickel wasn't even practicing criticism (of book or Altman's films). It seemed like a personal attack and I wondered if I should even bother to publicize it further. On the other, I'd been thinking about how Altman, one of my favorite filmmakers, appears (on the surface) to go against the values of cinematic craftsmanship that I'm always championing on this blog, and this gave me an opportunity to touch on how he's not as messy and random as he seems ("Beyond Therapy," "Pret a Porter" and a few other experiments aside). Also, it seemed like a good way to illustrate another example of so-called "criticism" that isn't criticism at all -- just name-calling. So, what the hell -- I figured it was worth it to pipe up on behalf of an artist whose films have inspired me since I first saw "The Long Goodbye" in about 1974...
Regarding Altman's very well-documented affinity for drink and doobage (was this really news to Schickel?!), I'm reminded of what Abraham Lincoln reportedly said of Ulysses S. Grant's drinking: "Find out what he drinks and give it to the rest of my generals."
Schickel's response to Altman is a classic case of a traditionalist critic faced with artworks so original that he can't properly 'see' them. Schickel is certainly not alone in this (I suspect that Pauline Kael loved Nashville without really understanding it), and the phenomenon is as old as art criticism. The Salon critics who derided Manet and Monet in the 1860s, their spiritual children who mocked Modernism a generation later, and their grandchildren who failed to 'see' anything in Pollock and De Kooning's canvases of the 1940s, are all Schickel's dubiously distinguished precursors. He should probably stick to Clint and Kazan. In the meantime, let's find out exactly what Altman was drinking and smoking and distribute it widely among our contemporary directors...We could all use a hit.
Regarding Altman's very well-documented affinity for drink and doobage (was this really news to Schickel?!), I'm reminded of what Abraham Lincoln reportedly said of Ulysses S. Grant's drinking: "Find out what he drinks and give it to the rest of my generals."
Schickel's response to Altman is a classic case of a traditionalist critic faced with artworks so original that he can't properly 'see' them. Schickel is certainly not alone in this (I suspect that Pauline Kael loved Nashville without really understanding it), and the phenomenon is as old as art criticism. The Salon critics who derided Manet and Monet in the 1860s, their spiritual children who mocked Modernism a generation later, and their grandchildren who failed to 'see' anything in Pollock and De Kooning's canvases of the 1940s, are all Schickel's dubiously distinguished precursors. He should probably stick to Clint and Kazan. In the meantime, let's find out exactly what Altman was drinking and smoking and distribute it widely among our contemporary directors...We could all use a hit.
Schickel seems like he's got something against partying.
Maybe Altman practiced a kind of Drunken Monkey style of film directing, which when done by a master is a powerful way. Seriously tho, I wouldn't want to be in an argument with you Jim. I admire your argumentative skills.
I was a huge Altman fan for years. I was never a fawning acolyte. I was able to recognize the crap ("Ready to Wear," "Kansas City") from the good stuff ("Short Cuts," "The Player," "McCabe"). But in recent years I find that I just don't like his films all that much anymore.
I still recognize the craft. I understand what he was doing, how he was doing it, why he was doing it. But it just didn't move me anymore. It's not that I suddenly think his films are bad. They're not. It's just that watching his films again became a chore. I found his work to be more superficial and obvious. The strings became visible in a way that wasn't interesting. Whereas once I saw them as dense and sprawling and textured, now I see them as rambling.
This is part of an overall trend in the evolution of my own tastes during that same period (becoming more enamored of classical, more formalist styles of art (although I still don't like Eastwood's work)). Novelty doesn't seem as interesting to me anymore.
There are still a few of Altman's films that I do like ("The Long Goodbye," which I continue to love, and (strangely) the first three-quarters of "Popeye," as well as "Tanner '88" (although the decision to shoot it on videotape seems more misguided every year). I'm not certain if this is a temporary change in taste or something more permanent. Either way, I find it strange how I could have changed my views so dramatically on someone whom I once considered to be one of the masters of his medium.
I made the mistake of attempting to read Schickel's "biography" of Eastwood. I had to quit halfway through it because I suddenly had an urgent desire to blow Clint myself. Since then, I haven't read anything of Schickel's until now...and he's actually gotten worse. What an old lady.
"...as is pointedly the case, for example, in Jaglom's insufferable movies."
And you stopped there.
I was waiting for you to pull a Schickel, Jim.
JE: I couldn't resist the "insufferable." But in the previous clause I described specifically what I was talking about in Jaglom's movies: "the spectacle of actors flailing away for something to do or say while the camera rolled..."
I just finished the book and then went trawling for reviews about it online. Confession: when I read the description of Altman and his party sitting at the 1992 Oscars ceremony noshing on pot brownies and getting giggly as categories in which "The Player" was nominated kept coming up and Eastwood kept winning everything for "Unforgiven", I thought to myself, "Man, Richard Schickel's gonna issue a fatwa if he ever reads this..."
A professional film director who likes booze and weed? SAY IT AIN'T SO!
Hands-down the most frustrating criticism of a great filmmaker by a reliable critic I have read since Rosenbaum's 2006 attack on Bergman. Are there some opinions critics would best keep to themselves? Ebert doesn't much care for Kiastromi's work, for example, but at least he saves that distaste for the reviews of his films and not for individual essays. Schickel I admire for his TCM documentaries on Spielberg and Scorsese. His film criticism can be maddeningly shoddy at times, unfortunately.
Actually, upon Altman's death, the only films of his I had seen were "M*A*S*H", "Nashville" and "The Gingerbread Man", and although I loved the first two and marginally enjoyed the latter film, I assume that the rest of Altman's career was superfluous (due to popular opinion). It wasn't until summer of this year when I rediscovered Altman all over again and went on a massive spree that is still going on. Everybody disagrees with me, but I honestly believe that "Quintet" is some kind of masterpiece.
The greatness of Robert Altman?
In 2007, when I walked into A Prairie Home Companion, I had no idea of
(a) That A Prairie Home Companion was a popular radio show
(b) Who was Greg Keillor?
(c) What the hell was the film all about?
I am from India, and probably I had no business knowing the answers to the questions. And I only knew this was a film by our Robert Altman.
I walked in, and I watched, and I walked out. I still had no answers. Except for feeling a satisfaction of meeting folks. And the nostalgia that surrounds us when something beloved that has been a part of us for a good part of our lives, ends. As if that part of our heart is gone. I don’t think that part of us grows. It just stays there, frozen in time. I remembered how I felt when Sampras played his last game. How heartbroken I was watching Shaun Pollock deliver his last bowl.
I don’t know. Maybe the film was specifically a lot of things that I wasn’t supposed to know. But I know what it was about, and it broke a tear inside of me. Not because of the characters inside of it, but because of the characters and memories inside of me. I think that is pretty special filmmaking.
I'd say the cardinal sin committed by Schickel is in straying from his job--which was to review the book about Altman, not Altman himself. The part of the review you posted gave me little to no idea what he thought of the book (although if he dislikes Altman that much there's little reason to believe that he liked the book any better).
As a previous poster mentioned, Altman's Secret Honor is a rebuttal to any criticism that he could do a professional job.
I also have to wonder if Schickel's beloved Eastwood is so different than Altman in at least one respect: direction of actors. From what I've read, like Altman, Eastwood gives his actors minimal direction, and no psycho analysis of the character. The big difference is, Eastwood seems to be coming from the attitude that the actors ought to do their own job, and he should be able to move on to the next setup after take one. Altman wanted them to throw something out that he liked. Oddly enough, Kubrick was similar. He has the reputation of being the ultimate perfectionist, and on technical matters he was, but with actors he didn't like to rehearse or storyboard.
At the end, what matters is that we audiences have enjoyed the great work of Altman and Eastwood. They have differente styles, so what? That's the best part of it.
It's very sad that Mr. Schickel substitutes valid arguments for ad hominem attacks. Altman was one of the greatest.
Robert Altman missed out on a lot of life by being so consistently stoned, I imagine. If what schikel said is true, I imagine he probably drove under the influence consistently too.
He made so many movies and so many are bad.
So, Jim, do you get to go to work drunk or stoned? Do any of us? That's what you're implicitly defending. On the one hand, I suppose I can see the Hollywood loons putting that much money in the hands of a druggie. On the other hand, I find that completely stupid and deplorable. I barely tolerate the idea of adulterated consciousness at all when one is at home (there is no point in arguing that with me--I'm not changing my mind); to be of unsound mind while at work is frowned upon by ALL serious businesses, and I don't think much of the idea myself.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Hemingway. Faulkner. Well, I stopped reading them. I won't be watching anything else of Altman's either. He was a drunk and stoner. I don't see anything to respect there.
JE: And that's your prerogative. You can go find out which artists used alcohol and/or drugs throughout history and avoid their works, if you like. You'll be the poorer for it in my view, but you can do what you like. (Bye, Van Gogh!) I'm not sure Schickel was saying Altman was drunk or stoned when he was working -- just that he didn't appear to get through the day without it. I don't know. Maybe I'll know more when I read the book, which just arrived via Amazon today. I met Altman and had a number of conversations with him over the years, beginning in 1977. He was an interesting man, and somebody I identified with on some level. But the movies are the movies, no matter what went into the making of them. Most writers I know (me included) don't write when under the influence because we don't like the results. Altman's results, while variable, are often breathtaking.
Sorry to resort to a personal attack, but Mr. Jim Hawk III is a prime example of why straight edgers are just as irrational as, well, normal people.
Short Cuts is one of my favorite movies (5th Lieblingsfilm), and I feel it is pretty representative of Altman's work. I love the way it depicts the randomness of life, the way little events can have big ripples, and the way major portions of our lives can be shaped by events we don't understand or even know about. This movie, more than any other I can think of, depicts the "reality" of the human condition.
Yet, though the movie feels random, it's preposterous for Schickel to think that it all just happened by accident. I've consumed every feature on that wonderful Criterion DVD, and I assure everyone that a tremendous amount of planning went into that film.
For example, Altman agonized over how to frame the scene between Jack Lemmon and Bruce Davison before settling on the close-ups. It seems like the obviously right choice now, but it WAS a choice.
If you haven't discovered Sheila O'malley's wonderful blog ( I first linked to it through The House Next Door), this excellent appreciation of that scene is a good place to start.
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/011292.html
Altman's work speaks for itself. I understand someone not liking the work. But I will never understand not liking something because I don't agree with some personal choices the artist made. Miles Davis beat his wife. Does that mean I can't listen to his music, because by association I condone wife beating? Nonsense.
What a strange attitude. Would you stop listening to Beethoven because he was insufferable bastard who stole his nephew from his grieving sister-in-law? Or, a more topical figure, John Huston? The man was a dedicated drunkard and bar buster. What about John Lennon and Brian Wilson, men who spent some of their most creative years stoned out of their minds, and yet wrote some of the most sublime pop music of all time?
The world of art is filled with crazy, addicted people, because, in large part, these are precisely the kind of people who tend to be artistic. To my mind, their personal lives matter very little, save that we often have a fascination for the Beethovens, Porters and Hustons of the world, because they are, in their own particular ways, larger than life.
I don't care about Hitchcock's odd fetishes (even though they swim below the surface of virtually every film he made), because, you know what, the man was one of the greatest of all filmmakers and his films, apart from being immensely enjoyable, are works of art.
Altman is the same. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a brilliant western, whether or not Altman was stoned every single moment of its production. What I particularly like about Altman is that though he had his share of stinkers, they were spread out through his career, as opposed to some filmmakers who seemed to have a brilliant period and then went down the tubes after that (I'm thinking Francis Ford Coppola here).
If I refused to partake of the works of every artist who was a drug addict or an alcoholic, I'd have to say I'd probably spend most of my leisure time staring at a wall.
I also almost had a coronary as I unsuspectedly started reading (in spite of the title of the article - Altman Lovers, Stop Here - or something to that effect) that "Book Review" (which was only remotely a book review by throwing one line in about how the author was clearly an idiot - there was nothing else that remotely gave an idea of the content of this "book") at my breafast table in the Los Angeles Times. At first I was like 'Oh cool, a review of a biography of Robert Altman', and then as I continued reading my mouth began to drop and my eyes bulge from their sockets. By the end I was practically choking with outrage, as I shook the paper in the direction of my wife quietly reading the Travel section and sputtering 'Jesus Christ, you will not BELIEVE what this idiot has written as a so-called book review! It is a total hatchet-job assassination of Robert Altman's entire film canon!!' and so forth.
You get the picture. Coming into my twenties in the '70's, I saw all Altman's early works in the movie theater, and loved each and every one of them...including that bizarre movie with Paul Newman where they are in some weird frozen I-don't-know-where and though I didn't understand it or now remember it's plot, if it had one, I still enjoyed it. Because it was interesting. One movie I have never forgotten was Images, what a brilliant study of a disintegrating mind. As I grew older I was more likely to rent his movies, or catch them on TV. The last time this happened, flipping the channels I came upon a movie of Altman's I had never heard of or even knew he had made 'Vincent and Theo'. This movie was very Un-Altman-Like, I thought, and certainly had no connection to that Idiot Critic's evaluations on Altman's supposedly bumbling technique. This movie was pure magic, just beautiful in every respect. The scene where Vincent shoots himself in the cornfield and hundreds of crows burst up from where they had been lurking unseen was magnificent, as an image, all by itself. I felt I truly understood Van Gogh for the first time, through this lovely film.
Anyway, like a couple of others have written here, I was so incensed by that review that I wanted to write a letter to the Times, something I have never done, and then didn't, but I have been stewing about it ever since. I was also glad to see Patrick Goldstein's taking that review to task, except I thought he was too gentle about it. So I have stumbled across this blog, and have now gotten it off my chest.
I guess that idiot reviewer would also think the classic film "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" is a piece of junk as well, since Peckinpaw was a doomed drunk. What a fool...Mr. S. cannot 'see the forest for the trees', is all I can say to that.
I don't know how much booze and weed Altman was on around 1980...but I wanted crack after sitting through POPEYE....
I'm surprised no one has commented on the ultimate irony of Schickel's review (which, to be fair, I only got after reading Zuckoff's book - I liked it a lot, by the way). Included in the biography is a picture of the poster for M*A*S*H, and on the poster is a laudatory quote about the movie from - wait for it - Richard Schickel.