Category: Altman, Robert

Films directed by Robert Altman

Reel 75: The Western as Allegory

Webster’s (online) Dictionary defines allegory as “the expression by means of fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence.” How’s THAT for an eye-opener?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Wait, isn’t that a metaphor?” No. A metaphor, in its broadest sense, is a symbolic representation of a concept. So while something like “The ship plows through the ocean” is a metaphor, Aesop’s Fables would be an allegory.

Get it? Or have you dozed off already? Well, wake up, because we’ve got a couple of allegorical films for you, and we promise they’ll entertain you. But you knew that already because you’ve seen them and are fully prepared for the spoilers we discuss.

We’ll start with McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), directed by Robert Altman and starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, along with several other actors that will have you saying “Yup, Altman film.” As usual, there’s often many, many things going on in the frame, but you never lose sight of the main action.

In Part 2, we jump to the year 2000 for The Claim, directed by Michael Winterbottom. On the surface, these films couldn’t be more different, and yet they hit many, many of the same notes. And there are specific plot points that are quite similar. Coincidence? Homage? Something else? We’ll leave that for you to decide.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Next time around we’ll be looking at another pair of films that have the same allegory going on, but using the Gangster genre instead. We begin with Thief (1981), directed by Michael Mann. From there we move forward only one year to 1982, and John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday. Join us, won’t you?

 

Reel 34: Epic Altman

In which we take nearly six hours of film and reduce it to about eleven minutes of synopses and and hour or so of scintillating discussion.

Robert Altman’s work had a lot of “trademarks” that delineated his films: overlapping dialogue, huge casts, multiple storylines and a way to subvert whatever genre he was working in. And in this episode we look at a pair of epic-length films which do nearly all of these, but there’s an interesting difference between the two.

In 1975’s Nashville, Altman’s multiple storylines all manage to converge on a single time and place. Then we go to 1993 and Short Cuts, where again all the stories take place in a single city, but the stories almost-not-quite intersect but still manage to remain on parallel tracks, even as the thing that ties them together is an outside force which affects each of them differently.

Sean and Claude have some great discussion in this one. Enjoy!

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

For Reel 35 we return to the world of Martin Scorsese, specifically his views on Christianity. We start with The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which is mostly remembered nowadays for the controversy it stirred up, but it’s really so much more. Then in the second half it’s 2016’s Silence, which has an interesting premise and an ending that will simultaneously depress you and give you hope. Join us, won’t you?