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?