I was washing dishes this morning when I heard the news on the radio. In some unspecified Los Angeles hospital, at some unspecified time of night, director Robert Altman died. He was 81 years old. In his parting, he leaves with us a body of work that pushed the limits of filmmaking.

TWO JOURNEYS
Robert Altman was, and will forever be, an exception to many rules. Practically every film released by a major studio since the success of Star Wars has followed The Hero’s Journey first defined by Joseph Campbell; a young man/woman must accept a task and ultimately overcome personal and situational obstacles to succeed in the end. But Robert Altman never seemed to play by these rules of cinema. His work wasn’t about the ordinary person against extraordinary odds, but the ordinary person against common odds. His films are as close as cinema has come to an honest depiction of life.

Beginning with Countdown in 1968, it was clear Altman had a different focus. The film, starring Robert Duvall and James Caan, was a documentary-style drama that revolved around the first mission to the moon and the toll it took on both the astronauts and their families. The film, though not considered among his best, indicated two very important characteristics of the films to come. Firstly, the film was topical; America was to land their first man on the moon later that year. But it was the documentary style, the attempt to catch characters in the middle of struggles rather than from beginning to end, that Altman quickly perfected. Two years later he would shadow the Vietnam war with the anti-war classic M*A*S*H.

THE (anti)ANTI-WAR FILM
The film, set during the Korean War, is as black a comedy as you’re likely to come across. No “Hero’s Journey” here. No scenes of precious indignation, no long-winded speeches about the atrocities of battle. The people of this film are too busy creating havoc with episodic parties and pranks. Isn’t this a more honest depiction of how we as human’s cope with life during wartime? Most other films about war, no matter how light their mood at the onset, eventually culminate with some remarkably “honest” realization for the hero (see also Good Morning Vietnam). That, for the first time, the hero (and thusly, we the audience) get the point: that war is hell. We see bodies on stretchers. The carnage left after artillery fire. What’s the brutally honest climax of M*A*S*H? A fixed game of football featuring heavily doped athletes. Offensive? Possibly? But… accurate?

One of the other constraints of The Hero’s Journey is that the hero/heroine is called to duty and mentored throughout his quest by an old wise man (see also Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and of course Mr. Miyagi). What’s Altman’s answer to that? Quite possibly Jack Lemmon’s character from Short Cuts, an estranged father who tries to gain his son’s sympathy by explaining his infidelity. He’s clearly the elder statesman of the film, but all he can offer the hero is shameless rationale that borders on denial.

DECADE (AND A HALF) UNDER THE INFLUENCE
While Altman may have faltered through most of the late eighties and early nineties, it had more to do with the enormous shift in cinema than with the director’s vision. His film adaptation of the beloved cartoon Popeye was a risky failure. Altman was exploring many new creative avenues… perhaps too many. His film was a musical about a popular NON-musical cartoon icon. It was Altman’s largest budget. It was also a critical and commercial failure. Popeye, along with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Michael Cimino’s notoriously bloated Heaven’s Gate tightened the reigns on 70’s filmmakers. Because of these costly endeavors, the studios took back the power from directors and have retained that control ever since. Altman would never helm a major studio film again. It may have taken the next decade for Altman to come to terms with these constraints. In the end, was worth the wait.

In the early 1990’s, Altman returned to critical acclaim with the searing black comedy The Player. Born out of the creative turmoil he faced in Hollywood following Popeye, The Player was a sinister look at the inner-workings of an industry that had given him every freedom and inevitably taken them all back. What was most notable about the film’s reception is that its champions were, coincidentally, Hollywood insiders themselves. Did this in some respect pave the way for the self-congratulatory work to come (how much fun has this industry gotten out of patting its own back? See also HBO’s over-hyped and under-amusing Entourage).

EAVESDROPPING
It can be said that Altman was not meant for the big-budget film, and vice versa. His films didn’t hit you over the head with lessons to be learned, nor did they flourish due to grand camera moves and roaring musical scores. It’s comical to imagine him at the helm of a Gladiator or Troy. Those situational “epics” didn’t seem to interest him in the slightest. It wasn’t the grand that fascinated Altman, but the mundane. His films are the conversations you hear from the next table over, the ones you probably shouldn’t be listening in on, but can’t help yourself.

If a person approaches an Altman film expecting to see anything BUT a Robert Altman film, he or she is likely to be confused and possibly anxious. This may be what kept his audiences relatively small, but also incredibly loyal. Altman didn’t reveal his themes, nor did he indicate where these particular stories would lead. He didn’t seem concerned with where he was taking you. It was never about the destination to Robert Altman, but the journey itself.

That was the kind of journey Altman knew to be endlessly more rewarding.

-Sam Jaeger

Comments: None