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Robert Altman

Robert Altman tribute

Geoff Andrew remembers the career of a great director, who died last week.

Dec 1 2006

Since his death last week, much has been written about Robert Altman being a great filmmaker. Regular readers or anyone who owns a TO Film Guide may know that I'm an 'Altman nut', so I won't argue his case here. All I say is: about time! Why didn't these folks give him due acclaim while he was alive? Altman made at least a dozen truly great films. Some duds, too. But mostly he was terrific, and defiantly his own man.

Rather than repeat my arguments for his importance, I'll take the opportunity to reflect on four decades of 'knowing' Altman one way or another. I first encountered his work as a student in the mid-'70s, and wanted to meet him even before I began writing film criticism professionally; I was such a fan that I considered writing a book on his work, and in the late '70s met with one of his associates to ask if Altman might bless such an enterprise. I was told he wouldn't try to prevent the book's publication, but wouldn't help. That and an ad implying another Altman tome was imminent (it never came out) quashed such plans.

Around five years later I first met him, over lunch at the Connaught, for a one-to-one TO interview about 'Streamers': a dream, and a nightmare. Not having been told where the interview would take place, I arrived sans jacket and tie and was refused entry to the dining room. Altman offered to lend a jacket (he had no tie) but was a big man – we lunched in his room. This allowed more privacy and more time, of which I predictably took advantage.

Over the years, further interviews and meetings – 15 or so – ensued; I never forewent a chance to talk or meet with someone whose work meant so much to me. They ranged from a faintly grumpy chat for the re-release of 'McCabe and Mrs Miller' to a Cannes beach meeting for 'The Player' (at which he was understandably brighter); from hosting an NFT interview with him during a comprehensive 2001 retrospective when he received a BFI Fellowship (in TO's eightieth birthday tribute last year I already recalled how we ended that evening with a serenade across a fittingly crowded room of the theme song from 'The Long Goodbye') to hanging out relatively often with him while he made 'Gosford Park'.

That included a set-visit when he not only showed me a rough cut of a sequence already edited, but invited me to sit beside him and watch the monitor while he shot a couple of scenes: at one point, he asked what I thought of a take, and when I hesitantly ventured that the camera was moving more quickly than usual in his work, to my amazement he agreed and requested another take. As far as I'd been able to fathom, he'd always had an unusually democratic take on the directorial process, but this went way beyond expectation.

The last time I saw him was on the flight from Heathrow to Berlin in February; I was surprised by how frail he'd become, but relieved to find his physical weakness was not mirrored by any mental decline. He was as intellectually sharp, unpretentious and friendly as ever, and pleased I was keen to reach the festival in time to see his latest, 'The Prairie Home Companion'. It's a typically wise but light-hearted film on death's inevitability and the need to make the most of life; and it means my sadness at losing a friend is tempered by the reassuring knowledge that he knew he'd had a great innings.

His death was announced while I was at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. After a flurry of text messages and calls, I attended a gala that observed a respectful silence immediately before Theo Angelopoulos presented Wim Wenders – likewise Palme d'Or-winners who came to the fore in the '70s – with an award. The next day, on the plane home, I looked at my neighbour's Greek newspaper and saw an obituary; I had little idea of what it says, but there was Bob smiling in my direction. I smiled back, and felt, as I always have, very privileged to have known one of the true greats of the modern cinema.

User comments on this story

Martin Diggs said...

Indeed... Oliver... The Film Kansas City was huge for me too. Glad that I got to work with and know Bob as well.
He really meant alot to me and I love your prose on working with Altman. I am to the point now where I am Producing and it gets old when people are so concerned with how much food is on a diner plate and if he ate the mashed potatoes first or the beans and toast... you can always see the look in the actors confused eyes while they try to figure out how they are gonna remember there lines and blocking, where the camera is, to stay in there light, not block the other actors light and to for christ sake eats the beans and toast first.
Anyway, it goes down like this for me... I will be the one that will go around quoting Bob and reminding people of Bob and his ways until I make my last movie. There is alot to be learned from working with that man, people need to be reminded. Posted on Nov 30 2006 17:42

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Oliver Stapleton said...

How I got hired by Robert Altman.
A Cameraman's story, by Oliver Stapleton.
I was home one Sunday night in 1995 when the phone rang. I'm pretty off hand when I pick up the phone as it is usually for my wife or children.
"Ya", I said.
"This is Bob Altman", a voice from afar drawled (I live in Devon UK).
"Oh," I said.... "Er....Hi."
"Hello. I would like you shoot my next film" he said.
"Really?" I said, "what's......?"
"Kansas City, it's about the beginning of the Jazz era where I grew up...I'll send you the script. If you like it give me a call."
"Great", I said, "I'll look forward to it".
That was how I met - or didn't meet - Robert Altman, or "Bob" as he liked to be called. When I get hired to do a movie usually there is a tedious process of Agents, Meetings, Discussions, Delays and Negotiations to deal with that sometimes go on several weeks. Altman just cut through all the unnecessary stuff, called me, sent me a script and a couple of weeks later I was on a plane to Kansas City. I arrived at the hotel around 8pm, tired from the flying and equivalent to about 4am UK time. I hoped there would be no messages and I could go straight to bed. I made it to the room but when I opened the door there was a handwritten message under it. "Room 1517, Bob.". I dumped my cases, went up the elevator and knocked on the door.
He opened the door himself and stuck out a large right hand to shake mine and offered me a even larger joint with his left hand. I was transfixed for a moment thinking: "If I don't smoke the joint, he'll think I'm a twit, and if I do I'll collapse in a heap". I reckoned collapsing was a better option than being considered a wimp so I took a few tokes of the first joint I had smoked in around ten years. Whilst I was puffing away I was being introduced to the room full of regular Altman co-workers who were all about to go out to dinner and swiftly included me in the outing.
By the time we were sitting at the Restaurant my entire sensory system had gone haywire and I only remember being unable to get my fork from the plate to my mouth. Bob's dope was not for part-timers...
I guess I passed the test as I started work the next morning. We had the usual chats during pre-production which involved (amongst many other things) studying McCabe and Mrs Miller for it's "look" and Bob explained to me that he hired me because he didn't want Kansas City to have the "Altman look" ie a wandering zooming lazy camera style, but a more precise and tight kind of framing that I guess he saw in the many films I had shot (and operated) with Stephen Frears. This was made a bit harder because his son Robert Reed Altman was the operator and so I didn't have the kind of the control that I usually have.
On Day 1 of the shoot things more or less fell apart on the first shot as Bob wanted to put the camera on the jib arm that he owned and shoot on the zoom. I wanted the camera on a dolly with a fixed lens. Not only was I a huge Altman fan but also, who the hell was I to suggest shots to Bob Altman? Anyhow, I argued my case based on the fact that he had hired me in the first place for a different approach for the film, and Bob tried to forget some of his old habits. Pretty soon we fell into a rhythm and made the movie.. a movie that I love and audiences didn't. During the course of the film I learned a whole other approach to film making which I really appreciated and have tried to take on to working with other Directors, although with limited success! Bob was Bob and only he made films the way he made them. Amongst the many things I remember well are the following.
1. Bob always talked to very individual "extra" or "background artist" as they are now called. Whilst I was lighting he sometimes went to his trailer and played poker with the 1st AD who always lost (wise move!), but if there were extras on set I would hear him talking to them in turn. He's find out what someone was interested in, say Insurance, and then ask the next person to buy an insurance policy from him. He'd move to the next and set up another conversation. When it came time for "ACTION" the background didn't just mime talking (which always looks fake) but actually had real conversations. This also meant the actors had to "compete" against the background which sometimes freaked them out as they were accustomed to the reverential silence that usually accompanies shooting. In this way the atmosphere of the scene always had a reality to it that gave it that "Altman" touch.
2. No discussion about "continuity" was ever allowed. If an actor decided to hold his knife and fork round the other way for Take 3 and Take 5 then so what: "that's what editing is for" is how he would reply if the Script Supervisor decided to mention it. I have seen the devastating effect of overbearing Directors and Script Supervisors who become so obsessed with continuity that the Actor can no longer deliver any kind of performance as their mind becomes cluttered up with worrying about whether they pointed on this line or that line. Bob liberated Actors form the tyranny of Continuity: unfortunately today's obsessive use of Monitors and Playback have given rise to a horribly technical kind of Directing which is quite detrimental to performance.
3. Remote heads were forbidden. Bob thought that "handles" give a coldness to the camera style that makes it feel remote and mechanical. There's no arguing this one.
4. He would set up the "Dailies" or "Rushes" in the main production office and when it came time to view them everyone was ordered into the theatre and damn the phones. Wine and Cheese were served and Bob would have a small mixer for the sound with which he would control music and the dialogue. If there was "mute" material, he always had some music ready to go with it so it wasn't so boring to watch. Bob made rushes an "event" and I'm told that in the early days they were usually followed by a screening of one of his films!
Like many great Artists, Bob didn't have much time for his children whilst they were small, but he had two of them working with him on Kansas City in key roles: Stephen Altman who designed many of his films and Robert Reed Altman who operated many of them. The Altman Roadshow seemed to roll along on a more or less permanent basis and if you were "in" you were in and when you were out, well, happy memories hopefully. He was not a great "nuclear family" man, but rather an even greater "Human Family" man, which included thousands of actors, technicians, extras and just everybody and anybody who would join with him and tell a good story.
The part of the film that was turned into Jazz '34 was a particularly difficult and tense part of the shoot. Bob quite deliberately hired two Saxophonists from opposing backgrounds: one "learned and classical" in training and the other more or less self taught (Joshua Redmond and Craig Handy). These two would get up and blast off these incredibly dynamic and competitive solos which is exactly what Bob wanted for the film as that is how jazz started out. We shot it as a multi-camera shoot: I would be telling the Operators what to do from a bank of monitors that Bob and I looked at. If I got it wrong he would just tap on a particular monitor with his finger which was the signal that the shot was either too similar to another shot or he just didn't like it. Nothing was ever "playback" which Bob loathed and detested: even to the extent that in dialogue scenes, if there were musicians out of focus in the background they played live and were recorded live. This went against all "received wisdom" of film-making as it makes cutting much harder and... so on. I loved it once I got over my previous training!
I got home at the end of the shoot to get a phone call from Bob saying the last days work had "flicker" on it. There was talk of reshooting, but then Bob said: "Ah never mind, we'll fix it". And fix it he did.
Unfortunately our paths only crossed once or twice after that on commercials (one for Cigarettes!), but I'll always remember him for the unique and particular individual that he was. There was only one Bob Altman and with him passes a whole way of shooting films that is unlikely to be repeated in this world of computers, on-set editing and schedule paranoia. I was lucky to be included in his Big Family for a short time...
I asked him once which of his many films was his favorite and he replied: "My films are like my children, I tend to love the weakest the most, because they need that extra bit of help."
Oliver Stapleton
Devon, UK. Posted on Nov 30 2006 13:15

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