Robert Altman Summary

Altman, Robert (1925—) Considered to be the most prolific, if not the most influential film maker of the New Hollywood Cinema of the early 1970s, writer/producer/director Robert Altman made 13 ... Read more

As a filmmaker, Robert Altman (born 1925) was known as a risk taker and a nonconformist, who was committed at all cost to his own vision. While this led to what many critics consider a highly uneven o... Read more

Critical Essay by David Robinson [The James Dean Story] breaks new ground by its purely documentary approach; the way with show-business life-stories has always previously been to avoid using the leas... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Combs Conceivably, schizophrenia is a malady to which all Robert Altman's major characters have been prone. Their behaviour is of little interest analysed on the level... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert B. Meyers [In his "'McCabe and Mrs. Miller': Robert Altman's Anti-Western" (see excerpt above), Gary Engle's] purpose is to praise [A... Read more

Critical Essay by Howard Thompson Say one thing for "Countdown."… It makes the moon seem just as dull as Mother Earth. [It] is simply stultifying. The bulk of it is a slack, clich... Read more

Critical Essay by Robin Wood Apart from their intrinsic quality (often very high indeed) Altman's films are interesting by virtue of their centrality to the development of the American cinema, ... Read more

Critical Essay by Andrew Sarris In the past I have been up on Altman when everyone else was down, and down on Altman when everyone else was up. I have always found it strange that so somber and so pes... Read more

Critical Essay by Jan Dawson Disconcertingly, after the tuneless rendering of the Star Spangled Banner that introduced Brewster McCloud, or the 'Tokyo Rose' transmissions that lent an in... Read more

In the following interview, Altman discusses the course of his career and his critical reputation. In the Fall of 1982, film director Robert Altman visited the University of Michigan as Howard R. Mars... Read more

In the following review, Hilferty states that, "Less about fab fabric than the tenuous fabric of society, Ready to Wear is an elaborate striptease of the human condition." First, the fac... Read more