SOURCE: "An Interview with Robert Altman," in Michigan Quarterly Review, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Winter, 1983, pp. 44-55.

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. Marsh Professor of Journalism in the Department of Communication. He gave seminars on filmmaking, participated in workshops, and directed a stage production of Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress for the School of Music. Frank Beaver, Professor of Communication at the University of Michigan, interviewed Altman for MQR.

[Beaver:] What attracted you to a career as a motion picture director?

[Altman:] I was a movie fan when I was a kid. I got punished many times for going into a film and not coming out, seeing it four times consecutively. I remember I had the mumps when King Kong first played...