Jonathan from TRF told us the news this morning, that film director Robert Altman, had died last night, at 81--he then borrowed two of our Altman titles, The Long Goodbye and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
We have many others, and this is a good time to look back at this influential figure of contemporary cinema. His career had highs and lows--certainly during the seventies his work was incredibly original--from M.A.S.H. to Brewster McCloud to California Split to Nashville . . .
His style was distinctive (and was hilariously parodied by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin at the 2006 Academy Awards, before Altman received his Lifetime Achievement Oscar)--big, ensemble casts, long tracking shots that followed one character, then another . . . and brilliant overlapping, seemingly improvised, dialogue. Can you tell the Media Librarian is a fan?
If you go to the Media Services website, click on Nonprint Web Catalog, and search under "altman" as a keyword, you'll find a list of our Altman films, and our Criterion edition of Rashomon, for which Altman did an introduction.
And for post-turkey dinner viewing, you could do worse than renting a copy of Altman's latest, "A Prairie Home Companion."
