Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman (born the February 20th 1925 with Kansas City with the the United States, dead the November 20th 2006 with Los Angeles with the the United States), was a realizer, producer and known American scenario writer for his style at the same time naturalist and esthetics. In 2006, the Academy off Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decreed a Oscar of honor to him.

Its films M.A.S.H. and Nashville were selected by the National Film Board Safeguarding for inscription with the National Film Registry in order to be preserved at the Bibliothèque of the Congress

Biography

Childhood and beginning of career

Altman was born with Kansas City in Missouri from a father born from good family, insurance broker and impassioned plays of money, Bernard Clement Altman, and of downward of the pilgrims of the Mayflower originating in the Nebraska, Helen Mathews. The ancestors of Robert Altman were German, English and Irish. His/her paternal grandfather, Frank Altmann Sr. its family name changed into “Altman”. Robert Altman accepted a strict catholic education. He attended the Rockhurst colleges and Southwest of Kansas City before being sent to the Military academy of Wentworth close to Lexington in Missouri where he finished his secondary studies. In 1943, then 18 years old, Altman enlists in the United States Army Air Forces and is used during the Second world war as a copilot as bombers B-24. It is during its drive in the Air force in California that Altman foresees the scintillating lights of Hollywood and begins to dream some. At the end of its service in 1947, Altman settles with Los Angeles and is tested with the dramatic art, the writing and the realization.

The career of actor of Altman was of short duration; it made a short appearance as an appear in the secret life of Walter Mitty ( The Secret Life off Walter Mitty ). He wrote then an outline of scenario for the film Christmas Eve and sold with RKO the scenario of the film Bodyguard (1948), Co-writing with Richard Fleischer. This unhoped-for success made it possible Altman to settle in New York and to start a career of writer. It is there that it became acquainted with George W. George in collaboration of which it wrote, without always publishing them, of many plays, musical comedies, novels and articles of magazines. But it did not meet the success which it hoped for and turned over to settle in Hollywood where it opened a store for animals to be made money. But its company went bankrupt and, in 1950, Altman went back near his to Kansas City, ruined but ready with very to have a second chance in cinema industry.

First steps in cinema industry

As there did not exist yet of school of cinema, Altman entered Calvin Company, the most important production company of the time whose seat was in Kansas City and who had the largest laboratory of development of films in 16mm. Altman, fascinated by this enormous machinery, proved reliable initially as a scenario writer before starting to carry out films. During the six years which its collaboration as a realizer with Calvin Company lasted, Altman realized between 60 and 65 court-measurings which enabled him to be made the hand while gaining 250$ the week. He also learned how to turn of films quickly and within the times imposed as much by the small ones as by the large productions. From a technical point of view, it was familiarized with all the tools of the realizer: the camera, the pole of sound recording, lightings, etc

However, Altman wearied industrial cinematographic format and put at research riskier projects. It left several times for Hollywood where it tried to write Scénario S but was allocated each time to Calvin Company. According to Altman, the leaders of Calvin Company lowered a little his wages to each time it returned. After its third attempt, at the time of a work meeting, they announced that they would not take it again if it started again.

First feature-length films

In 1955, Robert Altman left Calvin Company without more intending to return there. He is quickly engaged by Elmer Rhoden Jr., the director of a cinema of Kansas City, to write and carry out a B film to small budget on criminality teenager entitled The Delinquents which will become its first feature-length film. Altman wrote the scenario in one week and turned it into two with a budget of 63.000$ to Kansas City. Rhoden Jr. in this film a means saw of starting its career of producer quickly while Altman saw there its ticket of entry in the higher realms of Hollywood. Casting was composed actors and actresses of the local theater who played then in films of Calvin Company, the Altman family members, and three actors coming from Hollywood, of which Tom Laughlin who will incarnate later the main character of Billy Jack . The engineering team was, it, made up of former colleagues of Calvin Company and friends that Altman intended to embark in its “great escape from Kansas City”. In 1956, accompanied by its assistant realizer Reza Badiyi, it leaves Kansas City for good to go to assemble The Delinquents to Hollywood. United Artists ensured of it the distribution for 150.000$ and the film paid some nearly 1 million at the time of its exit in 1957.

Achievements for television

The success of The Delinquents was of short duration, but the film drew the attention of Alfred Hitchcock which required of Altman to carry out some episodes of its television series Alfred Hitchcock presents ( Alfred Hitchcock Presents ). Between 1958 and 1964, Altman carried out many episodes of television series, of which Combat! , Bonanza , Whirlybirds and Road 66 , and wrote and realized in 1961 an episode of Maverick entitled Bolt From the Blue in which played Roger Moore and which had as a subject a lynching. It also carried out an episode of the television series Bus Stop but its end, in which a killer escaped justice, was so prone to controversy which the diffusion of the series stopped at the end of the season following debates with the American Congress.

Outstanding successes

Thereafter, Altman knew several difficult years after being scrambled with Jack Warner, and it is at that time that it forged his “anti-Hollywood” convictions which marked a stage in its career. It carried out several other feature-length films which were not any success until in 1969 one presents to him the scenario of M.A.S.H. , which had already been rejected by dozen other realizers. Altman carried out the film which met one big hit as well criticizes as public. It was its most profitable film. Its career started again by the success of M.A.S.H. , Altman connected critical successes with films like John McCabe ( McCabe & Mrs. Miller ), Private the ( The Long Goodbye ) or Nashville (1975) which made known the specific experimental style of Altman.

As a realizer, Altman preferred the stories which emphasized the relations between the various characters; he said being more interested by the major motivations of the characters than by the intrigues in drawers. He had thus as a practice to write only the broad outlines of the intrigue of his films; he regarded his Scénario S as being only of simple reinforcements for the action and made it possible his actors to improvise dialogs. Thus Altman forged its reputation of director of actors who helped it to join together castings of prestigious actors.

It often made it possible its characters to speak at the same time so that one does not know any more who said what. It points out in the comments audios John McCabe ( McCabe & Mrs. Miller ) that it lets the dialogs overlap and certain aspects of the intrigue unsolved to keep captive the attention of the spectator. He listened to the dialogs with ear-phones during the catches to make sure that what was relevant was audible without to divert the attention of the spectator. He also made sure that its films are prohibited with less than 17 years by Motion Picture Association off America so that the children cannot see them; he thought that the children did not have patience necessary to look at them. These requirements sometimes were at the origin of conflicts with the studios which saw in the additional children a source of revenue.

Altman made films whose no other realizer and/or studio wanted. He hesitated before carrying out the comedy over the Guerre of Korea M.A.S.H. because of the pressures inherent in the project, but criticisms acclaimed it and the jury of the Cannes festival him acorda the Grand Prix for the best film in 1970. Its success was so immense that it was declined in television series bearing the same name - M*A*S*H (televised series).

In 1975, Altman carried out Nashville for the Paramount, a kind of musical comedy which puts in parallel the topic of the policy with that of the Country music. The actors of film wrote their own songs. Keith Carradine accepted a Oscar for its song " I' m Easy ".

The style developed by Altman had evil to find its public initially and he sought to acquire a greater artistic freedom by melting Lions Spoils Films. a marriage ( has Wedding ), Three women ( 3 Women ) and Quintet belong to films that it realized for its production company.

Its style influenced many others cinéates like Paul Thomas Anderson.

Medium of career and rebirth

In 1980, it taken share with an attempt at musical comedy for the studios Disney and Paramount by carrying out a filmed version of the cartoon Popeye in whom Robin Williams made his beginnings with the cinema in the role titrate. Criticisms did not spare film, but it found a public all the same and was classified at the time with the second rank of the most profitable films of the realizer (it has had for summer détrôné by Gosford Park ). In the Eighties, Altman carried out a series of films which for certain were encensés (the dramatic film on Richard Nixon Secret Honor ) and for others descended in flames by criticism ( O.C. & Stiggs ). He was very in addition largely applauded for his satyric documentary fiction on the slides of the American presidential campaign Tanner '88 for which he accepted a Emmy Award and found the good graces of criticism. But in spite of that, he always pained to find his public.

In 1983, Altman took part in the composition of the song with success Black Sheep of the singer of country John Anderson.

Its career knew a second breath after it had carried out The Player in 1992, a satyr on Hollywood and its drifts which was nominated three times at the Oscars including once in the category Meilleur realizer. Altman gained the price of the Setting in scene to the Cannes festival, was named Meilleur realizer by the British Academy off Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and by the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), which made it possible the Hollywood industry - which had put it at the wall cupboard during nearly one decade - to realize that it was more creative than ever.

Following the success of The Player , Altman carried out Short Cuts in 1993, the ambitious adaptation several news of Raymond Carver which described the life of various inhabitants of Los Angeles over several days. The expansion of characters and the interlacing of various stories were not without pointing out its golden age of the Seventies and were worth in Altman a Lion of Gold to Venice as well as a new nomination with the Oscars in the category Meilleur realizer. The film was regarded as its best film and Altman itself considered that it represented, with Tanner '88 , its most original work. Followed The Gingerbread Man into 1998 which accepted good criticisms but the success discounted near the public did not have, and Cookie' S Fortune in 1999 which was also well accommodated by criticism. In 2001, its film Gosford Park was placed for many critics among ten best films of the year.

Its collaboration with independent studios such as Fine Line, Artisan (today Lions Spoils, company whose Altman was cofounder) and the USA Films (today Focus Features), offered the means necessary to him to make the films which he had always wanted to make apart from the pressures of the Hollywood studios. A version cinema of the radiophonic series of Garrison Keillor has Prairie Home Companion left in June 2006. Altman continued to work on new projects until its death.

After five nominations in the category Better realizer and no reward, Academy off Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decreed a to him Oscar of honor for the whole of its work in 2006. In its speech which followed the handing-over of the statuette, Altman revealed that it had received a Clerc's Office of heart about ten years before. He joked while pointing out that the Academy of the Oscars undoubtedly had precipitated a little while giving the price to him and that he felt that there remained to him still easily forty years to be lived.

He often spoke about his film Brewster McCloud and about his television series Tanner '88 like his two most outstanding works.

Private life

In the Sixties, Altman lived during nine years with its second wife with Mandeville Canyon with Brentwood close to Los Angeles in California, according to Peter Biskind in his book " Easy Riders, Raging bulldozers " (Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998). In 2004, He declared that he would settle in France if George W. Bush were re-elected, but he did not do it. He declared thereafter that he wanted to speak about the town of Paris in Texas because “the Texas state is much more pleasant when is not there”. He was member of the council of the NORML (National Organization for the Reform off Laws Marijuana). He had five children.

Died

Altman died on November 20th, 2006 at the 81 years age to the the clinical Cedars-Sinai of Los Angeles. According to its New Yorkean production company, Sandcastle 5 Productions, it died of the continuations of a Leucémie.

Catalog of films

Realizer

Documentary

  • 1951 : Modern football
  • 1952: King basketball
  • 1953 : The Last mile
  • 1954: The Builders
  • 1954 : Better football
  • 1957: History of James Dean ( The James Dean Story )

Series TV

  • 1955 : The Millionaire
  • 1955: Alfred Hitchcock presents ( Alfred Hitchcock Presents )
  • 1956: The Scale Storm show
  • 1957: Sugarfoot
  • 1957 : Maverick
  • 1957 : Whirlybirds
  • 1958 : Peter Gunn
  • 1958: Bronco
  • 1958 : Lawman
  • 1958 : Westinghouse desilu playhouse
    • The sound off murder
  • 1958: U.S. Marshall
  • 1959: Bonanza
    • Bank run
    • Sam Hill
    • Silent thunder
    • The Dream riders
    • The Duke
    • The Many faces off Gideon Flinch
    • Rival The
    • Secret The
  • 1959: Hawaiian eye
  • 1959 : Troubleshooters
  • 1960 : Surfside 6
  • 1960: Road 66
  • 1961: Bus stop
    • Accessory by authorizes
    • has off Lion walks among custom
    • … And the pursuit Evil
    • general County
    • Door without has key
    • Portrait off has hero
    • Summer lighting
    • The Covering darkness
  • 1962: Combat!
  • 1962 : Gallant The men (episode controls)
  • 1963: Kraft suspense theater
    • Once upon has savage night
    • The Hunt
    • Long The, lost life off Edward Smalley
  • 1965: Long The, hot summer (episode controls)
  • 1988: To tan '88 (10 30 minutes episodes)
  • 1997: Gun (6 45 minutes episodes)
    • Women of the President

Cinema/Television

Nominations and rewards

  • Palm of gold in 1970 for M.A.S.H.
  • Bear of gold of the Best film in 1976 for Buffalo Bill and gold the Indians
  • Lion of Saint-Marc in 1993 for Shorts cuts
  • Golden Globe of the best realizer in 2002 for Gosford Park
  • Oscar of honor allotted the March 5th 2005 to the Kodak Theater of Los Angeles.

External bonds

  • Ldainfos.com - Selection of bonds about Robert Altman
  • List of the article devoteds to with Robert Altman
  • Died of the largest satirist of the American cinema , the Duty , 2006-11-22

Simple: Robert Altman

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