page_title: Robert Altman
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Altman / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Handprint and autograph of Robert Altman on the walkway in front of the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes. Italiano: Impronta e autografo di Robert Altman sul marciapiede di fronte al Palazzo dei festival a Cannes.
context_page_description: Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Altman is known as five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet, and David Lynch. Altman was considered a "maverick" in making films with a highly naturalistic but stylized and satirical aesthetic, unlike most Hollywood films. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in American cinema.
  His style of filmmaking covered many genres, but usually with a "subversive" twist which typically relied on satire and humor to express his personal views. Altman developed a reputation for being "anti-Hollywood" and non-conformist in both his themes and directing style. However, actors especially enjoyed working under his direction because he encouraged them to improvise, thereby inspiring their own creativity.
  He preferred large ensemble casts for his films, and developed a multitrack recording technique which produced overlapping dialogue from multiple actors. This produced a more natural, more dynamic, and more complex experience for the viewer.
context_section_description: During a celebration tribute to Altman a few months after his death, he was described as a "passionate filmmaker" and auteur who rejected convention, creating what director Alan Rudolph called an "Altmanesque" style of films. He preferred large casts of actors, natural overlapping conversations, and encouraged his actors to improvise and express their innate creativity, but without fear of failing. Lily Tomlin compared him to "a great benign patriarch who was always looking out for you as an actor", adding that "you're not afraid to take chances with him."
  Many of his films are described as "acid satires and counterculture character studies that redefined and reinvigorated modern cinema." Although his films spanned most film genres, such as Westerns, musicals, war films, or comedies, he was considered "anti-genre", and his films were "candidly subversive". He was known to hate the "phoniness" he saw in most mainstream films, and "he wanted to explode them" through satire.
  Actor Tim Robbins, who starred in a number of Altman's films, describes some of the unique aspects of his directing method:
  He created a unique and wonderful world on his sets, ... where the mischievous dad unleashed the "children actors" to play. Where your imagination was encouraged, nurtured, laughed at, embraced and Altman-ized. A sweet anarchy that many of us hadn't felt since the schoolyard, unleashed by Bob's wild heart.
  Altman's personal archives are located at the University of Michigan, which include about 900 boxes of personal papers, scripts, legal, business and financial records, photographs, props and related material. Altman had filmed Secret Honor at the university, as well as directed several operas there.
  Since 2009, the Robert Altman Award is awarded to the director, casting director, and ensemble cast of films at the yearly Independent Spirit Awards.
  In 2014, a feature-length documentary film, Altman, was released, which looks at his life and work with film clips and interviews.
caption: Altman's handprints outside Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France
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