page_title: Robert Altman
section_title: Maverick and auteur
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Altman / Directing style and technique / Maverick and auteur
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of Robert Altman
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: Following his successful career in television, Altman began his new career in the movie industry when he was in middle-age. He understood the creative limits imposed by the television genre, and now set out to direct and write films which would express his personal visions about American society and Hollywood. His films would later be described as "auteuristic attacks" and "idiosyncratic variations" of traditional films, typically using subtle comedy or satire as a way of expressing his observations.
  His films were typically related to political, ideological, and personal subjects, and Altman was known for "refusing to compromise his own artistic vision." He has been described as "anti-Hollywood," often ignoring the social pressures that affected others in the industry, which made it more difficult for him to get many of his films seen. However, he still felt that his independence as a filmmaker did him little harm overall:
  I don't think there's a filmmaker alive, or who ever lived, who's had a better shake than I've had. I've never been without a project and it's always been a project of my own choosing. So I don't know how much better it could be. I have not become a mogul, I don't build castles and I don't have a vast personal fortune, but I have been able to do what I've wanted to do and I've done it a lot.
  "Altman was a genuine movie maverick," states author Ian Freer, because he went against the commercial conformity of the movie industry: "He was the scourge of the film establishment, and his work generally cast an astute, scathing eye over the breadth of American culture, often exploding genres and character archetypes; Altman was fascinated by people with imperfections, people as they really are, not as the movies would have you believe." Director Alan Rudolph, during a special tribute to Altman, refers to his moviemaking style as "Altmanesque."
  With his independent style of directing, he developed a bad reputation among screenwriters and those on the business side of films. He admits, "I have a bad reputation with writers, developed over the years: 'Oh, he doesn't do what you write, blah blah blah.' ... Ring Lardner was very pissed off with me," for not following his script. Nor did Altman get along well with studio heads, once punching an executive in the nose and knocking him into a swimming pool because he insisted he cut six minutes from a film he was working on.
  His reputation among actors is quite different, however. With them, his independence sometimes extended to his choice of actors, often going against consensus. Cher, for instance, credits him for launching her career with both the stage play and film, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). "Without Bob I would have never had a film career. Everyone told him not to cast me. Everyone. ... Nobody would give me a break. I am convinced that Bob was the only one who was brave enough to do it." Others, like Julianne Moore, describes working with him:
  You know, all this talk about Bob being this kind of irascible, difficult kind of person? Well, he was never that way with an actor or with a creative person that I saw. Never, never, never. He saved all that for the money people.
  However, director Robert Dornhelm states, Altman "looked at film as a pure, artistic venue." With Short Cuts (1993), for instance, the distributor "begged him" to cut a few minutes from the length, to keep it commercially viable: "Bob just thought the Antichrist was trying to destroy his art. They were well-meaning people who wanted him to get what he deserved, which was a big commercial hit. But when it came down to the art or the money, he was with the art."
  Sally Kellerman, noting Altman's willful attitude, still looks back with regret at giving up a chance to act in one of his films:
  I had just finished filming Last of the Red Hot Lovers when Bob called me one day at home. "Sally, do you want to be in my picture after next?" he asked. "Only if it's a good part," I said. He hung up on me.
  
  Bob was as stubborn and arrogant as I was at the time, but the sad 
caption: Altman's portrait, taken in 1983
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