I can’t believe it, the king has died.
Robert Altman was an amazing filmmaker, a true maverick. Even as I write these words I can’t help but feel that they’re hollow somehow. They’re just words they don’t come anywhere near expressing just what Altman was or what he did.
Altman was a poet in a medium of prose. He didn’t make films about whether or not the guy would get the girl, or if the former commando would stop the bomb. He made films truly about the human condition, about what fragile, stupid, and beautiful creatures humans could be. People often called him a misanthrope because he made films unafraid to show the darkness of humanity, but these people missed the aching tenderness and compassion that he showed to even his most flawed characters.
When Altman accepted his lifetime achievement academy award he revealed that he’d had a heart transplant, and even then he didn’t look weak. Even when PT Anderson was brought onto the Prairie Home Companion set as a “pinch hitter” I have to say I never really thought he would die. I figured him for a constant, someone who would always be there, grouchy and immutable. And now he’s not. And I can’t believe it.
Altman’s death is a sad landmark of another kind: he’s the first of the American New Wave directors, who broke the mold of Hollywood to go. I hope it’s along time before I have to write another obituary for one of those guys because this is tough enough as it is.
Altman’s films were classics, but I don’t want to list them here, his life and his work hold more value and meaning then a simple list can deliver. He was a true artist, who never stopped making films, his lovely Prairie Home Companion debuted this summer, and is quite possibly the loveliest last word that a filmmaker has ever had. But that was the fantastic thing about Altman, he didn’t treat it as a last word and went on to his next film and was hard at work already on All Hands On The Bad One; a movie we will now never get to see.
And that’s the hardest thing about this; in my own selfish way I’m just upset that I’m never going to get to see another new Altman movie again. I’m never going to sit in the theater waiting for the lights to go down so I can see something that is unlike any other film that has ever been made. And I can’t believe it.
To close I want to take a quote from Altman’s Prairie Home Companion,
“What if you die some day?” “I will Die” “Don’t you want people to remember you.” “I don’t want them to be told to remember me.”
I don’t think you have to worry about that Altman, as long as there are people who love great film, they will remember Robert Altman, without the slightest bit of nudging.
But I still can’t believe it.
