Movies

Often the term auteur director is thrown about when describing the stylistic tendencies that pervade a directors film, whether it is through material, theme, or in style.  Consequently, established directors work within a vacuum of their own previous films, in which they set the tone for the auteur to either repeat or dismantle.  Robert Altman was a prolific director who continually directed for film and television well over three decades, in the meantime, glossing over nearly every genre of cinema with the same tone that became the Altman style.  This is one that can be seen developed and crafted in early works like The Long Goodbye, only later to be casually represented in the mid-career ensemble film Cookies Fortune, and lastly a self-homage in his final piece, the quintessential Altman film A Prairie Home Companion.

The Long Goodbye is one of Altmans earlier films, and in it, he demonstrates a strong implication of style over substance.  The film tries to exist primarily as an excuse to build film techniques, possibly into a story, but more importantly into a neo-noir film.  Altmans version of Phillip Marlowe is a character out of time, living as if film noir (or the 1940s) attitudes of private investigation, let alone everyday life in the 1970s, remained relevant.  The consequences range from quaint to violent, but through it all, Altman catches the characters in a rather detached manner.  He prioritizes extreme long and medium shots, rarely focusing squarely in close up on his characters.  They compliment this by routinely acting without reason (at least to the audience), as even the protagonist seems to be alien to the world he exists in, both in narrative and filmic representation.  

Altmans camera roams throughout the film, keeping the storyline taught and moving and a brisk pace. Nevertheless, the editing appears founded in noir films of the 1940s, Altman is not prone to fast cuts or awkward, rapid editing to demonstrate action.  Instead zooms are used to reveal information catch people speak in the foreground whilst action occurs behind, in the distance.  The act of investigation and secrets that it reveals are reenacted by the camera which occasionally catches action off in the distance or stumbles upon circumstances while paying attention to something else entirely.  The effect is a semi-parody of noir, in which the protagonist stumbles across the solution to a crime by happenstance and dumb luck, but at other times, the action is deadly serious, and it becomes clear that Marlowe, and the thugs he surrounds himself with are not simply noir types, but dangerous individuals found in the real world beyond the noir film.

Cookies Fortune was completed in a time when Altman was amidst refining what would come to be known as Altman-esque.  The film features the trademarks of many of his films, a large cast of established actors, lots of intermingled plot and dialogue, and the gentile gathering of various attitudes and perceptions, to be observed and collected by the audience.  In the case of Cookies Fortune, the setting lies in a small southern town, one of those quaint villages where everybody knows everyone and social constructs like racism and classism are seemingly devoid.  The characters exist in a fantastical world where even tragic situations are handled with aplomb characters reveal trust in one another and the complexity of small town life in a manner that is not obtrusive or didactic.   The film appears divided amongst acts, with eccentric characters like Jewel Mae and Camille become defined in their quirks.  When the sign of the stage production of Salome is billed with Camilles name along with Oscar Wilde, its a subtle reminder of the quiet charm of the movie.  The act is both entirely in character, slightly off kilter, and, in a way, charming as the film in itself.

Altman continues another one of his themes in the film, particularly the overlapping dialogue that unites both characters in frame, as well uniting situational occurrence.  As Camille sets the wheels in motion for Willies arrest, it becomes clear how tight nit the community is, even the sheriff does not believe the story and lets the man stay in a loosely guarded, rather pampered cell. The quaint misc en scene of a decorated, charming prison, accompanied by other cute moments (often orchestrated to upbeat, charming, music) lends an air of whimsy and relaxed, Southern fortuity that demonstrates that Altman can attack a madcap comedy (and part mystery) in a typical Altman structure, where the film comments on itself.

A Prairie Home Companions protagonist, detective Guy Noir, may as well be a typified Marlowe, living in a different, contemporary neo-noirish, observational adventure as he proceeds into the inhabitable stories of the typical Altman characters.  The gang of singers, radio personalities, and theater hanger-ons flood to the Fitzgerald Theater for the final show performance.  The theater is to be closed and the eerie haunt of death and cascading limelight seeps through conversation, misc en scene and direction choices.  The allegory of light is strong in the film and even the haunting overtones of death are softened by the soft crackle of campfire anecdotes and the warm lights of the theater stage.  The characters, through overlapping conversations and tales of the road and stage, reveal how much of existence performance, complicated by resilience on family and loved ones is.  This is revealed in an especially poignant scene between the Jonson families where mirrors frame the family together in conversation while collapsing their space.  They reflect one another in blood and profession and reveal to the audience (who relishes in the reflectivity) the aura of candid nostalgia, as well as perseverance.

Lola Johnsons song towards the films end epitomizes the intersection of family, art, life and death that makes up most of ones existence.  The song is a celebration of the wonderful and the prophetic, at times an elegy, at times a sing-along.  The direction is typical Altman, graceful and fluid, constantly shifting planes between characters, high and low brow.  The style is especially reminiscent of The Long Goodbye, in which the characters are allowed to gracefully exist without competing for the cameras attention.  The effect is natural and fluid as the plot effortlessly switches amongst the stellar cast while remaining as gentle as a big band commercial.  Consequently the film can be viewed as an allegory to Altmans career, in which he encapsulates the entirely of his auteristic style, and packages it around a plot that allows his themes to flourish.