Imagine the passing away of a well-known, much-loved person. Walking into the wake, the after services gathering of family and friends, a stranger would hear the buzz of many conversations at once. Each individual walking into the room will pick up on a different story. Some might catch a reference to a city where he has lived or visited. Another may hear a familiar name. One might zero in on talk of a profession he, too, has shared. Each person will apply his own life experience in what he draws from the gathering. Putting all the stories together will tell one major story—the story of the life of the person remembered. The setting would be quite at home in a Robert Altman film, a crowd of busy people, overlapping conversations, a series of events that engage the viewer to participate and draw out the meaning. That is the feeling that comes after reading Robert Altman: The Oral Biography, by Mitchell Zuckoff.
The book is a fitting tribute to the work of one of the great independent film makers who, somehow, managed to play the Hollywood game while remaining perceived as a Hollywood outsider. The project was a bittersweet one for Zuckoff. It started as a joint project with Altman, working on his memoirs of his work, not his private life. But Altman died before the work could be completed. Looking at the record of their conversations, Zuckoff and Altman’s widow, Kathryn, decided the words could be the beginning of a book that encompasses not just the work, but the life of the man behind it.
Zuckoff has interviewed hundreds of people, from family and friends back in Altman’s childhood in Kansas City, war time friends and colleagues from his days of flying bombers in World War II, co-workers at the Calvin Company, an industrial film-making operation in Kansas City where Altman found his beginning, and an impressive list of actors, writers and producers who shared in his film career along the way.
A man so dedicated to his work and to a lifestyle bigger than life tends to let other things go, and the story points out the shortcomings as well as the successes. Two failed marriages occurred before the long, lasting union with Kathryn. The children produced from the three marriages often got lost in the shuffle. Altman rather callously admitted if he had to choose between his family and his work, the choice would be making films. Yet, that didn’t seem to stop the people around him from loving and admiring him and being there for him in the end.
A director who viewed a script as, “well, it’s a diagram,” still seemed loved by the writers who worked with him. As Anne Rapp (screenwriter for Cookie’s Fortune and Dr. T & the Women) said: “Bob has a reputation as being difficult on writers. You won’t hear that from me. I would show him something, and if I did nine things horribly and there was one little seed, one little character, one line that worked, his eyes would light up and he’d say, ‘That’s it, you hit the nail right there! Now take that and go write that.’”
Above all, though, the stories of the actors ring through the book. “I think people, actors, wanted to work with him so much because he cherished authenticity and he was much more interested in bringing to life something that felt genuine,” recalled long-time friend SuEllen Fried who Altman directed in a play in an early stage of his career. “If you had any kind of career, you quickly saw that most directors don’t really trust actors, don’t really want to see actors acting. That was the difference with Bob Altman. He loved actors and wanted to see acting,” said Rene Auberjonois (“Father Mulcahy” in M*A*S*H, “The Lecturer” in Brewster McCloud, “Sheehan” in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, himself in The Player). Keith Carradine (“Cowboy” in McCabe & Mrs. Miller; “Tom Frank” in Nashville) shares that reflection: “He loved actors and he stood in awe of actors. He didn’t understand how they could do what they did and he found it a baffling mystery and a wondrous thing . . . .” Cher, beginning her acting career as “Sissy” in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean on stage directed by Altman, observes “He created a safe environment. You can’t really be great unless you’re prepared to be stupid. He would make it safe for you to fall on your ass and then say, ‘Okay, that didn’t work. Let’s go on.’” This safety net also created a new pressure for actors used to directors telling them exactly what to do. Matthew Modine (“Billy” in Streamers; “Dr. Ralph Wyman” in Short Cuts) sought Altman’s advice on how to do a monologue, but the director deliberately made himself unavailable. After shooting the scene, Altman told the young actor: “You see, kid, I didn’t want to have that conversation with you. That’s not my job. I hired you to be an actor. There were things about this role that you could interpret, that you could bring to life. If I was interested in my interpretation I would have played the part.”
Zuckoff follows the 508 pages of text with “A Note on Methods,” explaining his process of interviewing those included in the book. There is a 13-page “Cast of Characters” which identifies everyone quoted in the book and each person’s relationship to Altman and his career. Zuckoff includes a Filmography, a list of career awards and a listing of the 119 photographs that accompany the text, and a detailed index. These features make the book a useful reference tool as well, but the first read should be from beginning to end just to enjoy the story of a life remembered.
No comments:
Post a Comment