Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altmanwas an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. A five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era, Altman was considered a "maverick" in making films with a highly stylized perspective unlike most Hollywood films. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in history...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth20 February 1925
CityKansas City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
Titanic I thought was the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life. Another film that I think is equally bad was American Beauty. So badly acted and directed. But people like that.
Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.
Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it.
The minute you have more than one voice, you have more possibilities opening up. You have all the molecules in all of those bodies and their make up interacting.
[M*A*S*H] didn't get released by FOX, it escaped.
Why should I keep doing things that I've done before?
Every ad for every film is exactly the same.
People have asked me throughout the years which directors have influenced me. I don't know their names, because I was mostly influenced when I'd see a film and think, "Man, I want to be sure to never do anything like that." So I never learned their names. It wasn't a matter of copying or emulating somebody I admired. It was getting rid of a lot of stuff.
I make no apologies for Popeye. Behind M*A*S*H, it's my biggest hit. It got maligned by the critics because it wasn't Superman. It wasn't about special effects and it wasn't made for 14-year-old boys. The majority of films are made for 14-year-old boys; I don't know where they get the eight bucks to get in. It's hush money from the parents.
I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.
I am not an expert. That is someone else's job. If I were expert, the approach would be all wrong. It would be from the inside. I am a blunderer. I usually don't know what I am going into at the start. I go into the fog and trust something will be there.
You will never see'Altman's Great Film of the Seventies: The Director's Cut' because you have never seen a film of mine that wasn't the director's cut. I have never permitted it.
Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever after -- that's bullshit. Three weeks later he's beating her up and she's suing for divorce and he's got cancer.
It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.