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
No filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. By that calculation, you may be giving this award too early. Because I think I've got about 40 years left and I intend to use them.
No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have; I never had to direct a film I didn't choose and develop. Eleven years ago, I had a heart transplant. I got the heart of a young woman who is in her late 30s. So by that calculation, you may be giving me this award too early, because I think I've got 40 years left, and I intend to use them.
No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition.
Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.
If something works for you, you continue to do it. I did a bunch of pictures for 20th Century Fox when Alan Ladd was over there, but I set the budgets so low that they'd approve and I'd deliver the film. They would have no say in it, which is the kind of arrangement I liked.
All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.
That wasn't an ending. It was just a stopping point.
Every ad for every film is exactly the same.
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.
It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.
I'm here, I think, under kind of false pretenses, and I think I have to become straight with you. Ten years ago, 11 years ago, I had a heart transplant -- a total heart transplant. I got the heart of, I think, a young woman who was about in her late 30s. So, by that calculation, you may be giving me this award too early, because I think I got about 40 years left on it -- and I intend to use it.
I don't know what a best director is, except that (it is) someone who stands in the same space with the best actors, ... I feel that they do the work and I get to watch. And nothing is better than that.
Maybe there's a chance to get back to ... grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people.
What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.