Review of California Split (1974) by Ken Y — 20 Jul 2008

One thing about Altman. Whenever you see one of his films, you are going to be seeing something unlike anything you have ever seen before. Even if you have seen an Altman film none of his films are like any other film he has done, at least in subject.

He is one of the true Auteurs of American Cinema and his movies are always very atmospheric, creating an extremely authentic environment in which his characters live. The actors are great in this manner.

Or it might just be the brilliance of Altman's directing. Whatever it is the actors always seem like they aren't acting, but that their characters are truly who they are, and that they have been living in this Altman world since they were born.

That is one of the things I absolutely love about Altman. But this takes precedence over anything else in his movies. They are environments rather than entertainments. This is not to say that his movies aren't entertaining.

It's just that, like some of the best things in life, Altman is very much an acquired taste. I saw this today with people who have not quite acquired the appreciation for the absolute brilliance each film by Robert Altman is.

They didn't like the ending. Just like McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye and many other films Robert Altman has directed, the ending was in ways kind of abrupt and not completely satisfying.

But this comes back to the movie being more of an environment than entertainment. We enter this world not knowing much about the people who inhabit it. We get to know them, live with them. We build a general sympathy for them.

And because we are just visiting this world they live in, we can't ask for nice resolutions at the end like a usual movie would give us. We must leave them and let them figure those things out for themselves, by themselves, with out us seeing it happen.

And this is hard for a movie goer not used to the ways of Altman. It is difficult to leave these characters that we care so much about, after we go through a series of events with them and then what seemed to be the whole plot of the movie was indeed only leading up to something we did not foresee and then we must leave them.

We want to stay with these characters longer so that we can be part of their experiences and see what happens next because we are now very invested in their lives. But to be able to create such an investment requires the audience to be absorbed into the movie, and especially the characters, and this requires tremendous filmmaking, like only Robert Altman could give us.

This was a great experience. I am turning into a huge Altman fan.