The Modern Romantic

There are mavericks, who we love because they make the Hollywood system, that orgy of self-love and self-importance, uncomfortable by making them (and us) aware that the high dramas and passions sold to the public as great art are tissue paper wrapped bon-bons stuffed with maudlin sentimentality.

Then there are the geniuses, who create the honest and true moments, who struggle with the big questions of love, death, and war, but use these topics not as background dressings for actors to pose against, but as human conditions, riddled with contradiction, simultaniety and humor.

Then there's Robert Altman- who takes the cheap Hollywood confection- the murder mystery, the war hero picture, you name it- and illuminates the truth locked inside each of them. It's not just that he brings high art to film. It's not just that he's a rebel that everyone knows is right. What puts Altman in a category of his own is that he took the cheap Hollywood film and put the human beings back into it.

Robert Altman (1925-2006)