Altman, Robert (1925–2006)

US film director and producer. His films vary in tone from the comic to the elegiac, but are frequently ambitious in both content and form, utilizing a complex and sometimes fragmentary style. His antiwar comedy M∗A∗S∗H (1970) was a critical and commercial success, as were Nashville (1975), The Player (1992), and Gosford Park (2002). His last film was A Prairie Home Companion (2006).

M∗A∗S∗H won the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1970, but the poor box-office performance of his subsequent 1970s films, with the exception of Nashville, led to his being restricted in the 1980s to small-scale films, often of theatrical origin, such as Streamers (1983) and Fool for Love (1985). In the 1990s the Hollywood satire The Player marked a comeback to big-scale films and achieved wide popularity. Altman was one of the great maverick directors of US cinema. Taking a quizzical view of US life and culture, he carved out a niche for himself on the periphery of mainstream cinema, and proved a formative influence on the work of such contemporary film-makers as Alan Rudolph.

Altman began by making industrial films in Kansas City. His first feature was a low-budget ‘quickie’, The Delinquents (1957). He followed with the well-received ‘anti-Western’ McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971), and the dark Hollywood drama The Long Goodbye (1973). After establishing the independent production company Lions Gate Films, he produced 3 Women (1977) and A Wedding (1978) under its auspices. His musical cartoon adaptation Popeye (1980) was a commercial, though not a critical, success. Other films include the black comedies Prêt-à-Porter (1994) and Dr T and the Women (2000).