TANNER ON TANNER

Robert Altman

Robert Altman

(Kansas City, MO, USA, 1925 - Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2006)

Robert Altman, from a middle-class family, received a Catholic education before abandoning his studies and enlisting in the Air Force in 1943, becoming a co-pilot on B-24 bombers. After WWII ended, he moved to California where, with his friend George W. George, he wrote short stories and film stories, two of which were turned into the films Christmas Eve (1947) by Eddie L. Marin and Bodyguard (1948) by Richard Fleischer. Disappointed that he had not been involved in the production of the movies, in 1949 he abandoned California and left for New York with the intention of dedicating himself to the world of theater. During a stopover in Kansas City, he was given a contract with the Calvin Company, for whom he directed approximately sixty industrial documentaries over the next six years. In 1955, he was contacted to make a film about young people, The Delinquents, which was followed by The James Dean Story, a documentary – proposed by his friend George – about the actor who had recently died. In this same period, Alfred Hitchcock, who had been impressed by the documentary about James Dean, suggested a collaboration on his popular TV series, The Alfred Hitchcock Show. This was the start of Altman’s long TV career, which, between 1957 and 1967, led him to direct episodes of major American series, including Bonanza and  Combat!. At the same time, he founded his own production company, Lion’s Gate, and also came up with film projects that were never produced. In 1968, he shot Countdown and the following year, That Cold Day in the Park, a flop which, however, caught the attention of Ingo Preminger, who gave him the opportunity to direct a low-budget film which had already been refused by Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet and Sydney Pollack: M*A*S*H Before the cuts imposed by Fox were carried out, the film had a preview screening in San Francisco that gave a taste of the success to come, which culminated with the Golden Palm in Cannes in 1970. During the next five years he directed films like McCabe & Mrs Miller and The Long Goodbye, which revisited classic Hollywood genres such as westerns and film noirs. One of the fundamental films of his career, Nashville (1974), received an Oscar for the song I’m Easy by Keith Carradine. After a short-lived collaboration with Dino De Laurentiis, with whom he made Buffalo Bill and the Indians in 1979, he began to produce films with his company Lion’s Gate, before selling the company and moving to New York. During this period he made film adaptations of plays like Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and directed TV movies like Tanner ’88. The early ’90s were marked by his efforts to finance a film based on short stories by Raymond Carver, Short Cuts, which he was able to make thanks to the success of The Player, which received a Golden Lion in Venice. In the following years, he directed films like Kansas City, Cookie’s Fortune and Gosford Park, and, at eighty years of age, he directed the gallery of characters of one of America’s most popular radio programs in A Prairie Home Companion, his final film, which he completed shortly before he received an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2006.