Robert Altman

Robert Altmanvisionary director hard-partying hedonist eccentric family man Hollywood legendcomes roaring to life in this rollicking cinematic biography told in a chorus of voices that can only be called Altmanesque.. His outsized life and unique career are revealed as never before: here are the words of his family and friends and a few enemies as well as the agents writers crew members producers and stars who worked with him including Meryl Streep Warren Beatty Tim Robbins Julianne Moore Paul Newman Julie Christie Elliott Gould Martin Scorsese Robin Williams Cher and many others. There is even Altman himself in the form of his exclusive last interviews.. After an all-American boyhood in Kansas City a stint flying bombers through enemy fire in World War II and jobs ranging from dog-tattoo entrepreneur to television director Robert Altman burst onto the scene in 1970 with the movie M*A*S*H. He revolutionized American filmmaking and in a decade produced masterpieces at an astonishing pace: McCabe & Mrs. Miller Thieves Like Us The Long Goodbye 3 Women and of course Nashville. Then after a period of disillusionment with Hollywoodas well as Hollywoods disillusionment with himhe reinvented himself with a bold new set of masterworks: The Player Short Cuts and Gosford Park. Finally just before the release of the last of his nearly forty movies A Prairie Home Companion he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement from the Academy which had snubbed him for so many years.. Mitchell Zuckoffwho was working with Altman on his memoirs before he diedweaves Altmans final interviews an incredible cast of voices and contemporary reviews and news accounts into a riveting tale of an extraordinary life. Here are page after page of revelations that force us to reevaluate Altman as a man and an artist and to view his sprawling narratives with large casts multiple story lines and overlapping dialogue as unquestionably the work of a modern genius.. From the Hardcover edition.