A Companion to Robert Altman

A Companion to Robert Altman presents myriad aspects of Altman s life, career, influence and historical context. This book features 23 essays from a range of experts in the field, providing extensive coverage of these aspects and dimensions of Altman s work. The most expansive and wide-ranging book yet published on Altman, providing a comprehensive account of Altman s complete career Provides discussion and analysis of generally neglected aspects of Altman s career, including the significance of his work in television and industrial film, the importance of collaboration, and the full range and import of his aesthetic innovations Includes essays by key scholars in Altman studies , bringing together experts in the field, emerging scholars and writers from a broad range of fields Multi-disciplinary in design and draws on a range of approaches to Altman s work, being the first substantial publication to make use of the recently launched Robert Altman Archive at the University of Michigan Offers specific insights into particular aspects of film style and their application, industrial and aesthetic film and TV history, and particular areas such as the theorisation of space, place, authorship and gender

A Companion to Robert Altman presents myriad aspects ofAltman's life, career, influence and historical context. Thisbook features 23 essays from a range of experts in the fieldproviding extensive coverage of these aspects and dimensions ofAltman's work.* The most expansive and wide-ranging book yet published onAltman, providing a comprehensive account of Altman'scomplete career* Provides discussion and analysis of generally neglected aspectsof Altman's career, including the significance of his work intelevision and industrial film, the importance of collaborationand the full range and import of his aesthetic innovations* Includes essays by key scholars in "Altmanstudies", bringing together experts in the field, emergingscholars and writers from a broad range of fields* Multi-disciplinary in design and draws on a range of approachesto Altman's work, being the first substantial publication tomake use of the recently launched Robert Altman Archive at theUniversity of Michigan* Offers specific insights into particular aspects of film styleand their application, industrial and aesthetic film and TVhistory, and particular areas such as the theorisation of spaceplace, authorship and gender

Contributors viii1 "It's OK with me": Introducing Robert Altman 1Adrian DanksPart One Zoom in: Becoming Altman 192 Sponsoring the Hollywood Renaissance: Reappraising Altman's Industrial Films 21Mark Minett3 From Alfred Hitchcock Presents to Tanner on Tanner: The Long Tail of Altman's Television Career 44Tony Williams4 Just a Station on His Way? Altman's Transition from Television to Film 68Nick Hall5 Breaking the Rules: Altman, Innovation and the Critics 92David SterrittPart Two "I've got Poetry in Me": Seeing and Hearing Altman 1176 The Porous Frame: Visual Style in Altman's 1970s Films 119Hamish Ford7 3 Women: Floating Above the Awful Abyss 146Joe McElhaney and In memory of Tom Hopkins8 The Multitrack World of California Split 166Wheeler Winston Dixon9 The Democratic Voice: Altman's Sound Aesthetics in the 1970s 184Jay Beck10 Creativity and Compromise: California Split's Original Soundtrack 210Gayle MageePart Three Placing Altman: Space, History and Genre 23111 High Hollywood in The Long Goodbye 233Murray Pomerance12 Altman and the Western, or a Hollywood Director's History Lesson of the American West 254Stephen Teo13 Altman/Nixon/Reagan: Honorable Secrets, Historical Analogies and the Nexus of Anger 274Rick Armstrong14 LA and Paris: The Construction of Social Space in the Films of Altman 296Robert T. Self15 "The Man I Love," or Time Regained: Altman, History and Kansas City 321Adrian DanksPart Four Being Altman: Character, Performance and Situation 34716 "One is Both the Same": Fantasy and Female Psychosis in Images and That Cold Day in the Park 349David Melville17 Nashville: Second City Performance Comes to Hollywood 369Virginia Wright Wexman18 Altman: The Artist in Middle Age 390Christos Tsiolkas19 Lawful Lawyer, Vigilante Father: Altman, Masculinity and The Gingerbread Man 401Tom DoreyPart Five Zoom out: After "Altman" 42320 Staging the "Rebel's Return": The Player, Short Cuts and the Precarious Art of the Comeback 425Dimitrios Pavlounis21 The End of the Hollywood Hero: Dr T & the Women and Altman's Multi?]Protagonist Narratives 448María del Mar Azcona22 The Long Reach of Short Cuts 465Robert P. Kolker23 Kicking and Screaming: Altmanesque Cynicism and Energy in the Work of Paul Thomas Anderson and Noah Baumbach 480Claire PerkinsIndex 501