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Robert Altman: The Oral Biography - Mitchell Zuckoff
Robert Altman: The Oral Biography
by: (author)
4.00 30
Robert Altman—visionary director, hard-partying hedonist, eccentric family man, Hollywood legend—comes 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... show more
Robert Altman—visionary director, hard-partying hedonist, eccentric family man, Hollywood legend—comes 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 Hollywood—as well as Hollywood’s disillusionment with him—he 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 Zuckoff—who was working with Altman on his memoirs before he died—weaves Altman’s 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.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780307267689 (0307267687)
Publisher: Knopf
Pages no: 576
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
M Sarki
M Sarki rated it
Very nice work. With all the interviews by the people who knew Robert Altman the best, I feel we got a very good picture of the man as well as the artist. He was a fine director who appreciated people who worked hard both in their art and play.
mkunruh
mkunruh rated it
Almost done. A completely absorbing study of Altman - very clever, I thought, to have the multiple voices. Obviously Altmanesque. I wanted more on the making of the movies, but I thought it did a decent job of providing a relatively balanced view (not that I know him at all) of the man.
Another fine mess
Another fine mess rated it
4.0
In my final year as an undergrad, a budding insane love of movies having driven me to every formal and informal experience around the study of film available, I conned or cajoled a Sociology prof who'd advised our campus Film Society (membership for which was him and me, and that's it) to let me do ...
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