Welcome to A History of Film Festivals in 100 Movies Episode 13 - Short Cuts by Robert Altman and the Venice International Film Festival (also known as the Biennale)
I’m excited to explore Altman’s career, this terrific film, and a truly special event, the first film festival to ever take place.
In his 50+ years (1956 - 2006), Altman directed more than 30 films, and dabbled in theater and tv, where it all started in early 1950s
And Venice, it is the world's oldest film festival and one of the "Big Five" International film festivals worldwide, which include the Big Three European Film Festivals (other being Berlin and Cannes), alongside the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada and the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. As I record this podcast, here in 2024, Venice is celebrating its 81st year!
The Early Years
Robert Altman was born on February 20, 1925, in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Helen Matthews, a Mayflower descendant from Nebraska, and Bernard Clement Altman, a wealthy insurance salesman and amateur gambler who came from an upper-class family. Altman's ancestry was German, English and Irish. He was educated at Jesuit schools, in Kansas City. He graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri in 1943.
Soon after graduating, Altman joined the United States Army Air Forces at the age of 18. During World War II, Altman flew more than 50 bombing missions. Upon his discharge in 1947, Altman moved to California, working in publicity for a company that had invented a tattooing machine to identify dogs. He entered filmmaking on a whim, selling a script to RKO for the 1948 picture Bodyguard. Altman's immediate success encouraged him to move to New York City, where he attempted to forge a career as a writer. Having enjoyed little success, he returned to Kansas City in 1949 and accepted a job as a director and writer of industrial films for the Calvin Company. Altman directed some 65 industrial films and documentaries for the Company. Through his early work on industrial films, Altman experimented with narrative technique and developed his characteristic use of overlapping dialogue.
Altman also enjoyed directing plays and operas, along with his film work. While Altman was employed by the Calvin Company, he began directing plays at the Resident Theatre of the Jewish Community Center.
The Origins of Venice
Founded by Giuseppe Volpi, a member of the National Fascist Party and grandfather of famous producer Marina Cicogna in Venice in August 1932, the festival is part of the Venice Biennale, one of the world's oldest exhibitions of art, created by the Venice City Council on 19 April 1893. The range of work at the Venice Biennale now covers Italian and international art, architecture, dance, music, theater, and cinema.
These works are experienced at separate exhibitions: the International Art Exhibition, the International Festival of Contemporary Music, the International Theatre Festival, the International Architecture Exhibition, the International Festival of Contemporary Dance, the International Kids' Carnival, and the annual Venice Film Festival.
The festival is held in late August or early September on the island of the Lido in the Venice Lagoon. During the festival, Venice hosts many events and parties, interviews and meetings with filmmakers and actors. Screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi.
On the night of 6 August 1932, the festival opened with a screening of the American film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the terrace of the Excelsior Palace Hotel. A total of nine countries participated in the festival, which ended on 21 August.
Despite the success of the first festival, it did not return in 1933. In 1934, the festival was declared to be an annual event, and participation grew from nine countries to seventeen. That year the festival also gave its first official awards, namely the Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film, the Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film, and the Corporations Ministry Cup. Seventeen awards were given: fourteen to films and three to individuals. Five films received honorable mentions.
The fifth year of the festival saw the establishment of its permanent home. Designed and completed in 1937, the Palazzo del Cinema was built on the Lido. It has since been the site for every Venice Film Festival, except the three years from 1940 to 1942, when it was held outside of Venice fear of bombing that never came
The festival resumed full speed in 1946, after the war. For the first time, the 1946 edition was held in the month of September, in accordance with an agreement with the newly reborn Cannes Film Festival, which had just held its first review in the spring of that year. With the return to normality, Venice once again became a great icon of the film world.
The Golden Lion is awarded to the best film screened in competition at the festival. The award was introduced in 1949 as the Golden Lion of San Marco.
Starting in TV
Altman's first forays into television directing were on the DuMont drama series Pulse of the City (1953–1954), and an episode of the 1956 western series The Sheriff of Cochise. In 1956, he was hired by a local businessman to write and direct a feature film in Kansas City on juvenile delinquency. The film, titled The Delinquents, made for $60,000, was bought by United Artists for $150,000, and released in 1957. The exploitation film contained the foundations of Altman's later work in its use of casual, overlapping and naturalistic dialogue.
Altman then moved from Kansas City to California. He co-directed The James Dean Story (1957), a documentary rushed into theaters to capitalize on the actor's recent death and marketed to his emerging cult following. His work had caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock who then hired Altman as a director for his CBS anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. After just two episodes, Altman resigned due to differences with a producer, but this exposure created a path for him to pursue a television career.
Over the next decade Altman worked prolifically in television, primarily in series dramas. He directed multiple episodes of Whirlybirds, The Millionaire, U.S. Marshal, The Troubleshooters, The Roaring 20s, Bonanza, Bus Stop, Kraft Mystery Theater, Combat!, as well as single episodes of several other notable series including Hawaiian Eye, Maverick, Lawman, Surfside 6, Peter Gunn, and Route 66.
By the 1960s, Altman had established himself as a filmmaker who could work quickly and efficiently on a limited budget. Though he was frequently fired from television projects for refusing to follow network mandates, Altman always was able to find more work.
Altman was hired to direct the low-budget space travel feature Countdown, but was fired within days of the project's conclusion because he had refused to edit the film to a manageable length. He worked with James Caan who led the cast with Robert Duvall. He did not direct another film until That Cold Day in the Park (1969), which was a critical and box-office disaster.
During the decade, Altman began to express the political subtexts, a trait he would become known for. In particular, he expressed anti-war sentiments regarding the Vietnam War. Because of this, Altman's career would somewhat suffer as he came to be associated with the anti-war movement.
MASH Puts Altman on the Map
In 1969, Altman was offered the script for M*A*S*H, an adaptation of a little-known Korean War-era novel satirizing life in the armed services; more than a dozen other filmmakers had passed on it. Altman had been hesitant to take the production, and the shoot was so tumultuous that Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland tried to have Altman fired over his unorthodox filming methods. But M*A*S*H was considered a hit and a classic upon its 1970 release. And it won the Palme d'Or at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival
The irreverent black comedy followed the exploits of a host of offbeat characters at a medical unit during the Korean war, including surgeons Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre who create havoc with their martini parties and practical jokes while the war rages around them. The film spawned a successful television series and won an Oscar for best screenplay.
M*A*S*H became one of the biggest films of the early 1970s for 20th Century-Fox and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. It grossed over 80 million at the box office coming in 3rd that year in total box office (behind Love Story and Airport). It also won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, later named the Palme d'Or, at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival. The film went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1996, M*A*S*H was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation. The Academy Film Archive preserved M*A*S*H in 2000.
Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film four (out of four) stars, writing
There is something about war that inspires practical jokes and the heroes ... are inspired and utterly heartless ... We laugh, not because "M*A*S*H" is Sgt. Bilko for adults, but because it is so true to the unadmitted sadist in all of us. There is perhaps nothing so exquisite as achieving ... sweet mental revenge against someone we hate with particular dedication. And it is the flat-out, poker-faced hatred in "M*A*S*H" that makes it work.
The film inspired the television series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1983. Gary Burghoff, who played Radar O'Reilly, was the only actor playing a major character who appeared in both the film and the television series. Altman despised the TV series, calling it "the antithesis of what we were trying to do" with the movie.
The movie scored five Academy Award nominations. It was Altman's highest-grossing film, released during a time of increasing anti-war sentiment in the United States. The Academy Film Archive preserved M*A*S*H in 2000.
Venice Downturn
Meanwhile, the social and political unrest of 1968 had strong repercussions on the Venice Biennale. From 1969 to 1979 no prizes were awarded and the festival returned to the non-competitiveness of the first edition. In 1973, 1977 and 1978, the festival was not even held.
Altman Experiments
Now recognized as a major talent, Altman notched critical successes with McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), a revisionist Western in which the mordant songs of Leonard Cohen underscore a gritty vision of the American frontier. Images, his single, Bergman-inspired attempt at making a horror film. Then came The Long Goodbye (1973) with Elliot Gould, a controversial adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel (scripted by Leigh Brackett); Thieves Like Us (1974), an adaptation of the Edward Anderson novel previously filmed by Nicholas Ray as They Live by Night (1949); And California Split (1974), a gambling comedy-drama shot partially on location in Reno, Nevada, but it was Nashville that put him back on the map.
Nashville
Nashville is a 1975 American satirical musical comedy-drama film directed and produced by Robert Altman. The film follows various people involved in the country and gospel music industry in Nashville, Tennessee, over the five-day period leading up to a gala concert for a populist outsider running for president on the Replacement Party ticket.
Nashville is often noted for its scope; the film contains 24 main characters, an hour's worth of musical numbers, and multiple storylines. Its large ensemble cast includes David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Timothy Brown, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, David Hayward, Michael Murphy, Allan F. Nicholls, Dave Peel, Cristina Raines, Bert Remsen, Lily Tomlin, Gwen Welles, and Keenan Wynn.
It garnered numerous accolades, including five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (for both Ronee Blakley and Lily Tomlin), and winning for Best Original Song for Carradine's track "I'm Easy". The film was nominated for a total of 11 Golden Globe Awards, to date the highest number of nominations received by one film. Since then, it has been considered Altman's magnum opus, and one of the greatest films of all time. In 1992, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Although his films were often met with divisive notices, and some, like A Perfect Couple and Quintet were widely panned, many of the prominent film critics of the era (including Pauline Kael, Vincent Canby and Roger Ebert) remained steadfastly loyal to his directorial style throughout the decade. Audiences took some time to appreciate his films, and he did not want to have to satisfy studio execs. A maverick, to say the least.
The Golden Lion didn't make its return until 1980. When Atlantic City Louis Malle, (Canada, France) and Gloria John Cassavetes (US) shared the top prize.
Popeye
In 1980, he directed the musical film Popeye. Produced by Robert Evans and written by Jules Feiffer, the film was based on the comic strip / cartoon of the same name and starred Shelley Duvall and the comedian Robin Williams in his film debut. Designed as a vehicle to increase Altman's commercial clout following a series of critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful low-budget films in the late 1970s (including 3 Women, A Wedding, and Quintet), the production was filmed on location in Malta. It was soon beleaguered by heavy drug and alcohol use among most of the cast and crew, including the director.
Altman reportedly clashed with Evans, Williams (who threatened to leave the film), and songwriter Harry Nilsson (who departed midway through the shoot, leaving Van Dyke Parks to finish the orchestrations). Although the film grossed $60 million worldwide on a $20 million budget and was the second highest-grossing film Altman had directed to that point, it failed to meet studio expectations and was considered a box office disappointment.
Though Altman alway managed to find work, his film and TV projects throughout the the 1908s didn’t do very well, with critics or audiences.
Then in 1990, Altman directed Vincent & Theo, a biographical film about Vincent van Gogh that was intended as a television miniseries for broadcast in the United Kingdom. A theatrical version of the film was a modest success in the United States, marking a significant turning point in the director's critical resurgence.
The Player
He revitalized his career in earnest with The Player (1992), a satire of Hollywood, based on a book of the same name, written by Michael Tolkin
Before production, meticulous planning went into crafting the film's opening scene, an eight-minute unbroken tracking shot. Models were utilized to map out the shot, and the studio lot location was resurfaced to ensure smooth movement for the dolly and crane. The day before filming, the actors and crew rehearsed the scene. Altman filmed ten takes. Notably, Altman instructed actor Fred Ward, portraying a studio security chief, to incorporate references to other films renowned for their tracking shots into his dialogue to add irony to the scene.
The celebrity cameos were not written in the script. Robert Altman added them all in. No scripted dialogue was given to any celebrity with a cameo.
The Player has many film references and Hollywood in-jokes, with 65 celebrities making cameo appearances in the film. Altman once stated that the film "is a very mild satire," offending no one.
Co-produced by the influential David Brown (The Sting, Jaws, Cocoon), the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Director. While he did not win the Oscar, he was awarded Best Director by the Cannes Film Festival, BAFTA, and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote,
"Robert Altman has not really been away. Yet his new Hollywood satire titled The Player is so entertaining, so flip and so genially irreverent that it seems to announce the return of the great gregarious film maker whose Nashville remains one of the classics of the 1970's"
Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote:
"Mercilessly satiric yet good-natured, this enormously entertaining slam dunk represents a remarkable American come-back for eternal maverick Robert Altman.
The handwriting on the ominous death threat letters and postcards received by Griffin Mill belonged to director Robert Altman, who took great pleasure in writing the notes.
The film grossed 22 million in US, and 7 million internationally on a Budget of 8 million.
Short Cuts
With Altman back in top form, he then directed Short Cuts (1993), an ambitious adaptation of 9 short stories by Raymond Carver, which portrayed the lives of various citizens of Los Angeles over the course of several days. The film's large cast and intertwining of many different storylines were similar to his large-cast films of the 1970s.
The film has a Los Angeles setting, which is substituted for the Pacific Northwest backdrop of Carver's stories. Short Cuts traces the actions of 22 principal characters, both in parallel and at occasional loose points of connection.
The film features an ensemble cast including Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Fred Ward, Anne Archer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn, Jack Lemmon, Frances McDormand, Lori Singer, Andie MacDowell, Buck Henry, Lily Tomlin, actress and singer Annie Ross, and musicians Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett, and Tom Waits.
At the 1993 Venice International Film Festival the film won the top prize - The Golden Lion, and the Special Volpi Cup - for the ensemble. Altman also won the Fipresci prize there. And he earned another Oscar nomination for Best Director, but lost to Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List) and shared a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay with Barhydt (lost to Steven Zaillian for Schindler's List).
Short Cuts was named one of the best films of 1993 by over 50 film critics. Only The Piano and Schindler's List appeared on more lists.
Altman would go on to make Ready to Wear, Kansas City and Cookies Fortune. But it would be almost 10 years later before he had another hit, with Gosford Park in 2001.
The film was nominated for for 7 Oscars, Julian Fellowes won for Original Screenplay, and did well with the Golden Globes, where Altman won the Best Director prize.
The Finale
His last film was Prairie Home Companion, the big screen adaptation of Garrison Keillor's radio broadcast The film was completed in 2006, the year he passed at 81.
Another stellar cast joined Altman for his final film, including:
To receive insurance for the shoot, Robert Altman had to hire Paul Thomas Anderson as a "backup" director to observe filming at all times and be prepared to take over for Altman in case of his incapacity.
The film had modest success, doing over 25 million internationally, and generally well received by critics.
Prior the the film’s release, Altman received an Honorary Oscar at the 2006 Academy Awards, introduced by two of his friends and co-stars, Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, who delivered a hilarious, altman-esque tribute before he wass welcomed to the stage. Here’s that introduction, and Altman’s speech.
Venice Film Festival in the Modern Era
During the recent years, under the direction of Alberto Barbera, the festival established itself as an Oscars launchpad, increasing the presence of American movies and hosting the world premieres of Academy Award–winning films such as Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), Spotlight (2015), La La Land (2016), The Shape of Water (2017).
In 2018 Roma by Alfonso Cuarón won the Golden Lion and became the first movie produced by a streaming service, Netflix, to win at a major film festival
The festival also presented the World Premieres of Joker (2019), Nomadland (2020), Dune (2021), The Whale (2022) and Poor Things (2023).
In 2017, Venice introduced their Immersive program. The festival was the first of the "Big Five" international film festivals worldwide to introduce virtual reality to the festival program. Therefore, Venice Immersive is globally the most important podium for the emerging medium within film to date.
Venice 2024
This year, the Venice Immersive division of the 81st Venice International Film Festival includes 63 extended-reality projects drawn from 25 different countries. The prestigious annual event’s carefully curated slate once again conveys the pioneering spirit and advancing capabilities of virtual, augmented and mixed reality.
And 2024 would have its share of glitz and glamor. Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice kicked off the fest in grand fashion. And later, Angeline Jolie there to present Maria about the opera singer. Two days later, X husband Brad Pitt would fly in with pal George Clooney to present their latest film together, Wolfs. Nicole Kidman bares goes all in for the sexually explicit Babygirl - and Jude Law and Adrien Brody were there to support big premieres.
In fact, their films are leading the charge, in terms of standing ovations. The Brutalist, clocking in at 3 hours and 30 minutes received at 12 and half minute Standing O. And Brody could win a prize for his performance, which sounds like an Oscar Contender.
Of course, there were plenty of standing ovations, which doesn’t necessarily mean the film is good. Or will be successful. Just look at Horizon: an American Saga which was recorded as receiving as long as an 11-minute standing ovation, and went on to bomb at the box office? BUT it’s still culturally relevant, and kind of fun, to share.
Vulture tracks them, if you’re interested in seeing how the titles compare.
More hits and oscar hopefuls to come, with Lada Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix in Joker and Pedro Almodovar’s latest, staring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
Yes, with Telluride going on this Labor Day weekend, Venice still under way, and Toronto coming next week, the fall festival “prestige” season is officially under way. A great time of year, for us film aficionados.
And that’s a wrap, on A History of Film Festivals in 100 Movies Episode 13: Short Cuts by Robert Altman and the Venice International Film Festival.
Thanks for listening. Until next time you take care.
Sources
Music
Opening - MASH theme (series)
Closing - Short Cuts (Annie Ross)
Episode 13: Short Cuts - Robert Altman