Robert Altman, one of the great greats of American filmaking died yesterday at the age of 81. Look at the list of his movies (in no particular order): Nashville, Mash, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us, Popeye, Three Women, and more recently Shortcuts, Gosford Park, and A Prarie Home Companion, a film in which death was a major character played by the great, Kevin Kline.

"A risk-taker with a tendency
toward mischief, Mr. Altman is perhaps best remembered for a run of
masterly films — six in five years — that propelled him to the
forefront of American directors and culminated in 1975 with what many
regard as his greatest film, “Nashville,” a complex, character-filled drama told against the backdrop of a presidential primary," writes Rick Lyman in theNew York Times.

Genre-bending, free-wheeling and surprising, Altman employed a recurring ensemble of unpredictable  actors in movie after movie. Improvisation was key and sound was his forte: "Mr. Altman was
celebrated for his ground-breaking use of multilayer soundtracks. An
Altman film might offer a babble of voices competing for attention in
crowded, smoky scenes. It was a kind of improvisation that offered a
fresh verisimilitude to tired, stagey Hollywood genres," write TK in the Times.

Last summer at Brooklyn Film Works, an outdoor film festival in JJ Byrne Park, we showed, "The Long Good Bye," a kooky take on the Phillip Marlowe book by Raymond Chandler. It may not have been the best  choice for an outdoor film festival, but many in the audience declared it among their favorite movies for Elliot Gould’s performance and a cast of incredible  actors, including Henry Gibson, Nina Von Pallant, Sterling Hayden, Arnold Schwarzenegger in a small part and others.

Now I’m glad we paid tribute to one of the greats while he was still alive. It isn’t always popular to like Robert Altman’s work but it can’t be denied that he was a creative genuis who left his mark on cinema in a characteristically eccentric way.