Nothing much to say about Robert Altman (everyone else is doing that), but I surfed obituaries sadly for a while last night, thinking about the alarming gaps in my film education despite a lot of reasons why there shouldn't be. I never seemed to give myself over to rabid fandom with him, and I don't know why--he was ripe for it. I think it's partly the challenges that his movies present. They don't ever have easy toeholds, they are are like portals to a new dimension that turn themselves inside out once you enter, and there isn't a lot of room for grey. Very black and white, in a completely non-bossy but demanding way, cinematically.

To complete the image of a Anglophilic parvenu (the subtitle of this blog), I have given myself over totally to Gosford Park--that movie made it clear how much liking his films is about familiarity, because the more I see it, the more I like it, the more there is to see. I adore that film. I think it's unbelievably smart, and wears its virtuosity easily. And, thinking about it--The Player arrived at a point in my GenX life that was significant. It seems, in looking back, to have provided a crucial transition in filmwatching, a broader validation for film's cultural relevance that we take for granted now. Knowing about the opening sequence of Touch of Evil went from a film school convention to a general cultural one.

I told two people at work the news about him yesterday with (I am in an honest mood today) what felt like a bit of the unflattering relish and adrenaline that comes with imparting bad news, and I can still remember the looks on their faces! Was revealing to see, especially in a work environment that trafficks in information and the timing of the acquisition thereof and is thus somewhat unsurprisable. We should all have people grieve like that when we go.

I guess I do have a few things to say about Robert Altman. It would be much cooler to announce in the spirit of the sniffy endings of sad newspaper articles everywhere that I'm going to spend some quality time with Nashville or McCabe & Mrs. Miller this weekend and think about my blessings, but I think it may be Gosford Park again. We'll see. Oh how long a Robert Altman film festival would be!