Shame he dead liked some of his movies

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21112006/325/dire...ead-age-81.html

 

 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Director Robert Altman, who revolutionised Hollywood filmmaking with an irreverent style that critics hailed as "American Art Cinema" has died at age 81, his production company said on Tuesday.

 

The director of dozens of films and TV dramas, Altman changed the vocabulary of American filmmaking with "MASH", a caustic black comedy about a medical unit in the Korean war that

 

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came out in 1970 and immediately drew on the anger that many Americans felt toward officials who had bogged them down in the Vietnam War.

Many of Altman's other films were hailed by critics, including 1975's "Nashville", which along with "MASH" and the 1971 western "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" are considered the best films of the 1970s. He also made more than his share of clinkers, including the financial disaster "Popeye".

 

Many of his films engaged directly in social comment and the Kansas City, Missouri, born Altman was always considered a maverick and outsider in Hollywood where profits takes precedence over politics.

 

He was nominated as best director five times: for "MASH", "Nashville", "The Player" (1992), "Short Cuts" (1993) and "Gosford Park" (2001), but never won.

 

He also shared Oscar nominations for best picture for "Nashville" and "Gosford Park",

 

Perhaps to make up for the neglect, Altman earlier this year received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

 

Altman revealed at the Awards in March 2006 that he had a heart transplant a decade earlier but kept it a secret in order to keep working.

 

Altman was 30 when he made his first feature film.

 

On the strength of that he moved to Hollywood where his big break came with "MASH".

 

Altman was far from the first choice to direct "MASH" and he got the job only after more than a dozen others had turned it down. But its irreverent ad lib dialogue caught viewers by surprise and ushered in a new era of filmmaking.

 

 

A brilliant film-maker, part of that new school of '70s US film-makers (along with De Palma, Scorcese, Coppolla, Lynch..) who were influenced by European art-house and French New Wave.. An incredibly talented and influential group of directors who changed the face of US film-making forever...

 

And like Scorcese unjustly never a recipient of a "Best Director" Oscar.....

 

A sad loss indeed... :(

 

I think my favourite of his was probably "Short Cuts", "MASH" was also excellent...