https://wwwhttps://www.rottentomatoes.

com/celebrity/robert_altman

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/robert_altman

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/22/guardianobituaries.filmnews

https://www.theguardian.com/film/robertaltman

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-begin-robert-altman

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/19/robert-altman-genius-who-reinvented-language-of-
cinema

https://ew.com/article/1990/11/16/robert-altmans-innovative-style/

But it may also be due to the fact that he was rather harder to pigeonhole than most of the
aforementioned directors. His output was notoriously uneven, yet it included a remarkably high number
of great movies. He never specialised in any particular genre or dramaturgical mode, being equally adept
in comedy and serious social commentary (which he frequently combined). He made several films with
dozens of substantial speaking parts but also made one with a single actor.

Robert Altman, (born February 20, 1925, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.—died November 20, 2006, Los
Angeles, California), unconventional and independent American motion-picture director, whose works
emphasize character and atmosphere over plot in exploring themes of innocence, corruption, and
survival. Perhaps his best-known film was his first and biggest commercial success, the antiwar comedy
M*A*S*H (1970).

Altman, the son of a well-to-do insurance man, was a member of a prominent family in Kansas City,
Missouri. From his junior year of high school through the beginning of his college education, he attended
the Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. In 1945 he joined the U.S. Army Air Forces,
serving as a pilot until 1947. After a failed attempt as an entrepreneur and a sojourn in Los Angeles,
Altman took a job with the Calvin Company in Kansas City, where he directed dozens of industrial films.
In 1957 he shot The Delinquents, a drama about juvenile delinquency, in Kansas City with a cast that
included Tom Laughlin (later the star of the 1970s cult film Billy Jack). Altman also codirected, with
George W. George (son of cartoonist Rube Goldberg), the documentary The James Dean Story (1957).
That film, released two years after the actor’s death, brought Altman to the attention of the television
industry, in which he would work for years, directing episodes of Combat, Bonanza, and Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, among many other programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXhgfsVg84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bHFTKPENzo

M*A*S*H (CBS/Fox, 1970)

After years of reruns of the TV spin-off, it’s refreshing to experience again the harsh humor of the movie
that started it all. An antiwar comedy of the darkest kind, M*A*S*H was a breakthrough for Altman —
and for Hollywood. In addition to setting new standards for four-letter wit, it also established Altman’s
trademark style: the overlapping dialogue, the overflowing frame, the cheerful overthrowing of
traditional Hollywood values. Coming at the height of the Vietnam debate, the message couldn’t have
been clearer — even though the film is set during the Korean War. A

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mash-1970