Quintett

Altman's Quintet has to be considered more than just flawed: As so many other reviewers have pointed out, the ideas behind the film, even some of the choices in depicting those ideas, ought to work--and yet very little in this difficult film does. The partially fogged camera lens--I remarked to my wife that it has to be the most distracting directorial conceit I've ever seen--never allowed me to get "into" the film's world.

In general there are serious problems with the mise-en-scene employed here. It's clear that no small amount of thought went into factors like costume and production design, but neither is very effective in evoking a believable world. Perhaps it is a matter of scale; the film is so stage-bound that I laughed out loud once it was mentioned that "five million" people lived in the city. (Yes I understand the constraints of the film's budget. Matte paintings here and there might have helped.) In all the most disappointing Altman film I've ever seen. Great ideas and grand metaphors do not always come through in art--it's just part of the game.

I saw Quintet on a Sunday afternoon in Northbrook, IL in the winter of 1978-1979. There was so much snow plowed badly in the parking lot that I had a hard time finding a space. When I got to the theater there was a strange little notice hand printed on a 3x5 file card that there would be no refunds to Quintet once you had entered the theater. I asked the ticket seller why and he said that so many people had left during the previous night's performance that they almost had a riot.

I knew I was in for something special. As the movie began I noticed that there were credits for the original screenplay and then for the final screenplay. Dissension in the ranks. There was inadequate explanation of where Paul Newman and Bibi Anderson came from and why they were going to the city. Indeed, the idea of hosing down Expo '67 in the winter and allowing the icicles to freeze gave it an other-worldly appearance. (I think that could have been Altman's attraction to the project.) Living in the Midwest during the winter of '78-'79 made me very sensitive to freezing weather. I moved to California the next fall.

There are two last items to consider: the dogs and the fish. The city was home to dozens if not hundreds of dogs. They scavenged for meat (often human bodies.) The malaise affecting the human population disabled them from disposing of the human dead. And finally the fish. There are several shots showing fish being harvested and processed at the beginning of the film, showing that there was an adequate food source for the people who lived in the city.

And finally a mention of the Game: there was a feeling of depression to the movie and the inhabitants of the city. When cut off from a natural human life that includes the having and raising of children, one can get depressed. An aberrant lifestyle that made a game out of killing others might result.

Sorry--whatever merits the story about the game may have, this movie really loses it with the details. This post-apocalyptic city seems to have plenty of light bulbs and electricity (where from who knows where), but apparently no one bothered to save an electric heater. I am sorry, but if you have electricity, why do you have to rely solely on fire for warmth? Also, some characters seem to have vaguely Italian accents while the rest are deadpan American.

And the dogs--jeez! Why aren't the people eating them (instead of the reverse)? And apparently only one breed survived. The dogs are a distraction and rather stupid. The movie could have worked on the level of the game, but the stupid "realistic" details were just the reverse and made the movie false and unwatchable.

I really wanted to like this movie--I like Altman, I like Newman. I like science fiction and I liked the idea. And since this movie seems to be universally hated, I wanted to swim against the tide and find the intellectual quality in the movie that others seemed to be missing. All that going for it, and I still hated it.

Incomprehensible drivel.

And what's with the vaseline all over the camera lens? Folks who like this movie are fooling themselves, just because you dont understand a movie doesn't mean that it's deep, it means that the director and writer didn't know what they were doing.

This is one of the many very good performances by Paul Newman, who was always underrated as an actor because of his all-encompassing beauty. The main problem with this movie, in my opinion, is the huge Vaseline budget they had. The whole movie was shot with Vaseline at the edges of the lens. I find that very annoying. When I make the effort to remember not to be annoyed by that "Vaseline experiment", I find it is not a bad movie by a long shot. The cast is brilliant, the futuristic plot is innovative for the period and the decor is intriguingly apt. The smearing of Vaseline on the lens applied to a whole movie may have been innovative, it was certainly daring, but I, for one, like to be able to look at the part of the screen I choose, and not be forbidden to have a clear look at the edges. CH