Short Cuts

When Altman is good he's among the greatest, and SHORT CUTS is among his best (M*A*S*H, BREWSTER McCLOUD, NASHVILLE). Adapted from Raymond Carver's collection of stories, SHORT CUTS offers a roving, restless glimpse into the lives of several Los Angelinos. The characters aren't completely real - in an 'I-can-relate-to-these-people' sense (I never expected this from this movie anyway), but are presented in a slightly hyperreal sense with Altman highlighting the everyday lives of characters who try valiantly to maintain their public personas (cutting across class boundaries in the process), even when things are spinning out of control beneath the surface (literally symbolized by the ending, though at least he didn't stoop to throwing in a rain of frogs...).

Los Angeles is famously mocked as a place that's all surface and no depth (see ANNIE HALL), and the slight exaggerations seen here characters plays with this, even as the isolation and instability of certain characters humanizes them. Through it all there's plenty of humor - though, as is usual with Altman, even the humor packs a wallop. Annie Ross' deadpan complaint gets to the heart of it all: "I hate L.A. - all they do is snort coke and talk." The irony in such nastiness becomes a bit more apparent when you consider where that assessment is coming from, within Altman's tragi-comic variant upon the notion that California's trends become America's truisms a decade or two down the road.

There are so many great moments here - Chris Penn's growing befuddlement (and seething, simmering murderous anger) with his wife's phone sex operator job; Tom Waits and Lily Tomlin as a boozy working class couple; Peter Gallagher and Frances MacDormand's marriage, collapsed into tantrums and furniture vandalism; the Tim Robbins/Huey Lewis confrontation; Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore and Matthew Modine all deliver strikingly memorable performances. Every time I watch this, I get something new out of it - though it requires a bit of patience, SHORT CUTS is really worth checking out.

After seeing Short Cuts and pondering over it as a cinematic experience, I feel a strange feeling that I haven't had before with any Robert Altman film: confusion. Normally, understanding that Altman's style is one of using confusion and misunderstandings to move the plot along, I was surprised when I reacted so positively to MASH, Nashville and The Player but not this.

The cast, overall, is quite good with Robert Downey Jr. and Madeline Stowe giving the best performances along with the great Jack Lemmon in perhaps the scene with the only real emotional pull as he describes the sad truth of why his family broke apart. Everyone else seems lost and misguided, floating around in this LA world Altman is exploring without much to do. They act out, involving themselves in affairs, drugs, their children's lives and the simple desire to survive each day but none of it particularly moved me. Even one plot line involving Bruce Davison and Andie MacDowell that should have had great emotional depth has almost none to speak of.

I have the greatest admiration for Altman and his ambitious vision of how to create interesting stories and characters. Yet, despite many claiming this to be one of his best works, I didn't feel at all that it was on par with MASH or Nashville as it seemed to meander and sag heavily in the middle until a final occurrence brought many of the characters together. This may be what Altman wanted; the meaningless and accidental nature of many of life's adventures that nevertheless still affect us. However, I wish it would have been made more cinematically stimulating.

Well, I've watched this film about seven times now, and I feel quite certain that I can add it to the list of my favorite films alongside Dr. Strangelove and The Red, White and Blue Trilogy.

The casting is flawless, with fantastic performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Julianne Moore, Peter Gallagher, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey, Jr. and many (I mean *many*) more. The camera floats around the world of these characters with perfection, tapping each on the shoulder and providing precious and oh-so-interesting insight into their happiness (or lack thereof, for the most part), sadness and their emotions.

See this film. You will not regret it. I have my fingers crossed for a special edition DVD of Short Cuts.

A classic bit of Altman - the story of cross-cutting lives over several days in LA. Featuring an all-star cast featuring a host of great character actors including Tim Robins, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh to name a few.

The performances are wonderful without exception (even Andie McDowell does OK). The intertwining stories are interesting up until the end - three hours goes past almost effortlessly and unnoticed. My only problem with the film is the lack of any real emotional punch or meaning in all of the stories. The majority of the stories have the potential for strong emotions to draw the audience in but the majority don't let it out too much (like real life I suppose), the one story that does let the characters feel (the story of McDowell's child) is not that convincing. Some of the stories don't make a lot of sense and don't feel based in reality. Compared to Magnolia, Glengarry Glen Ross, 12 Angry Men and other ensemble pieces this engages on an interest level but lacks an emotional involvement. I know that this is often on critic's top-ten lists but I felt that interesting stories and great acting do not make up for the lack of an emotional centre to the film. And the conclusion makes very little sense in relation to one of the stories in particular.

In front of a group of fishermen, a waitress bends over for a slab of butter. They take in the image like hungry wolves gulping meat, as her skirt rises high, revealing everything. They like what they see, so they ask her, `Can we have more butter, please?' The double meaning is obvious.

In a nightclub, a singer languishes over a sultry little song about `a good, punishing kiss.' The conversation in the foreground -- ex-cons relating cruel, violent stories from prison -- moves to the rhythm of the jazz saxophone, a dissonant snare-drum-prose accompaniment to the song. It's a deliberate ambiguity that binds the viewer in the scene's artistic tension.

In an upscale home with a breathtaking view of the city of angels, a struggling artist is being questioned about her relationship with another artist. She's naked from the waist down, suggesting both sexual aggressiveness, and vulnerability, simultaneously. She's seductively defiant with her husband. She confesses to an affair; but she does so angrily, indignant for being asked. It's sweet and sour, light and dark, truthful but deceptive, all at once. More double entendres.

Robert Altman's Short Cuts weaves all these disconnected scenes together like common strands of rope. It's the interplay of opposites that firmly holds them all together. The title itself, `Short Cuts,' has dual meaning: it's an interconnected mixture of `short cuts,' as in `off the cutting room floor' or `film clips;' and, it's an unmistakable reference to the web of human life, the social short cuts between ourselves and everyone else, as in the famous `six degrees of separation,' which tells us that we are only six personal relationships away from everyone else in the world. Set in LA, this idea makes for a lovely irony: although the main characters are completely absorbed in their individual worlds, they are intimately connected to each other. They just don't know it.

Short Cuts is one of Altman's masterpieces. See it if you can.