Cerimônia de Casamento

Though not as fully realized a film as MASH or Nashville, this is still a great film worthy of study in film classes and deserving of a better reputation than it currently receives. Altman showcases a wedding between two different classes of American society from vows to alcohol sodden, pot hazed, emotional let down end. I think what bothers most people about this film is that it doesn't hone in on any particular story line or character. Curiously, many recent films, Love Actually and Magnolia, for example, also present many story lines, but in too much detail, attempting to force the audience to care about each and every disparate story line and in my opinion, fails miserably. Altman, instead, only presents snippets of conversations, glimpses into the characters assembled for the wedding. For some reason this movie reminds me very much of the famous painting by Velasquez, Las Meninas. Velasquez's painting shows a royal family, posed rather informally and in the background can be seen the painter himself, painting the picture that is in fact being viewed. Many clues are given by the painter about the people shown, but nothing is obvious. Things are not as they appear to be. And the painting can keep it's audience at a distance if the viewer is not informed or it can bring the viewer into it's closed circle, if the viewer has the intelligence to know where to look. So too, does Altman's A Wedding, keep it's viewers at a distance and yet at the same time, constantly provides portals into the world of its characters. I think Altman does an outstanding job of treating the viewer as if he were an invisible guest at the wedding. Though the bride's father is a successful business man, he's a self made man and not to the manor born and while he can afford to give his daughter an opulent wedding it does not alter the fact that the family his daughter is marrying into, comes from a different echelon of society. One that has lineage and history as well as financial success. It's hard to relate to the groom's family unless one has been exposed to or comes from that world. Altman accurately portrays the idosyncrasies and cultural idioms that make up the world of the cushioned and privileged. This is a great film that holds its own in film culture and in the pantheon of great films from Altman.

I like people who approach art in new and unconventional ways. 'A Wedding' is one of the best Altman films for me, because it goes the furthest towards abandoning a unified structure and rational storyline, and presents a loose ensemble of stories and moments.

A review of the time said it well for me. The film has any number of stories, but few are presented completely. For some, you only see the beginning. In others, it is only the middle, or the end. The camera is voyeuristic, often seeming to stumble on fragments of things, looking through plants, people partly out of shot.

For me, first seeing the film at the age of 22, I found it quietly hilarious from almost the very first shot. In that early shot, two boys are unrolling a red carpet. Because it has been sitting unused for so long, the roll has gone flat, and this makes the boy's arm wobble as the carpet unrolls. I laughed out loud. That is an introduction to the understated humour and fine comic irony of the film. I think this is why the film is under-appreciated in America. Americans seem to like to attach a flag to their humour: "Don't be offended. This is intended as a joke." Whereas 'A Wedding' seems to have more in common with the comedic tradition of Tati. I still think 'A Wedding' is one of the funniest films I have ever seen.

For me, this film was years before its time. It reminds me of modern bands such as TV on the Radio or, especially, Animal Collective. There seem to be a lot of loose ends, unconnected bits, things that shouldn't really go together, stuff happening in layers that go in different directions. Yet somehow it all works. It hangs together, although perhaps the only unities are those of time and place. And when you actually try to reproduce the effect (perform the works) you very soon find out that the seeming artlessness conceals a level of skills and professionalism that is actually of the highest standard - something that has strongly impacted on my own approach to art.

William Goldman said in 'Adventures in the Screen Trade' that directors are basically very good storytellers. But here we don't have one story at all, we have a slice through 20th century society. A picture that is a picture, not a picture that tells a story. This film reminds me of a statement by Vonnegut, that he thought perhaps The Novel had corrupted the public mind, because in a novel, there are important and major and unimportant and peripheral characters. In this film everyone is of equal importance. For me one of the failures of this film is Carol Burnett. That's not because she is not an excellent actress, or very funny. But she stands out, and while just about everybody else is playing slightly tongue-in-cheek but straight, she plays this as overt comedy.

I don't know if I agree with those commentators who say this is a blistering satire. I don't believe it is, any more than Boccaccio or Chaucer are blistering satires. It is much more like 'Peasant Wedding' by Bruegel, full of picaresque characters, a canvas of muddled humanity trying to fill their days. It is gentle, and if it turns darker as it continues, there is a great deal of darkness in Chaucer and Boccaccio too. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised to find that Altman had been deliberately trying to create something similar to 'Peasant Wedding' in a modern art form. The absurdist influence is also strong. This is a European film, not an American film.

So I consider 'A Wedding' to be a finer movie than 'Nashville', and in fact one of the great movies of the 20th c. It is more understated, less obvious, without clear stories or points to make. In that is its greatness. It is genuinely subversive. It is a movie that uses a quite different structure and method than almost any other movie you have ever seen. It is a movie that lets its characters all talk for themselves. I think 'A Wedding' is a landmark movie, a reference point that should be part of the training of every filmmaker. I don't think Altman ever bettered it. This, with his own company, was his chance to do what he really wanted to do. It is one of the three or four films that has had the strongest impact on my own life and art. After half a century of filmgoing, I still clearly recall image after image. 'A Wedding' still sticks out in my head as one of the high points of all that time.

"A Wedding" falls under the category of films that have to be experienced more than once to be appreciated, or perhaps even enjoyed. I saw it in the theater when it came out; I was a kid and the movie was billed as a mainstream comedy but far from laughing at what I witnessed I was disturbed by it. Raised on Disney films and related pablum, nothing had prepared me for the black humor, cynicism and nihilism that makes up what is, in my opinion, Robert Altman's most enduring work. It certainly isn't a film I'd recommend to anyone looking for light romantic fare (try "Father Of The Bride" and please, do wake me when it's over). It gets better every time you see it, certainly. The problem might be, as I've heard from non-fans of the films of Ken Russell, for those who didn't enjoy a movie the first time why on earth would they revisit it? I didn't see "A Wedding" again until I was older but when I did the film was on TV and possibly censored (there's a lot PG-rated cursing and some non-sexual but surprisingly lengthy--and superfluous--nudity), making it less of a shock to my then-conservative system. But viewing the film again I began to make sense of what at first appears to be chaos, a film that shows a world stuffed with hateful, base people acting in the worst ways humans can, and presents it for laughs. The same thing would happen when I discovered the films of John Waters some time later. I think a film like "A Wedding" goes down easier at home than in a theater, even more so after repeated viewings, where you can study the movie the way it should be studied, as an "art" film and not a mindless Hollywood comedy.

"A Wedding" is, of course, a record, in real time, of a wedding event where the daughter in a nouveau riche family marries the son from a family with "old" money and just about everything goes awry. Along the way we are introduced to a never-ending cavalcade of family members. One might complain that it's good no guests showed up, it's hard enough to tell who everyone is even after a couple viewings, but I think that's the fun of repeat viewings--untying the tangled knots. I'm reminded of the film "1941" from a few years later; I didn't get that movie either until I realized the "plot" is basically one crash after the next. This is true of "A Wedding" as well; if you try to find a comfortable comedy plot line or look for single characters to follow you will be frustrated...you're much better off just relaxing and enjoying the big, rambunctious ride and allowing it to take you where it will go...you'll be dropped off safely when the ride is over, to be sure.

Roger Ebert, who gave the film a positive review, likened watching the movie to being an invisible guest at the ceremony and after seeing the movie dozens of times I can think of no better description. I also come up short while thinking of another movie that is similar in presentation. Certainly Altman did overlapping dialog before and after this film. I'm no great fan of his work but agree with many that when he hits the mark he hits it well...and when he phones it in it's a whole lotta no fun. Altman was fond of creating over-long movies where the plot revolved around groups of people intermingling with no apparent (at first) goal. Others, like P.T. Anderson, have picked up the mantle of this technique and run with it. But I'm hard-pressed to think of any movie that so effectively sticks you in the center of the "action" (such as it is; very little happens, it's like a filmed play), even when you dearly wish you could run away screaming.

But the real genius of the film to me is the line it walks between humor and horror. On the one hand you have Carol Burnett using her (brilliant) stock tools to illicit the familiar kinds of laughs you'd have found on her variety show at the time; on the other you have her in a truly uncomfortable situation followed by a moment of unflinching, devastating tragedy, where she plays it straight and hints at some of the serious acting work she'd perform in future roles. The cast of mostly-knowns (either then or now) is composed of dignified, familiar actors playing against type as a rogues' gallery of grand grotesques, but the more you examine these strange, mostly unpleasant people the more you (uncomfortably) begin to realize they're pretty much accurate portraits of the people you know (or are).

Finally, the mounting tension of wondering what on earth can possibly go wrong next (culminating in a convulsive fit and an act of infidelity) leaves you on the verge of going numb...but strangely satisfied. Just as in real life, there are no happy endings, there is seldom a satisfying resolution to the conflicts we experience and very little of what happens in the world makes sense. It all just sort of "is." But if you're lucky, you get a filmmaker like Robert Altman to point a camera at it all and help us to gain understanding of the world around us, or at least to laugh at the absurdity of it, even if we're crying at the same time.

"A Wedding" is far from perfect but is also a film I can't recommend enough, that is, at least, to serious lovers of cinema. I'm afraid it would be entirely lost on those expecting merely a "comedy," but there are plenty of those types of films out there--this one is for the rest of us.

This is a fascinating comedy from Robert Altman's peak period

before his 80's downslide. A Wedding is sadly underappreciated,

and really deserves to be rediscovered, especially after the recent

success of Gosford Park which is an obvious companion piece to

this film. Both films deal with class and gender distinctions and

feature an eccentric group of party-goers who can't seem to leave

the soiree and are trapped in a mansion (obviously inspired by

Buenel's Exterminating Angel). A Wedding is filled with great

performances especially Carol Burnett, who is the heart of the film;

Geraldine Chaplin; Desi Arnaz Jr.; and Mia Farrow. Highly

recommended.

Robert Altman's "A Wedding" was shown recently on cable. Having seen it when it was first released, I was curious as to how it kept after all these years. Being an admirer of Mr. Altman's work, it was worth watching again, although the movie seems a bit too long on second viewing.

Mr. Altman brings two families into a formal wedding that are as dissimilar as oil and water. The groom's family is old money and the bride's is new money, perhaps, although the latter one seem to be out of place. The immediate reaction is: why are these two people marrying? Frankly, it makes no sense, at all.

We are treated to a wedding reception from hell! The wedding party as well as some of the few guests that attend the reception are an odd lot indeed. Logic would indicate that if a wedding is at the center of the story, the bride and the groom should be more prominently focused, but this being an Altman film, they are not as important as the people around them.

There is the old matriarch with no sense of time, at all! Then there is the old bishop that might be in the beginning states of dementia. The old family doctor who likes to touch all females' breasts. We have a wedding planner who has no sense of style. The mother of the bride is swept off her feet by the uncle of the groom in a hysterical sequence. The sister of the bride also had relations with the groom and his class at the military academy!

We get to spy on most conversations. Mr. Altman makes us silent witnesses to what is going on behind the scenes. This is his device for telling his story; he lets us hear snippets of conversation to get an idea of what is really going on.

"A Wedding" is a minor Altman. Somehow this story doesn't grab the viewer the same way as some of his best pictures, but it's a fun ride all the same. At the end we have learned the secrets of the two families and frankly, most of it was not that interesting. That is why, perhaps, this movie, although it tries, never found a wider audience when it came out in 1978.

This film is for Altman fans, mainly.