The director’s disease

Robert Altman as a director, according to Sissy Spacek, from "Robert Altman, the oral biography" by Mitchell Zuckoff, “didn’t have that disease where as a director you have to know everything”. 

Altman said himself:

“I don’t think I know the truth. Or if I do, I’ve been disguising it for a long time.   I don’t know that I want to give that up, this late in the game.  But I don’t think it makes any difference.”

How did he operate? Among other techniques: cherishing and encouraging accidents, using active verbs, being open to suggestions, treating actors as equals in creating a story.   

Reality?

I am reading “Altman” a truly wonderful oral biography of Robert Altman by Mitchell Zuckoff.   It quotes from the “Player”:

- It lacked certain elements that we need to market a film successfully.

- What elements?

- Suspense, laughter, violence.  Hope, heart, nudity, sex.  Happy endings.  Mainly happy endings. -

- What about reality?

The struggle to question the recognizable and safe narrative elements (which are not necessarily cliches) is at the heart of any honest attempt to make one step closer to something as elusive as reality.  

And what is “reality”?

A maverick storyteller faces a tremendously impossible task: to come up with new tools to describe something that has not even been properly defined.   All the “aristotelian” tools, all subtle or not so subtle tricks and conventions of sustaining the audience’s attention crumble when the “what about reality” question releases its inconvenient roar.