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41 reviews in total

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29 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
Altman's lost dream sonata, 16 September 1999
Author: matthew wilder (cosmovitelli@mediaone.net) from los angeles

I have spent a grown lifetime seeking this 1972 Altman dreamscape, and lost all hope when a friend reported that the director told a Q-and-A audience that Columbia had mistakenly destroyed the negative. A specialty store in Santa Monica somehow found a video copy, and it was worth fifteen years' wait.

Suggestive of the tinkling, misted-over fugue states of QUINTET and THREE WOMEN, IMAGES riffs lyrically off Polanski's REPULSION. Where Polanski's film is pitched somewhere between sixties horror and the dry joke-telling of Bunuel, Altman's version is lush, druglike, sensuously baroque. Susannah York plays a children's writer in a remote Irish cottage who seems to be spending too much time indoors. (Were the movie not lost in obscurity, you might think her an antecedent for Jack Torrance and Barton Fink.) As she copes with the would-be-regular-guy puttering of her schmucky husband (Rene Auberjonois, in a role rightly intended for Michael Murphy), two other loathsome men flit into her life--the husband's buddy, an Irish lecher played by Hugh Millais, and a seemingly dead ex-lover, played by Marcel Bozzufi. As these men appear to bleed into one another in York's mind, so do they soon start bleeding into the cottage's Persian rugs.

IMAGES defines Altman as the freest and most fearless of all American moviemakers. Most critics only stand behind Altman's we-are-the-people movies--his community mosaics. But he clearly is as passionate about mapping inner worlds as outer ones, and these Expressionist chamber pieces are his most feckless works. The movie is also a reminder of what Altman lost when he stopped hiring Vilmos Zsigmond to shoot his movies. Almost no one on the planet has such an intuitively graceful and expressive shooting style, but Zsigmond's stunning work here--among his finest--reveals that it's a long walk downstairs from Zsigmond to the likes of Jean Lapine. And note should be made of the work of the youngish composer who wrote the elegant, sinewy, restrained score--a decidedly non-bombastic, anti-symphonic fellow whom we now know as John Williams.

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21 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Brilliant, Chilling, Lost Treasure., 9 October 2003

Author: TheTwistedLiver from Chicago

Under the assumption that Altman was creatively peaking between the years 1970 and 1975, (I realize this is debatable) I sought out every film that was made during that period. Surprisingly, I could not locate the brilliant, chilling lost treasure that is the film "Images" it seemed to have simply vanished into history. Although Susannah York deservedly earned best actress at Cannes for her performance, and it was sandwiched between "The Long Goodbye" and "Mccabe and Mrs. Miller" this film, like "3 women" and "California Split", remain mysteries. Luckily, "Images" was released on DVD this past September. I immediately bought it without a second thought. I am very thankful that I did.

Images is one of those gems that make you appreciate cinema, directors and the creative process in general, because of the exploritive potential within the medium. Dredging up the inner fears and archetypes of the subconscious and weaving together what comes to the surface synergistically is Altmans vision in this film. Sadly, lately, film is about loud bangs and shiny things and very few adroitly capture the lost art of character development.

"Images" seems to be one of those films that could only have taken place in the early seventies. During the era of psychedelic drugs, the film indubitably feels as though it is on some kind of mind altering substance. It is completely trippy and unnerving. Logic seems to have flown out the window from the onset of the story. I won't give anything away, because you need to go into this film knowing nothing, or little to nothing about it, and just enjoy the ride.

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Another Altman Masterpiece, 6 December 2003
Author: McGonigle from bean world, massachusetts

This is one of the most compelling films I've seen in a long time. I wasn't sure if I was in the mood for a serious "psychological thriller" but this movie held my rapt attention until the very end. A brilliant example of just how talented Robert Altman is as a filmmaker. While most people pigeonhole him as "that guy who makes the movies with the large ensemble casts and lots of overlapping dialogue", this movie finds him working with a cast of six, and most of the action takes place within the heroine's head. Beautiful (of course) photography by Vilmos Zsigmond is just the icing on the cake. Don't miss this forgotten treasure by an American master.

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11 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
spellbinding, 3 April 2004
Author: brianh-9 from Mississippi, United States

This is an art film that experiments with dreamlike imagery. Many viewers might turn it off in frustration within twenty minutes,but I couldn't take my eyes off it. Altman's film plays with the idea of showing us the mind of Cathryn as a display to observe. We get twists upon twists and it's done in such a labyrinthine maze. We have no foundation to stand on,her mind just keeps feeding us hallucinations. I was compelled throughout the whole film taking every frame into my mind. It is one of the strangest,most fascinating portraits of the mind that I have ever seen. It just never stops delivering puzzling images and the film takes no shape depending instead on surreal happenings. This is Altman's artifice..he simply provides twists to keep us wondering what will happen next. As characters come and go,we are left wondering what will pop into her mind next.My favorite Altman film..a mesmerizing masterpiece of the disturbed mind and what can fluctuate from it. *****/*****

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11 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Masterful psychological tale., 11 January 2004

Author: Matt..377 from United States

Robert Altman manages to weave an exceptional psychological tale about a schizophrenic (Susannah York) and the visions (which may or may not be real) which plague and haunt her. York gives an outstanding performance. Film was precocious in 1972 and remains one of the best psychological thrillers ever. The scenery is gorgeous, and York's full nude scenes are also appealing eye candy.

***1/2 out of ****

MPAA: Rated R for some graphic violence, and for nudity.

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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Idiosyncratic masterpiece, even for Altman, 26 July 2005

Author: treadway237 from Atlanta, GA

Early one morning about two months ago, I watched IMAGES for the first time; it's still a movie memory that haunts me. The empty house I was in seemed to grow more and more cavernous as I took in this unforgettable story of a woman whose guilt and grief are driving her further into a stark inner world of madness. Yes, there are similarities to Polanski's REPULSION and even to Antonioni's BLOW-UP (in shot composition); but that is not to say it lacks a feel all its own. Altman shows his typical good judgment as a filmmaker, employing Vilmos Zsigmond as cinematographer, shooting in Panavision with rich, saturated colors oozing through each frame. He was also wise to get John Williams to compose an even-then atypically noisy score, for which the film garnered (wrongly) its only Oscar nomination. How Susannah York escaped at least a nomination as the film's star and co-writer is beyond me; her performance is one of the greatest ever committed to film. She truly seems confused, horrified, and at her wit's end. Her screams will pierce your soul. I can say more, but I will leave it at this: IMAGES is Robert Altman's neglected masterwork, a film that will scar your mind, if you have the strong countenance to endure it.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
IMAGES (Robert Altman, 1972) ***, 23 August 2006

Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

An arty horror movie is the last thing one expects from Robert Altman - although, apparently, he had already tried it out with his earlier, little-seen THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK (1969). The writer/director (itself an unusual combination for Altman, but it shows how strongly he felt about the project) himself does not think of it as such and, in any case, reviews at the time were decidedly mixed.

Even if he was "inspired" by Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA (1966), the film actually feels closer plot-wise to Roman Polanski's REPULSION (1965). Originally intended to be shot in Milan with Sophia Loren, the film definitely benefits from its picturesque Irish locations and Susannah York's fragile performance (which eventually earned her the Best Actress Award at Cannes) as a schizophrenic; she, too, was unusually committed and actually allowed a story for kids she had written - called "In Search Of Unicorns" - to be incorporated into the narrative!

The film features only five major characters and, interestingly, these are named after each of the actors themselves: so Susannah York plays Cathryn just as Cathryn Harrison (Rex's daughter, a very natural performer who later featured in another strange film - Louis Malle's BLACK MOON [1975]) plays Susannah; Marcel Bozzuffi's character is named Rene', Rene' Auberjonois is Hugh and Hugh Millais is Marcel! Of course, all this fits perfectly well with the film's theme and the characters' penchant to exchange 'faces' with each other in the mind of the disturbed protagonist; actually, this concept is pretty frightening because the lead character at one point decides to get rid of her 'ghosts' - but, not having a complete grasp on reality, one is never sure whether the victims are mere figments of her imagination or else real people!

Also essential to establishing the film's unique mood is Vilmos Zsigmond's stylish cinematography and John Williams' stark yet evocative score (interspersed with eerie sounds provided by Stomu Yamash'ta, a Japanese sound designer); even though his work here is galaxies away from Williams' renowned anthemic scores for the likes of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, he still managed to earn an Oscar nomination for it!

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Composite Images, 17 March 2009

Author: tieman64 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Though I'm a big fan of Robert Altman, I can't think of a single powerful image or composition in his films. He's generally a weak visualist, his films often messy and shapeless.

But there's another side to Altman. Films like "3 Women" and "Images" single him out as a master surrealist, able to create spooky imagery and menacing atmosphere. Indeed, "Images" is so different from the rest of Altman's filmography, it sometimes seems like it was ghost directed by Roman Polanski or Luis Bunuel.

What is the film about? On the surface it makes little sense. Cathryn and her husband Hugh spend a few days in a spooky country house. She suffers from delusional disorder, "images of past lovers" spontaneously popping into her head. Like "3 Women" there are hints of temporal displacement, characters merging and occupying the same spaces, conversing with little girls who may or may not be their own younger selves.

Is Cathryn crazy? Are supernatural forces at work? Or is her mind consumed by guilt? Why not all three? Cathryn seems to have had an adulterous affair with a French man called Rene. He died in a plane crash but returns as an "image" to haunt her. Meanwhile, Cathryn's infidelity is personified as Marcel, a large brute of a man who constantly tries to force himself upon her. Marcel's wife, an unseen character who we know had affairs, has divorced him, but not before having a young child, a girl who is herself the splitting image of Cathryn.

Continuing with the theme of images, Cathryn's husband is a photographer whilst she is an author. The film's soundtrack often consists of Cathryn narrating one of her books, the audience forced to conjure up images to the words she reads.

So what are we to make of this? Cathryn and her husband are image-makers. Cathryn, because of her overactive imagination, imagines that her husband is having an affair. These thoughts, fuelled by her own past infidelities, attack her as "images". In order to restore her sanity, Cathryn thus murders her "image" of Rene and her "image" of Marcel. Finally cured, she drives to her husband before encountering an "image" of herself on the road. The implication is that Cathryn must now destroy her "image", destroy that paranoid part of her creating these monsters. And so Cathryn pushes her own "image" off a cliff. With this symbolic suicide, she is now free. But we eventually learn that the final "image" was not a self-image at all. It was her husband whom Cathryn encountered and murdered on the road. And so the film ends with a reversal of the classic Hitchcock shower scene. Cathryn faces a deadly "image" of herself. She is the monster, and all her delusions were merely fragments of her own warped persona.

Altman hints at this by naming his 5 characters after the actors who play them. They're not only "images", but "composite images". Marcel Bozzuffi plays "Rene", but "Rene" is the name of actor Rene Auberjonois who plays "Hugh", "Hugh" being the first name of Hugh Millais, the actor who plays "Marcel". Similarly, Susannah York plays "Cathryn", whilst the actress Cathryn Harrison plays a "Susannah".

8/10 – Eerily similar to "3 Women", this is essentially an art house thriller. The film seems to have inspired the end of Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", in which Travis Bickle famously sees himself in his car's rear view mirror. Altman's female psycho does this as well, complete with that familiar little audio zing.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A brilliant and disturbing journey inside one woman's mind, 14 August 2006

Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

"Images" is another great movie from the master of the living paintings, Robert Altman. It is a brilliant, scary, beautiful, and very disturbing journey inside one woman's mind that was leaving her as the movie progressed. What we saw was not a ghost story but a very real descent to the world of nightmares and monsters that would not stop torturing the struggling and guilty mind for a second.

Susannah York as Cathryn, a young, beautiful writer who tries to finish a children's book in a remote country home is simply breathtaking. She carries the movie (which only has five characters) almost by herself and being present in every scene, she is equally sympathetic and frightening. In his interview on DVD, Altman mentioned that he had started making the movie in Milan with Sophia Lauren. As much as I admire Lauren, I don't see anyone other than York playing Cathryn. While watching her, I kept thinking of her Alice in Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Alice, one of the participants and victims of a killing dance marathon, loses her mind by the end of the movie and the scene where she breaks down mentally, was heartbreaking. Altman himself reminded me of the witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth that would throw all kinds of ingredients in their cauldron. The director mentioned how he would add the new details to the script as the real life situations changed: York was writing the children's book about Unicorns at the time - we can hear the long parts of her book in the background. I am not too crazy about the book but the idea seems to be brilliant. York had informed Altman that she could not make the movie because she was pregnant but Altman just decided to add her pregnancy to the script. There is some dry humor in the movie - all five characters have the first names of the actors who played them: Susannah played Cathryn and young Cathryn Harrison plays a girl named Susannah, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi, and Hugh Millais played three men in Cathryn's life - Hugh, the husband, Rene - the neighbor, and Marcel, her dead lover (who was quite alive for a dead man, at least in her memory). John Williams wrote an absolutely unforgettable score for the film (it is not a melody, rather some strange, persistent, scary, and disturbing sounds - very experimental at the time, it is still quite unusual).

As for its visual site - the film that was made during one wet November in Ireland is brilliantly dark and hypnotizingly beautiful. I am jealous of everyone who was able to see it in all its glory on the big screen at the theater - it would be impossible to forget.

8/10

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Creepy and spell-binding Altman classic, 20 December 2000

Author: Space Oddity_2001

Yet another film by Robert Altman that sadly languishes in obscurity, which should be a classic. It is a unique film and unlike anything Altman had done. Susannah York is excellent as Cathryn, a writer of children's novels who begins to suffer the worst form of psychosis possible. After going away with her husband Hugh (Rene Auberjonois)to her secluded country home in Ireland for the weekend, Cathyrn's hallucinations worsen. The film is a fascinating character study about her complete descent into madness as her own reality become warped with her delusional fantasy world. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is dreamy and hypnotic with a score by John Williams that is haunting and atmospheric. The film makes many unexpected twists and turns that it would be unthinkable for me to give away. A lost classic that is worth seeking out.

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