Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Andie MacDowell | ... | Ann Finnigan | |
Bruce Davison | ... | Howard Finnigan | |
Jack Lemmon | ... | Paul Finnigan | |
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Zane Cassidy | ... | Casey Finnigan |
Julianne Moore | ... | Marian Wyman | |
Matthew Modine | ... | Dr. Ralph Wyman | |
Anne Archer | ... | Claire Kane | |
Fred Ward | ... | Stuart Kane | |
Jennifer Jason Leigh | ... | Lois Kaiser | |
Chris Penn | ... | Jerry Kaiser | |
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Joseph C. Hopkins | ... | Joe Kaiser |
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Josette Maccario | ... | Josette Kaiser |
Lili Taylor | ... | Honey Bush | |
Robert Downey Jr. | ... | Bill Bush | |
Madeleine Stowe | ... | Sherri Shepard |
While helicopters overhead spray against a Medfly infestation a group of Los Angeles lives intersect, some casually, some to more lasting effect. Whilst they go out to concerts and jazz clubs and even have their pools cleaned, they also lie, drink, and cheat. Death itself seems never to be far away, even on a fishing trip. Written by Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
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.