Lets hope that Altman makes films for another 20 years and that he stays as adventuresome as he currently is.
In 'The Long Goodbye' Altman invented a rather new camera stance, literally asking the actors to improvise staging and having the camera discovering them.
It took a few decades for him to get back to such experiments with 'Gosford.' Now he takes it even further with perhaps the purest problem in film cinematography: how do you film dance?
Forget that this features Campbell in a vanity role: she is good enough and doesn't detract. Forget about any modicum of plot: there isn't any. And unlike 'Nashville' or the similarly selfreferential 'Player' there is no cynical commentary.
The commentary itself is selfreferential this time. Yes, this time the center of the film is how 'Mr A' orchestrates movement and images. This is most of all about himself, and is far, far more intelligent and subtle than say, 'Blowup.'
But along the way, you get possibly the best dance experience on film. That's because they've been able to use many cameras. There are not as many as 'Dancer in the Dark,' but each camera dances, engages with the dance and the dance of people and objects around the dance. So we get four layers of dance: the actual ballet, the orchestration of people around the production, the dancing cameras (enhanced by non-radical appearing radical editing) and the dance within the mind of Mr A who encourages, follows and captures them all.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
