Altman

Kathryn Altman, Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan & Martin Scorsese

Hardcover | 26.04 x 3.18 x 31.75 cm | 336 pp

Abrams | 2014 | 9781419707773

PLEASE NOTE: This title has been remainder marked by the publisher – a black marker pen dot on one edge. See images.

For decades, Robert Altman fascinated audiences with pioneering films – among them M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player, and Gosford Park―that combined technical innovation with subversive, satirical humour and impassioned political engage­ment. His ability to explore and engage so many different worlds with a single, coherent vision changed the landscape of cinema forever. This signature “Altmanesque” style is, in the words of Martin Scorsese: “as recognisable and familiar as Renoir’s brushstrokes or Debussy’s orchestrations.”

For this book, the Altman estate opened its archive to celebrate his extraordinary life and career in the first authorised visual biography on the iconoclastic director. Altman, by his widow Kathryn Reed Altman and film critic Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, brims with photographs and ephemera, many culled from private family albums, and personal recollections of the director. Alongside the intimate illustrated story is a complete visual, historical, and critical narrative of Altman’s films and his process.

To honour the Altman trademark of using a wide cast of characters, the book also features contributions from his collaborators and contemporaries including Frank Barhydt, E. L. Doctorow, Roger Ebert, Jules Feiffer, Julian Fellowes, James Franco, Tess Gallagher, Pauline Kael, Garrison Keillor, Michael Murphy, Martin Scorsese, Lily Tomlin, Alan Rudolph, Michael Tolkin, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.