It's now a day since the news of Robert Altman's death broke, setting wires humming and bloggers tapping with all the frenzy and diversity of the director's beloved chaos theory.
In the official news sources, Altman's death has been greeted with the appropriate awed yet objective respect reserved for those whose greatness is widely recognised. David Thomson, summing up Altman's career in the Guardian, set the tone: "Altman knew that Hollywood's system was corrupt, pretentious and stupid. So he tried to make Altman films."
This assessment of the director's unflinching singularity and maverick profile is echoed in all the reports and in the tributes from movie stars and Hollywood professionals including Richard Gere ("an ecstatic ... mischievous boy"), Meryl Streep ("what a guy, what a great heart ... there's no one like him") and Tommy Lee Jones ("he was very good at letting actors think they had more control than they actually did").
But given Altman's inalienably independent streak, a sense of the meaning of his passing is perhaps best gleaned from the buzz of the blogosphere.
Alicublog suggests that Altman's many commercial flops are all just part of a big, continuously evolving picture: "Altman made movies in a way, and at a pace, that proved he wasn't a big game hunter, but a poacher in the preserves of King Hollywood."
On A Grand Illusion goes further, suggesting that the much-feted battles between Altman and the Studios were all a healthy symbiotic part of Hollywood doing business as usual: "The industry" - those windmills that obituary writers claim Robert Altman toppled - no longer exists, if it ever did. "There was always room for an Orson Welles picture," the boy-genius once said about the studio system. Despite Altman's legendary squabbles with boardroom members, he really had nothing to worry about."
A more personal touch comes from the writer of the DeepInYourEyes blog, whose first movie experience - Altman's 1980 disaster, Popeye - set him firmly on the path to an academic career in film studies, while a reminiscence on the entertainingly titled Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule recalls the writer queuing up to meet the director at a Q&A. Having been dazzled by the occasion and Altman's "piercing blue eyes", the writer forgot all his prepared questions: "all I managed to get out was: 'I just wanted you to know how much Nashville moved me as a young film-goer. It really changed the way I saw movies.' Robert Altman extended my pen and my magazine back to me and said, simply, 'You know, that means a lot to me. Thank you.'
Bitter Cinema recalls The Guardian's Geoff Andrew's interview with Altman during the NFT season in 2001. The director was explaining his penchant for tattooing dogs:
GA: Do you regret having given [tattooing dogs] up for film-making?
RA: Well...they're both about the same.
And if that doesn't sum Altman up for you, you can consult the catalogue of Altman testimonials expertly compiled (as always) by the GreenCineDaily blog.
