Saturday, February 14, 2009

Altman And Anderson

i'm not fond of multiple character storyarcs that intertwine only fleetingly. i guess i like the idea of it. expanding on supporting characters giving them the fullness they deserve as human beings. but its just been abused as of late with the likes of Babel and Crash. though some of the best examples of this device come from Altman and Anderson. three standouts for me feature their characters being connected by increasingly more surreal events. the assassination of a country star in Nashville, earthquake in Short Cuts, frog rain in Magnolia (this really is the absurdist end of the 'genre'). after those three is there really much else to be mined from this overly realist conceit?

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