Even during the celebration of auteurs that occurs at Cannes, money talks,
and the press conference began with a question about the nature of director
Robert Altman's law suit with the production company of both "Short
Cuts" and "Kansas City." In a nutshell, Altman was scheduled
to do a sequel to "Short Cuts," but CIBY 2000 reneged on funding
it.
Q: What is your relationship to CIBY 2000 now?
Altman: As everybody who reads the trade press knows, I've filed a lawsuit
against them for breach of contract. I shouldn't be talking about this,
but CIBY 2000 is very typical of the film production companies in Hollywood.
They say they want to work with independent filmmakers, but when it comes
down to it, you have to hire lawyers to make them keep their word. And
they have more money than you and basically, they say, we'll wait you out.
So as usual, lawyers are making all the money, not filmmakers.
Q: So you're back to the majors?
Altman: That's not a viable alternative. The kind of pictures they make,
I don't want to make. And the kind of pictures I want to make, they don't
know how to sell or market. I mean, every once in a while, a project will
come up, and they say, let's get Altman to direct this - I get offered pictures
all the time, but...
Q: When did you first conceive of "Kansas City?"
Altman: Oh, about 8, 10, maybe even 12 years ago. Frank and I wrote the
story of the two women, but that was just a kernel to riff on. We figured
we could make this for television, as a film - anyway.
Q: When you thought back on Kansas City as the place you grew up, there
must have been lots of little stories and situations that popped up in your
mind as ways to tell a story about your hometown. Why did you choose this
one?
Altman: I felt it had to be a melodrama to make it work. I didn't want
to do anything like a documentary about the town - or about one of the players,
the jazz musicians. But I wanted to make a picture like jazz. It occurred
to me about four years ago, what I had to do was make the picture AS JAZZ.
To use the jazz as the formal construct.
Q: Music also played a big role in "Nashville."
Altman: Yes, but in "Nashville," music was one of the characters.
Here it's different - jazz is the style, not another voice.
Q: What is jazz to you?
Altman: It's just the first music I ever heard. It's like the basic music
"chip" in my brain. I was probably 8 years old when I first heard
it and it affected the way I do everything in my life. Probably how I make
movies. The first song I know of as the first song I "heard"
is Duke Ellington's "Solitude."
Q: How did you contact people like Joshua Redman to be a part of the movie?
Do they know you? Are you one of those people who's known to be a big
jazz fan?
Altman: In a way, but it was really Hal Willner, a musical producer who
did the "Short Cuts" music for me, took on the assignment. He
put together an enormous catalogue of songs, and we cut it down to about
20. Then he started putting together the band from about 3 sources. These
are basically guys who are competitive - not just as musicians but even
philosophically. We put it together the way a jam session happens. Guys
walks in off the street and started playing - without charts or sheets.
Y'know?
Q: I know, but it's really rather amazing. What order did they come in?
Altman: First was Joshua Redman, then Chris McBride, uh...Mark Whitfield,
then there was a group who played together a lot - they came in. Then we
went to James Carter - he had a group. Craig Handy - nobody knew him, but
he'd been with Mingus, and Mingus' wife suggested him - he turned out to
be great. He played the Coleman Hawkins character.
Q: Visually, would you say the film mirrors your memories of Kansas City
at that time, or did you have a vision of what it should or coud be that
you layed on?
Altman: What am I supposed to say? It's Kansas City as I want to remember
it. Probably years of using your imagination has an affect on your memory,
and then you're also involved in creating a work of art, so how are you
going to retrieve the exact Kansas City of 50 years ago? It's not Kansas
City, but I am the kid who grew up there. Anyway, Everything was based
on something factual - except the character of Blondie...
Q: ...and the kidnapping itself.
Altman: Well, not really. Remember that particular kidnapping is made up.
But remember, kidnapping was quite common then, particularly of women.
That's the reason we put in that riff about the Lindberg kidnapping, because
it was only the death penalty passed after the Lindberg case that put a
stop to all that.
Q: That's odd - "kidnapping was common then"...?
Altman: Yeah, it was acceptable crime. It was a logical act - sort of like
holding up 7-11 stores now.
Q: The narrative is not the point of the film, though, is it?
Altman: Of course not. I'm not concerned to tell you how something got
there, I'm not dealing with plot, who's talking to what...we did it like
the song. The moon is out, the clouds are blue and I love you. Or you
broke my heart the day you closed the door - that's what the film is. Mood
and music, the emotion. I tried to make this whole film like a song. So
all these questions about if I'm satirizing or commenting on society are
irrelevant. I'm creating visual jazz.
Q: How do you talk to your cinematographer? How do you explain the look
you want?
Altman: Well, it depends on where you shoot. If we're on the street, there's
only so much you can do. But in a studio, you have more control. Here,
I chose the closest thing to black and white than you could do in color.
Q: Do you talk in terms of painting, palettes, other movies, photographs...?
Altman: In my mind, I talk in terms of murals. I think of the screen as
a blank wall, and you start with the things you can't control. Then you
form the look of your mural - you put in the horses...
Q: ...the actors...you've been said to typecast, and not to direct actors
too much.
Altman: Well, by the time I finish the casting, I'd say 80% to 90% of the
creativity that I'm responsible for is done. I want them to be who they
are, but to show me something new, something I hadn't thought of - so they
have a lot of freedom, in some sense.
Q: The women seem to be like birds - Jennifer Jason Leigh is this little
nervous little sparrow, darting here, dashing there, but Miranda Richardson
is like this big swan - she moves slowly and is maybe just as mean as we've
heard swans are. After all, she shoots Blondie in the end.
Altman: Ah, the mercy killing - not everybody gets that.
Q: There's a mysterious connection along the level of "Three Women."
It seems to be a very personal film.
Altman: All of them are. "Three Women" was. A lot of people
want to compare it to "Thieves Like Us" but that's only because
it's in the same time period. That was a different kind of construction
and story. I didn't even use any music in "Thieves Like Us" -
I used radio mostly. Of course, I used radio here, too...
Q: And at the beginning of your career when you were directing television,
you did several episodes of "The Roaring Twenties." Do you think
any of that crept in?
Altman: I hadn't thought about it, but who knows? Essentially, everything
I am and have ever done can potentially affect any work I do now, so it's
safe to look in my subconscious for influences, traces, personal patterns.
In every film, I'm trying to do something different. Everything I do has
to pass through me, so it's going to resemble me - my shape. But I don't
see that. The truth is, "Kansas City" to me is what happened
when I worked as a jazz musician in film.
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