Quintet [HD]

The Underrated Robert Altman
Finally a boxed set that includes - aside from MASH - some of Robert Altman's underrated great films. Perhaps the most underrated of all of Altman's films is the great "Quintet", which you cannot find on DVD except for this collection, and the collection is worth it to have yet another look at "Quintet". It is a narrative film of the future, stark, bleak, existentialist. The film sets a mood, beginning with Paul Newman trudging through white snowy landscapes in search of someone whom he finds in one of the few remaining, if not last remaining, human habitations in this post-apocalyptic frozen landscape, but who is suddenly murdered bringing Newman's character into the bizarre world of the inhabitants caught up in the life and death tag game of Quintet. Fascinating, moody characters inhabiting this defined and multi-textured enclosed interior of a last outpost of human habitation. Well acted, exquisite cinematography, and for those who stick with it Quintet is a creative original...

Of Interest to the Altman Completists Only
This collection includes the four films Altman made for MGM. M*A*S*H is a certified classic and needs no further commentary so I'll just offer my thoughts on the other three films that are included.

A WEDDING: This is Altman's most exciting ensemble project since NASHVILLE. Thats a good thing. But where NASHVILLE is an elaborately structured and multi-layered narrative with large public and private themes A WEDDING is a much less structured and much more spurious affair. Its also much more uneven. I would describe this film as a three ringed vaudevillian circus with no ringmaster and an open bar because it is Altman's loosest project since BREWSTER MCCLOUD or at least it seems that way. Altman may have firm control over everything that happens on screen but it feels like the controlling purpose or thesis of the film is not to have one. But thats the reason the film is so exciting to watch. It seems like anything can happen from one moment to the next and that keeps you...

Flawed but worth buying for collectors...here's what the "general public" thought
First off, I have a love/hate relationship with Altman's films. I see each and EVERY one I can but I don't love every one and many leave me baffled or feeling totally alienated from whatever "message" or "vision" ALtman had at the time. More than few feel like experiments in the making, something he created to get to a point where he could make a film based on what he learned on a previous film.

Needless to say, the studios often had a less than kind attitude about the varying effect of his films on audiences - and the unpredictable box office profits.

Watching some of his film can be frustrating (because his great films are SO great!) that I find myself going back again and again to watch the films I didn't like, trying to give him another chance, trying to figure out what I could be missing.

So those who buy this collection of films may find themselves, as I was, totally smitten with Mash (one of my favorite films, period,) and have varied...

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