An old post on Altman

I reviewed Robert Altman's last (and now final) film, A Prairie Home Companion on Termite Art when it came out, and as soon as I heard he died, the first thing I thought of was how rich Prairie is with material about coming to terms with the idea of death. I loved the film on first viewing, but I think people are going to have much stronger reactions to it in retrospect now that they consider it in this context. You can link over to the old post. Here's an excerpt:

Though Madsen's angel of death remarks at one point that, "the death of an old man is not a tragedy," it's very clear that Altman's, be it tomorrow or a year or a decade from now, will certainly be one, for this fan at the very least.

Tragedy indeed. We've also previously written about Altman's California Split and one of the master's rare failures, Quintet.