Short Cuts

Star Review

Robert Altman not only pioneered the multi-character style of film that’s so popular today (Lantana, Magnolia, Babel, Crash to name but four…), he probably did it better than everyone else too. Although he’s best known for Nashville, a film about politics, country music and a cast of thousands, Short Cuts might just be his masterpiece.

It’s an adaptation of various stories by Raymond Carver. But while Carver’s stories were self-contained, Altman shuffled things about and mixed them up, so that people from one story can cross over the page into another. A waitress knocks over a kid, who gets looked after by a doctor who's worried about his potentially adulterous wife, whose sister is married to a cop who…

But it’s much more than a game of Six Degrees of Separation. Altman is interested in the tenuous connections that link disparate lives but also the alienation of modern life. His film is set in a soulless Los Angeles where isolation breeds insensitivity: a baker torments a family over an unpaid-for birthday cake when the intended recipient is in hospital; a group of fishing buddies find a dead body and don’t report it because they don’t want their trip disrupted.

Indeed, the whole film is filled with characters who can’t relate to one another, even those who are supposed to know them best. Husbands misunderstand wives and parents are strangers to their children. When things do erupt, they do so with a fury.

Altman was at the top of his game when he made Short Cuts. He weaves it together perfectly, handling the switches in tempo and mood adroitly. It’s a surprisingly funny film, considering the dark material and although it never truly convinces as a satire (he likes his characters too much), there are deft touches throughout. And, of course, there are the performances. Always an actor’s director, Altman draws the very best from his cast, who clearly relished working for the master.

Short Cuts is one of the best films of the 1990s. If you admire the films it inspired, you have a duty to check out the real thing.

James Oliver on 24th December 2007

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Film Description

The most highly praised film of 1994, Altman's popular follow-up to 'The Player' features more stars than you can shake a stick at in a superb adaptation of Raymond Carver's short stories about suburban American life. A quintessential movie experience about quintessential Americans.

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Slices of life of initially unconnected people in the same city. Basically a colage with clever plot points shown as background and characters talking over each other.... more >

Slices of life of initially unconnected people in the same city. Basically a colage with clever plot points shown as background and characters talking over each other. McDowell as wooden as ever. < less

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Film Details

Cast

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Andie MacDowell, Buck Henry, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Tim Robbins, Frances McDormand, Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn

Technical Details