The Player
The Player
Directed by Robert Altman
Photographed by Jean Lepine
1992
Starring: Tim Robbins, Peter Gallagher, Whoopi Goldberg, Greta Scacchi
Robert Altman is the man, like the fucking man!!! I mean Thieves Like Us, say no more. But I believe Robert Altman's tour de force is most definitely his comeback 1992 feature The Player. This movie reminds me so much of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I don't know if it's because of the various cameos or the hollywood homicide mystery aspect. Anyway, this film is innovative in many ways, beginning with showing us the real hollywood world. The satire of this film goos thick De Palma all over it. I feel like this was directed by Brian De Palma himself, but it's just because I'm an avid De Palma enthusiast and I love this Altman film too much. Let's talk about the opening sequence, holy shit! That's where the new wave of the 90's barrels into the shore, reality. Altman doesn't seem to mind showing us the slate right before the credits, revealing it was the tenth take. The opening sequence in a single take, a reference to Orson Welles 's Touch of Evil, which is mentioned many times throughout the film. The single take clocks in at almost 8 minutes, making it one of the longest ones. Apparently they filmed it more than 10 times but they decided to go with the tenth take. The beauty of the film comes at the end, however, when the bad guy, the big hollywood studio executive who gets away with murder, lives happily ever after. I think Altman was trying to tell us something about hollywood, don't you?
