Film Review: Short Cuts (1993)

Early 1990s were a very good period in the career of Robert Altman, film maker who had used to be a big star of New Hollywood. As Hollywood and peoples’ tastes changed in 1980s, Altman suddenly became relic of the past and spent almost entire decade in wilderness, maintaining his career through low budget, independent, television or generally obscure projects. All this ended in 1992 with The Player, brilliant anti-Hollywood satire which was followed by another very successful film, an 1993 drama Short Cuts.

For Altman this film represented realisation of years-long dream. He had wanted to direct an adaptation of literary work of Raymond Carver, his favourite author, best known as the master of short story. Altman’s script was based on number of Carver’s stories, with setting changed from Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles. The rather loose plot takes place during couple of days, framed by seemingly apocalyptic events – helicopters spraying controversial insecticide in order to eradicate medflies in the beginning and earthquake at the end. In the meantime the audience follows lives of more than twenty characters who occasionally bump into each other. Most of them belong to lower strata of society and their problems range from poor finances, infidelities, abuse, incest, alcoholism, poor life choices and occasional streak of extremely bad luck, like the tragic event that would ultimately connect various stories.

Weak plot, vignette-like structure and large number of characters connected merely by being located at the same city during one point at time – all that wasn’t exactly news for Altman’s fans, because the director had used the same ingredients for Nashville, one of his 1970s classics. In this film he uses the same formula, which also includes elements of black humour, a rather important ingredient that makes watching stories dealing about dark and depressive subjects more bearable. But what makes Short Cuts bearable is not just the effective narrative structure, but also Altman’s great skill in giving proper balance between various stories, allowing seamless yet innovative transitions between them and maintaining good tempo. Running time of over three hours is almost unnoticeable for most of the audience, which would be easily sucked into the life of everyday characters whose problems and character flaws might look bizarre, but far from being unrealistic. This approach also required big and diverse ensemble cast and Altman, like in some of his classic films, was very fortunate to get it. Almost anyone major actor in the film delivered good performance, but some of them, for one reason or another, stand out. Chris Penn, one of the most underrated character actors in 1990s Hollywood, shines as pool cleaner frustrated with the fact that his wife, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, makes ends meet as sex phone operator working from their home. Tom Waits is also impressive in the role of alcoholic limo driver stuck in dysfunctional marriage with a waitress, played by Lily Tomlin.

Although it didn’t repeat triumphant results of The Player, this film earned great favour among critics, winning prestigious awards that included Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival. Enthusiasm, like always wasn’t universal. Short Cuts had its share of detractors, mostly from feminist circles which accused Altman of misogyny and exploitative attitudes towards women on screen. Argument for that can possibly found in relative big number of scenes featuring female nudity, even among actresses who weren’t exactly known for disrobing in front of cameras (the most remembered such scenes was thanks to Julianne Moore proving that she was natural redhead). This is probably the reason why Short Cuts is someone remembered for the wrong reasons. It is nevertheless far from perfect film, and most of it has to do with jazz music score by Mark Isham, which is at times annoying, even when it includes song performed by Annie Ross, British singer which appears in the film playing the character of middle-aged lounge singer. However, even despite its flaws, viewers who are willing to invest three hours would be rewarded for their patience by a fine piece of cinema.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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