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Robert Altman was the perennial Hollywood outsider, and in Act I of our SKIN-depth look at his career, we covered everything from 1967-1979. Now our favorite maverick enters his wilderness years before another huge comeback, another valley, another peak, and finally the end.

Despite its reputation as a big budget flop, 1980's Popeye was actually fairly successful, and had a great second life on television. It's undeniable that its perception as a failure, coupled with a runaway production on the isolated island of Malta, led to Altman being deemed too big a risk for most studios to hire. He did some stage work and then began producing, essentially, filmed plays like Streamers, Secret Honor, andCome Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. In the midst of this period, he filmed another movie that wouldn't see release for four years...

O.C. and Stiggs

Based on a 1982 issue of National Lampoon Magazine titled "The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs," this parody of teen comedies was buried so deep in unrealized layers of meta-commentary that it mostly functioned as a genre knock-off more than a genre send-up. Rushed into production to capitalize on the burgeoning teen sex comedy craze of the early 80s kicked off by films like Porky'sandFast Times at Ridgemont High, the film was doomed to fail from the very beginning.

First of all, Altman is the wrong director for this version of this material. He excels at making films about outsiders upsetting the establishment, which is why he seemed like the perfect fit fora film about two rowdy teens disrupting the lives of their ultra-wealthy neighbors. However, his films are often genre deconstructions, which is anathema to anyteens looking for a fun time sex comedy. Altman often bemoaned his films receiving test screenings in malls or other places where suburbanites dwelled, and these people weren't aboutderive any enjoyment from a film that thumbed its nose at their way of life.

The flick's only nudity comes just past the one hour mark when the titular teensinvite Tiffany Helm and Dana Andersen over for a pool party, despite not having a pool.Luckily their wealthy neighbors, The Schwabs, have a pool they can use and when they get busted, we see Helm and Andersen's tan-lined butts and lots of sideboob as they flee from an angry Paul Dooley as Mr. Schwab. It's probably not the only nudity the studio envisioned when they asked Altman for a teen sex comedy...

The film holds several ignominious distinctions like being Altman's biggest financial flop and his only studio film between Popeye and The Player,but it's far from his worst. It never really comes together, with its two titular protagonists and their antics often coming off as more officious than the upper class twits they're victimizing. The film is littered with bizarre cameos from everyone from Ray Walston and Dennis Hopper to Melvin van Peebles and Bob Uecker, and though the elements are there, they never really gel in any meaningful way.

Shot in 1983 andcompleted and screened for the MPAA in1984, O.C. and Stiggswould not get a theatrical release until July, 1987, and even then it never played on more than 100 screens in North America. At the time, it seemed like just another nail in the coffin for a director on his way out.

Beyond Therapy

Finding out, as I did, in 2012 that Robert Altman once made an adaptation of Christopher Durang's play "Beyond Therapy"starring Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Guest, and Julie Hagerty, among others, I made it my mission to find that film. The result is something of a disappointment considering the level of talent involved in this film's creation, but Beyond Therapy is Altman's most "cinematic" of his play adaptations of the 80s. Rather than just filming a stage play as he did so often, he opens the world of Durang's play up—perhaps a bit too much for some fans of the show—and the result is another of Altman's muddled films where everything just fails to come together.

Interestingly, this was Altman's first film in seven years for which he also earned a writing credit—he and Durang both receive "Screenplay by" credit. The first major change is the addition of characters referenced but never seen in the play. The play has six characters, the film well over twenty. If there's one undeniable place that Altman's influence on the script can be felt, it's in the inclusion of nudity. Tom Conti plays the hyper-sexual therapist to Julie Hagerty's character, whose various peccadilloes are referenced in the play, but can obviously be shown in the film.

French actress Laure Killing—the film was shot in Paris, but set in New York—plays one of Conti's flings who shows off for us in the shower 45 minutes in...

A minute and a half later, we see the waiterfrom the restaurant in bed with Sandrine Dumas, whoalso goes topless in the scene...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Maverick Sexuality of Robert Altman's Films—Act II: 1980-2003

It's a smart way to work nudity into a film that really doesn't call for any, by showing the sexed up personal lives of the characters that can only be hinted at in a stage play. Though the film is far from a faithful adaptation of Durang's play, it is an evolution for Altman away fromhis strictly staged adaptations of the prior years into a more expansive world that hints at alternate stories happening elsewhere that are equally interesting. That was Altman's bread and butter as a filmmaker, always leaving the audience to feel that something better, cooler, more interesting, was happening somewhere else. Somewhere just off camera.

The Player

The biggest comeback of Altman's career came with 1992's The Player, a scathing satire of Hollywood couched inside a damn good thriller in its own right. Based on Michael Tolkin's book—who also wrote the screenplay—the film was a flaming arrow shot directly at the heart of the industry that had scornedAltman for over a decade. The ultimate irony, of course, is that Hollywood lapped it up. They loved it because they thought it was hip to love. It made them seem cool and self-aware.

Mind you, it's a fantastic film—along with M*A*S*H, this one's my personal favorite—but Hollywood wanted in on the joke after the joke had already been told. I could wax philosophic all day about psychotic film producer Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) and his bumbling misadventures throughout this film, but it's all been said elsewhere, better than I ever could.

As to the nudity, it's really a great bit of bait and switch by Altman, necessitated by his lead actress, Greta Scacchi's, pregnancy at the time of filming. The film's only nude scene, 19 minutes into the film, finds brunette character actress Cynthia Stevenson topless in a hot tub with Robbins' Griffin, reading to him from a terrible script.

Altman talks about his reason for doing this in "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography," which includes a tidbit from Paul Newman...

Robert Altman: I put Cynthia Stevenson in the hot tub with Tim because she's not the girl Hollywood usually asks to take her shirt off. When he saw the movie, Paul Newman told me, "I get it. You don't get to see the tits you want to see. You see the ones you don't want to see."

Paul Newman: Yes, that's accurate. I don't have to clarify it. It speaks for itself... There was a more important point in that movie about nudity, I thought. Tim Robbins' character was talking to this young woman on a cell phone and he was watching her while he was talking to her and moving in closer. It was just the most frightening scene in the world, to realize that you could be observed in your most private place. And of course it raises the specter of all those questions of privacy which are now becoming paramount and the technology we have today. Just a little hint. Yeah, it certainly wasn't about nudity, it was about how accessible everybody is. It's spooky.

A SKIN-depth Look at the Maverick Sexuality of Robert Altman's Films—Act II: 1980-2003

As to Greta Scacchi's reticence to do a nude scene, Altman's son Stephen recants this story earlier in "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography"...

Stephen Altman: Think about the Greta Scacchi-Tim Robbins love scene. Where it's focused completely on their faces. Everyone's like, "It's oh so marvelous," and "How did you think of that?" How? She wouldn't show her tits. She was pregnant at the time and so they were forced into that. He had to figure some way out to get this love scene out and then it's like a work of genius. Actually, it was because we couldn't do it any other way.

Ultimately, The Player's legacy looms large in Altman's filmography, but at the time it just seemed like the film that earned him enough credibility to finance his next three films. Looking back on it now, it feels like his second trip to the top of Everest. Whether you think he made a third or fourth is entirely up to your own opinion.

Short Cuts

Robert Altman, great American storyteller, met Raymond Carver, great American storyteller, for this epic, sprawling character study about the shared mundanity of life. Packed with probably the most nudity of any film in his filmography, Short Cuts isone of those films that you either love, hate, or admire. I come down on the admiration side of the equation as I think there's a ton of brilliance in this film, it's not one I'm eager to revisit often. A lot like P.T. Anderson's similarly sprawling Magnolia, you've got to carve out a day for this one.

The film's first nudity comes from Frances McDormand, who strolls casually naked after a shower from the bathroom to the bedroom, doubling back when she hears that her man on the side—Tim Robbins' scummyphilandering cop Gene—has come in without her knowledge...

Super casual, blink and you'll miss it, and that's exactly what Altman's going for: Nudity as a natural part of life. The other scene that backs this up is the infamous Julianne Moore bottomless scene. Julianne spends nearly four minutes walking around with no pants on—she spilled wine on them just before she and husband Matthew Modine are set to go out. It's during this scene that Modine brings up Moore's infidelity, with Altman using her inherent vulnerability to the scene's advantage. What would have been uncomfortable enough becomes heart-wrenching and real...

In Zuckoff's Robert Altman: The Oral Biography, Julianne Moore recounts the tale of her accepting the role as Marian without seeing the script. Altman had told her there was bottomless nudity and Moore insisted she didn't care and would do anything he asked her to in the film.

Julianne Moore: Bob claims that after this—I don't remember saying this; this is the unfortunate part—I may have said, in my excitement, "Guess what, I'm a real redhead."

I don't remember saying that. But Bob never forgot it. And then the story got bigger. It morphed into—"And then she said, 'I have a bonus for you, I'm a real redhead!'" This is at the very, very beginning of my film career when I'm desperate to be taken seriously.

So basically I would do a movie and they would call people you worked with and the first person they would call would be Bob. And Bob would say, "Listen to this story... She said, 'I have a bonus for you...'"

And I'd be like, "Oh, my God!" So this story was in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, Rolling Stone, Premiere Magazine. Basically anybody who'd talk to Bob, he'd tell that story.

The payoff to the story comes several pages later when Moore recounts a story about having dinner with Altman, his wife Kathryn, and another couple near the end of Altman's life.

Julianne Moore: And somebody was asking me how Bob and I had met, and how I had ended up in Short Cuts and what had happened.

And then Kathryn said—I will never believe what she said—"And I have a bonus for ya!"

And Bob said, "Kathryn, we're not supposed to talk about her pussy anymore."

But you know what? I'm really glad he did. I loved him.

As to the rest of the film's nudity, it's slightly less "artistically integral" to the plot. Madeleine Stowe had turned down Julianne Moore's role because of the extended bottomless nudity, but she did take the role of wife to philandering cop Gene, and to show her director that she wasn't afraid of nudity,Stowe agreed to pose nude for Moore's artist character...

There's also a disturbing subplot involving Chris Penn and his wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, a phone sex worker who sets about doing mundane tasks while bringing men to orgasm over the phone. That's not the disturbing part, though, most of those scenes are played for laughs. The disturbing end of the equation belongs to Chris Penn's character, who plays Peeping Tom to Lori Singer's cellist as she goes for a nude dip in the pool...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Maverick Sexuality of Robert Altman's Films—Act II: 1980-2003

Like De Palma before him, Altman likes to use female nudity to demonstrate vulnerability. It'sone of the easiestways to get a visceral reaction from your audience, and one he employs here brilliantly.

Prêt-à-Porter (Ready to Wear)

Riding high on his newly re-established credibility, Altman went into production on this, his third huge ensemble production in a row—and the closer to his Tim Robbins trilogy—without much of an idea what movie he was making. And it shows. Prêt-à-Porter—or as it was known in the United States of Hating French People, Ready to Wear—is a muddled mess of genres that wants desperately to give all its big names something meaningful to do.

The film's primary problem is it lacks an identity. It's part murder mystery, part condemnation of toxic celebrity culture, and part scathing social commentary—all things he had done or woulddo much better with Gosford Park, The Player, and just about all his films in the 70s. The proverbial master of no genres, the film is rescued only by its copious amounts of nudity, particularly in the film's climax.

Sally Kellerman does her third and final Altman topless scene here—her first for him in 24 years—flashing her breasts for Stephen Rea who does his Stephen Rea thing as a skeevy photographer...

The big fashion show at the end of the film features all the TA your prepubescent heart could've hoped for, as nude models walk the runway making a statement about the superficiality of the fashion industry... or something. I don't even know if that's the point...

For my money, this is Altman's worst film. It's a convoluted mess of a movie that squanders the talents of nearly everyone involved, and it's just a casualty of Altman's frail state at the time of filming. He would receive a heart transplant shortly aftercompleting production on his next film—though he wouldn't go public about it until he received his honorary Oscar in 2006—andit's clearly just a casualty of his condition at the time.

The Gingerbread Man

Altman's first film with his new heart is this middling John Grisham original that resides somewhere in the middle ground between Grisham thriller and Altman character study. In other words, it's better than your average Grisham flick. Kenneth Branagh, sporting a Jaw-jian Peach of an accent, stars as divorced horndog attorney Rick Magruder who starts a torrid affair with a waitress (Embeth Davidtz) after they have a chance encounter outside a bar.

In typical Altman fashion, Davidtz delivers an impassioned monologue about her hatred for her abusive father (Robert Duvall) while getting fully undressed in front of Magruder...

There are, of course, echoes of Julianne Moore's Short Cuts scene here, just with substantially worse lighting. Altman's big rhetorical flourish in this film is his use of thunder and lightning for impending doom. Immediately aftershe strips nude in front of Magruder, a bolt of lightning crashes and the two end up getting busy. It's far from subtle and it's repeated throughout the film, but it's above average if you are or know a Grisham completist.

Dr. T The Women

Complaints of misogyny had followed Altman throughout his career, ever since Hot Lips eventually loosened up after being exposed in the shower in M*A*S*H. They cropped up again when he made this film, wherein a gynecologist (Richard Gere) becomes so immersed in a world where he's surrounded by women, he feels he's lost his identity as a straight man. Only someone who hadn't seen the film would think this, but this is why detractors paint with such a broad brush.

As the film's screenwriter herself says in "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography"...

Anne Rapp: "I never had any sense that Bob was a misogynist in life or in his work. I know Bob loved women and wanted to be around women. He was more comfortable in the world of women than in the world of men. He would be the first to tell you that...

"At the Toronto Film Festival, before we even started, before anyone even asked a question, Bob said, 'I just want to say one thing. If anybody in this room has a question about misogyny, I want to just point out that this film was written by a woman.' Everyone in the room laughed. He just set the tone right there."

Of course, anyone looking to find fault with the film will immediately latch on to Farrah Fawcett's naked fountain dance just 18 minutes in...

Out of context, it might seem like Altman just exploiting a legend's desire to go nude on film, but he once again uses nudity as a disruption of social norms. Fawcett's character, Dr. T's wife, is mentally unstable and this act lands her in prison.We could endlessly debate the merits of this being yet another example of a female character's exploitation springing the male character's plot into action, but I doubt that was Altman or Rapp's intent.

There is also more of another Altman signature, normalized nudity, with Janine Turner and Holly Pelham both going nude during gynecological exams...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Maverick Sexuality of Robert Altman's Films—Act II: 1980-2003A SKIN-depth Look at the Maverick Sexuality of Robert Altman's Films—Act II: 1980-2003

There's also a reprise of sorts ofFrances McDormand's casual walking nude from the shower—or in this case, into the shower—from Short Cuts, this time from Helen Hunt, who just casually strolls naked from the bedroom to the shower...

That's clearly a shot Altman loves, and no wonder. It's sexy as hell to seem like you're peering in on someone's real moment of intimacy.

The Company

Lost in the shuffle of dance movies that dominated the early aughts—everything from Save the Last Dance to You Got Served—Altman's final film we're going to talk about is his penultimate theatrically released film, and one of only two he shot digitally, The Company. Set and filmed in Chicago, the film was made with the cooperation of the city's Joffrey Ballet, andthough it seems as far from it as one could get, it's the closest Altman has come to autobiography. From Roger Ebert's review of the film in the Chicago Sun-Times, December 24, 2003...

"I've known him (Altman) since 1970, have been on the sets of many of his films, had more than a drink with him in the old days and know that this movie reflects exactly the way he works -- how he assembles cast, story and location and plunges in up to his elbows, stirring the pot...

"It is said that 'Mr. A' (Malcolm McDowell) is based on Gerald Arpino, the Joffrey's legendary director and choreographer, and that no doubt is true. But there's another Mr. A standing right there in full view, and his name is Robert Altman."

There is simply no denying that Altman saw in The Company a way to get to the artistic heart of the matter—that in the end, all creators are just trying to get their purest vision of the world out there. Neve Campbell, a dancer since she was a child, put herself through four months of rigorous, all-day training to get herself ready to play the lead role of Loretta "Ry" Ryan, a character loosely based on Joffrey dancer Trinity Hamilton, who appears in the film as a member of the corps de ballet.

Neve doesn't make her nude debut here—that would come the following year in James Toback's When Will I Be Loved—but two of her dancing compatriots go topless here, though the film managed to keep its PG-13 rating, thanks to the non-sexual context of the nudity. Just four minutes in, the gorgeous Valerie Robin walks topless across the locker room...

This is followed by some brief boobage from Maia Wilkinsjust one minute later in the same tracking shot through the dressing room...

Just another Robert Altman nude scene where he presents nudity as a totally natural part of life, which is most certainly is. Though he sometimes used nudity to titillate, he more often viewed it as anordinarypart of life, just another one of those things that happens in your day-to-day.

Altman was many things: beloved by his actors, despised by his writers, and at constant war with critics who had a love/hate relationship with him. It's fitting that he never won a single one of the seven competitive Oscars for which he was nominated, because it only would have made him part of the establishment he reviled. Another interesting thing to note is that many of Altman's actors received Oscar nominations—Sally Kellerman for M*A*S*H, Julie Christie for McCabe, Lily Tomlin andRonee Blakley for Nashville, and Helen Mirren for Gosford Park—not totally surprising when you consider how much Altman loved and relied on his actors. However, the most neglected folks on Altman's films, the writers, are the onlyone to ever actually win an Oscar for their work on an Altman movie—Ring Lardner, Jr. for M*A*S*H, Keith Carradine for "I'm Easy" from Nashville, and Julian Fellowes for Gosford Park.

Just another one of those ways for the establishment to thumb their nose at him, something he loved doing to them.

Check out the Other Directors in Our Ongoing "SKIN-depth Look" Series

Robert Altman: Act I

Adrian Lyne

Martin Scorsese

Jane Campion

Bob Fosse

Dario Argento

Wes Craven

Tobe Hooper

Todd Haynes

Danny Boyle

Stanley Kubrick

Paul Thomas Anderson

David Lynch

Brian De Palma

Paul Schrader

Paul Verhoeven

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O.C. and Stiggs image via Chicago Film Society

Beyond Therapy image via Cineplex

The Player images via IMDb

Short Cuts image via IMDb

Prêt-à-Porter image via IMDb

The Gingerbread Man image via Just Watch

Dr. T and the Women image via IMDb

The Company image via IMDb

Footer image via IMDb