Griffin recognizes he is bound to make enemies as part of his profession, and with his job on the line, he can be as lecherous as anyone. Developing a relationship with the deceased’s less-than-distraught girlfriend, June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi), surely does little to alleviate the growing misgivings about his role in the killing. Calling on a mental catalogue of scrutinized crime films, Griffin covers his homicidal tracks, but still he comes under suspicion for the murder. Confronting the resentful writer, a murderous rage boils over and Griffin finds himself in a criminal position he surely didn’t count on, one that amplifies his personal and professional dilemmas. Going solo into the investigation of the mysterious dispatches, Griffin easily tracks down the apparent culprit, David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio). As important as he apparently is, Griffin is still on shaky occupational ground, especially with rival producer Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) potentially moving in on his territory. Not necessarily direct threats but threatening all the same, these messages do little to pacify this already anxious individual. ![]() As the film begins, the smarmy wheeler-dealer begins receiving menacing postcards (and not for the first time, as a drawer full of similar notes attests). Though a singular character focus is not entirely absent from Altman’s oeuvre, The Player is somewhat unusual in that while there are many who surround executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), and some will play larger parts than others, in the end, and during every major scene, it is he who elicits the most interest and maybe, just maybe, sympathy. As much as anything, though, by Altman’s own admission, this opening was a conceit, a gimmick that took sixteen takes but was worth it, for, as the director points out, “It’s what people talk about.” ![]() This overtly stylish lead-in and the amusing banter initiates The Player with high expectations, both in terms of visual virtuosity (which it does not maintain) and sardonic movie humor (which it does). During this introductory sequence, a careening camera tracks the exteriors of the studio, surveying and temporarily following a host of characters, some of whom reappear as major figures, others who are seen here only as part of improvised comic pitch sessions. Echoing Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958), the virtues of which Fred Ward’s anticutting studio security head heartily extols, Altman gets The Player rolling with a bravura eight-minute take. ![]() Newly released on a Criterion Collection Blu-ray and DVD, which itself has an unusually self-referential menu background, featuring posters for the movie rather than the typically inspired film-related art, The Player pulls back the curtain of its production starting with scene one, as someone yells quiet on the set, then action, then the slate claps, commencing the film. This project, which audaciously lampoons Hollywood clichés and conventions under the guise of a murder mystery, is nevertheless a tremendous success and said filmmaker is welcomed back to the film industry fold.Ī screenwriter couldn’t come up with a better, more ironic scenario than that which truthfully surrounds Robert Altman’s The Player (1992).įrom start to finish, The Player assumes a playfully (and maybe just a little bitter) tongue-in-cheek tone toward its Hollywood locale and its roster of studio types. ![]() In an effort to produce a movie of personal interest, he takes on a delegated project as a way of ingratiating himself with the financial powers that be. A Criterion Collection release.Īfter a series of commercial failures and idiosyncratic passion projects, a famous American film director is essentially ostracized from the Hollywood community. Produced by David Brown, Michael Tolkin, and Nick Weschler screenplay by Michael Tolkin, based on his novel directed by Robert Altman cinematography by Jean Lépine edited by Geraldine Peroni starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Cynthia Stevenson, and Vincent D’Onofrio.
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