Out of all the Altman films the Long Goodbye is my favorite. It was reminiscent of the film noirs we watched from Art of Film I, without taking itself too seriously. It was fun to watch a movie that sort of openly admitted that it was a movie. (Or at least that was the impression I got. The "Hooray for Hollywood" song played at the end of the film seemed to be Hollywood celebrating another good film). The main character was funny, the story made sense, and it moved along at a good pace. I can't necessarily say that I enjoyed the other films as much. The Player kept the audience aware that they were watching a movie throughout the whole film, but the story that it presented had no one the audience was rooting for. The main character is a murderer and has no qualms about cheating on his girlfriend. I felt that this sort of stopped the audience from investing in the story. The Player in a way reminded me of Crash. Crash is a a film similar to Nashville in as much as it is focused on the lives of several characters, but I also feel that it is like The Player because it is not plot driven. Instead it preaches the evil or racism while The Player preaches the evils of Hollywood and human greed. Nashville was also not plot driven, instead it was sort of a montage of everyday life scenes from people who were loosely connected. While every scene on its own is an interesting study of human character, without a plot or central driving character the audience seemed to loose focus.
One of Altman's techniques that I really liked was the constantly moving camera in the Long Goodbye. Every time it moved or panned it would refocus the audience's attention and keep it on the movie during long dialogue scenes. It reminded me of that small step forward people always should take before saying an important piece of information in a speech.
