November 5, 2004
MarkBernstein.org
 

The Company

Robert Altman is, I think, a one-man primer on plot for new media.

The Company is a fine film about dance -- a subject of which I know nothing beyond the familiar film and theater cliches. (I once knew a dancer who gave up and went to Harvard to be a chemical physicist; after she did that, you turned into a novelist. Dancing's a tough racket.)

The big plot tension in The Company comes from those cliches: you see the cliche coming down the track and you're captivated by the question, "How will our hero escape certain catastrophe?" It's a dance movie: you know the dancer is going to fall in love with the wrong guy. She does. It's a dance movie: someone's gonna get injured. They do. Someone is going to have to say, "But the show must go on!" They say it. It's a dance movie: there's going to be a pompous old ass spouting homilies. There is.

And all of this somehow unfolds naturally, and (incredibly) always turns away from trite melodrama at the very last moment.

The Company
© Sony Picture Classics

The way Altman drives The Company is quite different from the way he drives Gosford Park or M*A*S*H. And all of these are quite different from each other, and also from his masterpiece, Nashville. I think all this repays study -- especially since Altman's signature style holds an obvious affinity for hypertextuality.