In a controversial and tumultuous filmmaking career that spanned nearly
fifty years, Robert Altman mocked, subverted, or otherwise refashioned
Hollywood narrative and genre conventions. Altman's idiosyncratic vision
and propensity for formal experimentation resulted in an uneven body of
work: some rank failures and intriguing near-misses, as well as a number
of great films that are among the most influential works of New American
Cinema. While Altman always professed to have nothing authoritative to
say about the state of contemporary society, this volume surveys all of
his major films in their sociohistorical context to reposition the
director as a trenchant satirist and social critic of postmodern
America, depicted as a lonely wasteland of fraudulent spectacle,
exploitative social relations, and unfulfilled solitaries in search of
elusive community.