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dga quarterly 65 over-the-shoulder guy. I think he knows those feel manufactured." Only when Barbara Jean gets up from her bed, throws flowers in frustration, and sinks to the floor does Altman cut to singles of his actors. "He wants to see the tears. But when calm has come, he restores order with the two-shot. It's a beautifully cut scene. Noth- ing extraneous. One of the things I try to teach young directors is, your only goal is to put the camera where most of the story will be apparent to the audience. Not where you think it'll be a cool shot. Altman puts the camera where it needs to be, and lets it happen." Altman's use of insert shots is rare enough that Barclay notices when he cuts from a wide shot of "mysterious boy" Kenny in front of Walker campaign headquarters to a shot of his violin case, which has a cartoon caricature of himself on it. "Altman's building sus- pense again. Why does he have a cartoon of himself?" At the hos- pital, we learn that Pfc. Kelly has a real, heartfelt connection to Barbara Jean. And later we see Kenny in an agitated phone call to his mother. He's a runaway who gets nervous when his violin case is touched. "Altman's made these two characters so mysterious, and now he wants to dim the light on Kelly and bring up the light on Kenny. How interesting that Altman shoots Howdy Doody doing most of the phone call to his mother over his back, making him even more inscrutable." Back at Opryland, a shaky Barbara Jean descends into inco- herent patter mid-performance, and Barclay addresses Altman's unique approach to actors and dialogue. "Joan Tewkesbury [who later became a DGA director] is the credited writer; she created the characters and the structure, but that structure veered off through Altman's hand. He would tell people, 'Ignore the script. It's there for background for your character, for scenes, and where we're go- ing to be, but say what you want to say.' Blakley completely wrote this crack-ass monologue herself the night before. She wrote it and memorized it, and the morning of shooting she said to Altman, 'Do you want to hear what I'm going to say?' He said, 'No, I'll film it, you just do it.' The only thing he changed was that she used to do it all as one piece, but he added the musicians starting and stopping the song three times, to break it up a bit." When Carradine performs "I'm Easy"—which won the film its only Oscar, for best song (it was nominated for four others, including best director)—in a club, Barclay notes how instinctively Alt- man's cameras capture each of the four wom- en who thinks the song is about her. "The close-ups are varied, by the angle, by size, by foreground or lack thereof," says Barclay. "I'm guessing he did what great directors do, and cut for performance. He's wider on Lily, with lots of foreground faces. I love that composi- tion. Lily didn't need a super tight shot to tell you what's going on with her—the longing, the feeling of someone finally speaking to her heart. Her whole upper body, even how she's tucked into the corner, helps tell the story." The "I'm Easy" scene, all about the power of music and perfor- mance, is juxtaposed with one of tone-deaf wannabe Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles), who is coerced into a humiliating striptease at a political fundraiser organized by Linnea's husband Delbert. Then, after we see Tomlin and Carradine in bed together, he shows Delbert dropping off Sueleen and awkwardly hit- ting on her. Combined, the scenes play like a short film on seduc- tion, and Barclay likens Altman's juxtapositions to how music works. "The constant interconnection makes the movie feel shorter. Altman likes scenes that have an emotional part that informs the PHOTOS: (OPPOSITE AND TOP, RIGHT) PHOTOFEST; (BOTTOM, RIGHT) SCREENPULL: CRITERION COLLECTION THE END: (above) Mysterious loners David Hayward (left) and Scott Glenn, and gadfly Geraldine Chaplin, are woven into the fabric of the film; (below) Haywood fires his gun at the stage; (opposite) Henry Gibson introduces Ronee Blakley moments before her character is assassinated. Continued on page 80