Countdown
With James Caan, Joanna Moore, Robert Duvall.
US, 1968, 35mm, color, 101 min.
Altman’s dramatic televisual origins surface in his early feature about a US astronaut flying to the moon. Released, with an impressive degree of prescience, just a year before the actual moon landing, Countdown seems more striking as the cinematic precursor to That Cold Day in the Park and M*A*S*H. The film reveals some evidence of prototypical Altman with its nearly ensemble cast—including Robert Duvall, James Caan and Altman regular Michael Murphy—as well as its staid focus on the earthly human dimension of the space race versus dazzling interstellar action and technology. However, compared to later work, a melodramatic sheen tends to override more understated Altmanesque moments, such as the realistic space flight depicted as simultaneously mundane and transcendent. Ultimately unhappy with the director’s risky decisions, such as a darker ending and overlapping dialogue, the studio substantially edited the final version and kicked Altman off of the film and into his own, independent orbit.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Vincent & Theo
Fool for Love
Prêt-à-porter
California Split
Thieves Like Us
A Perfect Couple
A Prairie Home Companion
O.C. and Stiggs
That Cold Day in the Park
Corn's-A-Poppin'
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Gingerbread Man
Dr. T and the Women
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
