GOD BLESS SHELLEY DUVALL, SISSY SPACEK & ROBERT ALTMAN!!!


Last night my head hurt too much from my stupid head cold so rather than lay there in agony, I plugged in my DVD of Robert Altman's 3 Women. I've lost count of the number of times I've watched this movie. My dad took me to see it when it came out and I liked it then. ...He fell asleep. Most frustrating to me because I didn't understand it. That's cool because I still don't. Part Bergman's PERSONA and part Laugh-In mixed with equal parts Mary Hartman Mary Hartman
--- the movie is sort of artsy Rubick's Cube of ideas around society, sexuality, female love, female hate, the evil of men, and the California desert that reminds everyone in the movie of Texas.

It is just so fucking cool! I love the fact that the whole thing came from an odd dream Robert Altman had, that he let Shelly Duvall make up her own loopy dialogue (all those various descriptions of meals involving melts and that rambling discourse on hula dancing classes for $10 at the Y!) and that Sissy Spacek (ever the method actress) was still sort of stuck in her CARRIE mode. ...and, that creepy Janice Rule in her hippy rags shooting bullets thru her beautiful but sexually violent paintings! "My legs!!!" And, that look on Ms. Duvall's face when she discovers the senior citizens doing the nasty in her bed! ...Better than any over-the-top look that Kubrick forced her to emote a few years later! And, I think it inspired genius that Duvall thought it would be cool to have her skirt caught in the car door in every scene where she drives! Priceless!

I listened to Altman's commentary once, but I found myself wishing I could hear Duvall and Spacek discuss the movie more. I love that there was once in time in movie history where a film like this could secure a big budget from a major studio!
This movie would never get made today. In fact, it sort of captures a moment in time that could have only happened in the hot California desert of late 1976 --- to hit cinema screens and confuse 1977 movie patrons just before STAR WARS and the mega-plexes began to take it all over.