Alan Rudolph was born in Los Angeles in 1943, his father Oscar was a director and actor in Hollywood. Rudolph became Robert Altman’s protégé on The Long Goodbye, California Split and Nashville as an assistant director and co-wrote Buffalo Bill with Altman which co-stared Harvey Keitel. Keitel went on to co-star in Rudolph’s big break Welcome to L.A. which Altman produced. The film gave us Rudolph’s signature; intimate camera work, a close evident relationship with his actors and the burning question of human relationships. Keitel’s characters sometimes have shocking bursts of violence which we also see in Fingers and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Of course having Keith Carradine as a singer recalls Nashville and the presence of Sissy Spacek now recalls Altman as she went on to co-star in 3 Women.
Remember My Name is one of Rudolph’s best, Geraldine Chaplin (another Altman actor) stars as the crazy stalker ex-wife of Anthony Perkins, she just got out of prison and wants to get back with her ex-husband. Chaplin’s stunning, unflinching, often quiet performance is garnered by a quiet Los Angeles, we see few extras in the film, the domestic premise and atmosphere become one. Likewise this atmosphere is present in Rudolph’s later Mortal Thoughts and Afterglow. Physical fights are often a trait for Rudolph’s irrational circle of characters. Trouble in Mind a case in point in which the finale quite literally explodes into shoot-out with Carradine’s character walking through the bullets almost unnoticed, untouched, a mythic figure who changes erratically scene by scene. A misled criminal with bigger dreams which have now faded.
Choose Me was considered a success for Rudolph in 1984, his script is half interesting, half clichéd. Lesley Ann Warren’s bar owner, her countless men, ‘I’ll never marry or find happiness’ attitude to life wears thin as brilliant as Warren is. Keith Carradine a John Cassavetes type in manner and facial gesture gives a reliable performance, errationality invades the entire film and Rudolph’s filmography, his characters are too disconnected from reality to think otherwise. Geneviève Bujold’s performance in Choose Me is fascinating, a cross between a Joan Crawford woman in peril with the tone and speech rhythm of Linday Crouse. One wonders how worse off the film would be in Bujold’s absence. Dan Sallitt (1985) states ‘The war between the subjective and the objective in Rudolph’s films is pleasingly exaggerated for maximum effect: romance is overpowering and virtually palpable, but good judgment absolutely forbids it.’
The Moderns is set in 1920s Paris, the Fitzgeralds and Hemmingways abound. Wallace Shawn’s hilariously poignant performance and off kilter one-liners prove memorable. Love and irrationality rue the day once again, notably in a scene where a wealthy man Bertie (John Lone) destroys valuable paintings he believes to be fakes when in fact they are the originals, such bitter irony. Rudolph’s later Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a missed opportunity with no entry point, Jennifer Jason Leigh is so good on the one hand, on the other hand the impersonation of Parker with a Katherine Hepburn way of speaking either engages you or is drowned out by the amount of dialogue circling the film. Parker is definitely Rudolph’s most Altman-esque film, he also makes great use of 360 camera turns during the table scenes.
The scripts for Mortal Thoughts and Afterglow perhaps don’t seem like much on paper, Rudolph’s visuals bring life to them. In Mortal Thoughts Bruce Willis’ psychotic unemployed layabout husband is however Hollywood fare all the more frightened and realistic if you’ve met people like him. His wife Joyce (Glenne Headly) murders him in self defence, the film centres on Joyce’s friend since childhood, Cythnia (Demi Moore), who is interviewed by police officers (Harvey Keitel and Billie Neal). Jonathan Rosenbaum (The Chicago Reader) notes the brutal plausibility of the film settings; the funeral parlour, salon, and the character’s homes. The eery quietness of these New Jersey streets, a ghost town, Headly’s Garbo-like moll, Moore’s numb and quaint close-ups. Rudolph’s Scorsese-like camera keeps moving, intrigued, stark lighting and fades-out on bead blinds gleaming back to us to add to the stress. Dread in slow-motion, Angels mournfully sing on the soundtrack, fantasy with a douse of reality sideways. Note the detail of the smallest of actions; the synchronising of van doors opening, a finger drumming on a table, a close-up of a mouth speaking and an odd comic moment of Keitel munching on a flowery donut.
Rudolph’s Montreal setting in Afterglow is another sparse almost dream-like setting with the few exteriors we see in the film. Businessman Jeffrey (Jonny Lee Miller) and housewife Marianne’s (Lara Flynn Boyle) fancy apartment boutique apartment is like a set in itself. The hysterics of youth; money and family planning is contrasted with handyman Lucky (Nick Nolte) and his wife former actress Phyliss (Julie Christie), middle aged and tired. As Geoffrey Macnab states in his review in Sight and Sound ‘Rudolph has always specialised in creating stylised, self-contained worlds’. Rudolph uses intimate details; a rain soaked car window with Miller and Christie on the other side, a slow zoom on Christie to signify emotion and memory. Nolte’s face and its hardness is no stranger to the camera, Miller is oddly photographed sideways on several occasions, his world view is indeed lopsided. Often Rudolph picks out details by perhaps over-emphaising them; close-ups of signs outside galleries, funeral homes, and the flickering curtain at the end of Afterglow. The artificiality of Rudolph’s sets; Trouble in Mind being a prime example, a set being obvious even to the point where Rudolph’s emphaises a model version of the town called Rain City with a birds eye view. Rudolph’s characters and films are eccentric, there is more than meets the eye unlike Whit Stillman’s dialogue driven films. Whatever clichés life and movies have have offered us Rudolph gives it his unique touch.