Saturday, September 6, 2008

Adeus, meu querido

Morreu em Los Angeles, aos 81 anos, o diretor Robert Altman.

Robert Altman

“To play it safe is not to play.”

“Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.”

“I don’t know what a best director is, except that (it is) someone who stands in the same space with the best actors, … I feel that they do the work and I get to watch. And nothing is better than that.”

“Maybe there’s a chance to get back to … grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people.”

“Wisdom and love have nothing to do with each other. Wisdom is staying alive, survival. You’re wise if you don’t stick your finger in the light plug. Love - you’ll stick your finger in anything.”

“It’s all just one film to me. Just different chapters.”

- Robert Altman
20 February 1925 - 20 November 2006

*****

Fiquei muda. Na festa do Oscar desse ano ele fez um lindo e inteligente discurso ao receber o prêmio de conjunto da obra, dizendo que a Academia só dava esse prêmio quando começava a achar que um diretor ia morrer. Depois contou que há 10 anos ele passou por um transplante de coração e que ele possuía o coração de uma moça de 30 anos, então que todos poderiam esperar muito tempo ainda antes dele morrer.

“No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have; I never had to direct a film I didn’t choose and develop. I always thought this kind of award meant that it was over. I’m here, I think, under kind of false pretenses, and I think I have to become straight with you. Ten years ago, 11 years ago, I had a heart transplant - a total heart transplant. I got the heart of, I think, a young woman who was about in her late 30s. So, by that calculation, you may be giving me this award too early, because I think I got about 40 years left on it - and I intend to use it.”

Eu gosto de fazer filmes sobre pessoas por causa dos filmes do Altman. Muito do que eu aprendi sobre pessoas, tramas, roteiros e atores eu devo a ele.

Entre tantos filmes maravilhosos, MASH, Nashville, Quinteto, Popeye, com Shelley Duvall cantando “he needs me, needs me, needs me” (música que, décadas depois, Paul Thomas Anderson usaria em Punch-Drunk Love), Short Curts, Cookie’s Fortune, e vários documentários, como The James Dean Story.

Meu querido, meu querido, esse filme que estou fazendo é pra você. Só existe esse filme porque você fez seus filmes. Obrigada por tudo, muito obrigada.

“everything is blue in this world”

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