Robert Altman once named the worst movie in cinema history: “The most dreadful piece of work”
To be a good filmmaker, you need to be opinionated and make big creative decisions, thereby requiring you not simply sit on the fence but also offer strong feedback on other movies, and Robert Altman was never one to hold back.
The director was a vital part of the New Hollywood landscape, although he actually made his first film, The Delinquents, back in 1957. Using a tiny budget, he took his first step towards becoming a filmmaker, but it wouldn’t be until 1970 that he’d find acclaim with the release of both M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud.
Altman’s approach to filmmaking has inspired many directors in his wake, particularly Paul Thomas Anderson, with his love of ensemble casts allowing him to explore the intersection between different people and how they interact, often disastrously.
Typically using a satirical lens, Altman’s work often peeled back the curtain on themes like class and identity, with each of his films evidence of his strong vision, refusing to adhere to mainstream conventions that would ensure popularity.
For instance, look at 3 Women, with its hallucinatory approach to its narrative, or the looseness of his horror film Images: Hollywood might have been heading towards cinematic sensations such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET the Extra-Terrestrial, and the like, but Altman wasn’t interested in making blockbusters or commercially-appealing films.
It’s no surprise, then, that later in life he picked out a movie he considered one of the worst he’d ever seen, which fell into the category of being an epic cinematic titan, an iceberg threatening to sink any movie released at the same time. Of course, I’m referring to Titanic, which became the highest-grossing movie upon its release in 1997, a huge beast that Altman thought represented everything wrong with cinema.
Clearly, he wasn’t drawn in by the sound of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ or the tragic love story at the heart of James Cameron’s incredibly melodramatic romantic disaster flick. “Titanic, I thought, was the most dreadful piece of work I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Altman told Los Angeles Confidential.
That’s certainly a bold claim, but you can see why he would hate it. The movie relies on pulling at your heartstrings, emotionally manipulating the audience while spending countless scenes depicting people falling overboard or getting crushed by parts of the ship. The film is designed to make you gasp, to have you reaching for ten tissues, and Altman just can’t be bothered with movies that fail to scratch beyond the surface.
It was just too commercial for him, although slightly more shockingly, he added, “Another film that I think is equally bad was American Beauty. So badly acted and directed. But people like that”. American Beauty certainly attempts much more philosophical depth than Titanic, but to Altman, it just didn’t hit the mark. The key here is “people like that”, where the filmmaker found movies with obvious commercial appeal, ones that don’t challenge the audience, a waste of time, and I’m guessing he rolled his eyes at American Beauty’s plastic bag scene too.
