The director John Carpenter slammed as “masturbatory”
Among the pantheon of Hollywood’s maverick filmmakers, few directors command as much reverence as John Carpenter, known for his groundbreaking work in the horror genre, notably Halloween and The Thing. However, despite his reputation for being opinionated and candid, Carpenter’s comments on another filmmaking titan may take some cinephiles by surprise.
During an interview with the BBC in 1979, Carpenter expressed his love for “a lot of older films”, citing older directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawk as those who admired. Admitting that he “tries to go see most movies, to see if I can learn something”, Carpenter was then asked by the interviewer what he thought about his “contemporaries”. Carpenter shook his head decisively and said: “I don’t care for them”.
Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma were dismissed, with Carpenter calling Close Encounters With the Third Kind “pretentious”. George Lucas was also waved aside, although Carpenter admitted that his very early film, American Graffiti, was “very good”. On the sort of filmmaking Carpenter does like, he stated that he admires when a director “tells the story with a great deal of authority”, even if it is “flawed”. This prompted the interviewer to ponder the idea of movies made “on the edge of experimentation”, attempting to investigate or stretch the boundaries of conventional storytelling.
He cited the work of the critically acclaimed director Robert Altman, particularly his sprawling country music film Nashville. To this idea of “experimentation”, Carpenter baulked. “That’s one way to look at it,” he said before making his opinion on the director very clear: “I don’t care for Altman’s work at all. I think he’s not a good filmmaker. Not a good filmmaker. I’m in the minority; I know a lot of people respect him and like his films – I don’t care for them.”
Altman, of course, is no stranger to controversy. His films danced on the edge of narrative conventions, pioneering a revolutionary audio technique of overlapping dialogues, employing ensemble casts, and sprawling, barely coherent storylines. With their rich tapestry of intertwined lives, Nashville, A Wedding and McCabe & Mrs Miller could be seen as both masterclasses in storytelling or avant-garde experimentations – depending on your cinematic palette. But for Carpenter? “I think they’re slightly masturbatory.”
It’s not hard to see how Carpenter’s traditionalist approach to cinema, with a clear narrative and identifiable genres, contrasts sharply with Altman’s more exploratory and (arguably) indulgent method. This could well be the root of Carpenter’s disdain – particularly when we consider his vocal affinity for older movies, which very much stayed in their respective genres and lanes, emphasising concrete plots above all else.
Nevertheless, it seems a shame: while both directors may have different filmmaking styles, they undeniably left an indelible mark on cinema. Carpenter was as much a maverick director as there ever was. Surely he didn’t really think that Altman’s masterful portrait of America constituted “flogging around in the swamps”? Sadly, we’ll probably have to take his word for it.
