Robert Altman didn’t make films so much as he did weave intricate tapestries of the human condition. Some of his best-known work as employed the principle that each person has their own story worth telling, and that when put alongside each other, we can get glimpses into sides of our species that aren’t often seen in everyday life. This bears a lot of similarity to the writings of Raymond Carver, who made a career out of capturing small chunks of humanity through his work. The two artists collide in Short Cuts, whereby Altman takes inspiration from nine of Carver’s stories, turning them into one of the defining films of the 1990s, and one of the director’s most substantial masterpieces. His ambitious modern-day epic sees him venturing into the streets of Los Angeles, following several different characters over roughly a week, focusing on them living their ordinary lives, and finding value in even the most inconsequential activity that carries some meaning to each individual, whether we find it scandalous or mundane (and occasionally a blend of both). We watch as their lives intersect – even the most fleeting interaction carries a wealth of meaning, which Altman masterfully represents throughout the three hours this film takes up, each story burrowing itself into the psyche of the viewer, who constantly yearns to venture deeper into these stories, curious to see what hides just out of view. We aren’t captivated by these lives portrayed on screen, we’re entirely bewitched by them, each one having some varied meaning that gradually unveils itself as it goes on, and each intersection with another adding even more nuance into this undeniably powerful portrait of society that is absolutely unwavering in its total dedication to committing the very nature of humanity onto celluloid, almost as if not capturing every idiosyncrasy will cause it to be lost forever. A great film is one that makes you forget that you’re watching a work of fiction – and few have ever been able to evoke such a sensation as Short Cuts, one of the best films of its era.

This may seem hyperbolic – but for anyone who hasn’t seen Short Cuts, it’s absolutely nothing close to an exaggeration in any conceivable way. Altman had an enormously influential career that was as audacious as it was prolific – but he tends to be defined by a few films in particular, with Short Cuts being amongst his most respected, and for very good reason. This film towers above nearly everything else produced at the time – it sets its sights on the very core of our existence, and who better to execute this than a filmmaker who consistently proved himself to be one of the most keen observers of the human comedy? This format of intersecting lives centred on a common theme isn’t unheard of for Altman, especially since the work arguably considered his defining masterpiece is Nashville, which took a very similar approach to various individuals in the namesake country music capital. However, unlike some of the director’s other forays into this style of storytelling, the stories in Short Cuts have more abstract common ground – not only are they all based off Carver stories, but they’re loosely connected by certain themes, such as the decline of American culture heading towards the millennium, the coming of age of a new generation, and the sense of loneliness that comes from living in a metropolis, where one seeks out companionship simply for the sake of keeping the isolation at bay. It isn’t always clear where this film is taking us – one of the joys of experiencing an Altman film for the first time is not knowing where it’s heading, and still being entirely enthralled by every direction it takes. Ultimately, through its beautifully-calibrated approach to some complex themes that traverse so many corners of existence, Shorts Cuts is a film embodies the idea of enjoying the journey rather than being preoccupied by the destination.

In theory, Short Cuts is an extremely complex film, since the sheer amount of content present here is almost overwhelming – nearly two dozen characters, each one with a distinct set of quirks and a storyline that needs to be told to completion. However, we can’t neglect the fact that this is an Altman film, and it’s in the execution that we come to remember what an absolute master he was. There is so much simmering in Short Cuts (both above and below the surface), the three-hour running time seems entirely necessary, and perhaps even too short, considering the wealth of material the director was working with here. However, there isn’t a single false moment to be found anywhere in this film – the story is layered but not obscenely convoluted, and each narrative beat carries with it a certain genuineness. This is quintessential Altman, but also a film that allows him to provoke style and substance a bit more than usual. The common thread connecting these characters tends to be far more obscure than it appears at first – so whereas something like Nashville or Gosford Park pulls our attention to a central theme around which each character is associated, the experience of watching Short Cuts entails actively waiting to see how these characters relate to each other. This is a matryoshka doll of a film – it starts out as a broad portrait of Los Angeles, and gradually becomes more specific, each story fitting into one larger narrative, which in itself becomes part of something much broader, until we’re left with a film that feels both epic in scope, and intimate in how it mines the very fabric of what it means to be alive. It’s such a wonderfully complex work that is persistently challenging us to look deeper – and as we’ve seen from some of those who lay claim to being inspired by Altman’s style (when in actuality they’re really just lifting some of his ambitious ideas and making them their own), there’s nothing quite as compelling as a few intersecting stories that hint at some profound understanding of everyday life, excavating meaningful ideas from the most mundane places.

There is so much that can be said about Short Cuts – the way Altman finds his way around an unnavigable set of stories without once coming off as being overwhelmed, the incredible performances populating this film and the general sense of malaise that tended to find its way into works of literature produced towards the end of the century. Yet, everything that makes Short Cuts so remarkable are those qualities that are left unsaid – the camera lingering a beat too long on a character’s face, a musical cue that seems misplaced at first but gradually comes to hold its own significance, or even just a fleeting glimpse into the lives of these people. Occurring at the perfect boundary between genres, Short Cuts is a film built equally from comedy and tragedy – there have been few texts that have been able to so carefully curate elements of both without becoming overwrought at one extreme, or flippant at the other. It’s a complex idea that intermingles with an approach that couldn’t be more simple, at least in terms of what we’d expect from a director who defines the concept of audacity, without ever seeming out of his depths – there aren’t many filmmakers whose entire careers seemed to carry a sensation of such a relaxed, even-tempered simplicity, and Altman was so relaxed in his capabilities by this point, we was really just exploring the ideas that fascinated film, rather than attempting to prove anything other than the answers his own individual curiosities. The aspects that make Short Cuts so special aren’t in the broad strokes of ambition, but rather in the smaller details that make the film worth watching – and each moment of this film is punctuated with such immense sophistication, we feel as if we’re being invited into this world that seems so entirely authentic. It’s the sense of watching something that so closely reflects reality that gives us this enormous sense of satisfaction, to the point where even some of life’s most serious challenges are presented in a way that feels thoroughly compelling – the infidelity of a spouse, the uncertainty of a relationship, or the death of a child are all situations that underpin some of the stories and comment on our shared humanity. Altman extracts every bit of emotion from a film that thrives on its deft ability to balance different ideas without losing the spark of genius that makes it so extraordinarily unique.

Part of the authenticity that lingers throughout Short Cuts comes in the form of the cast, which isn’t surprising at all for an Altman film. He had many admirable qualities as a filmmaker, but none was quite as impressive as his gift for directing actors. Throughout the half-century in which he was active, there were likely very few actors that wouldn’t have clamoured to work with him, some of them multiple times. This gives a film like Short Cuts the wonderful quality of having both seasoned Altman veterans and newcomers populating the cast, with some of the most familiar faces from the director’s career showing up and mingling with newer talents, all under his careful guidance. Moreover, the director made true ensemble films, insofar as there aren’t any distinct standouts, with everyone being on almost an even keel – he doesn’t simply put a few selected actors at the forefront and then pepper in a variety of familiar performers in much smaller roles and call it an ensemble, but rather gives each member of his cast a distinct personality, and lets them loose in this beautifully chaotic world he has constructed. As a result, each viewer will likely come away from Short Cuts with a different preference for their favourite performance – could it be the beguiling Julianne Moore and Madeleine Stowe as sisters struggling with different sides of infidelity, or Andie MacDowell as a grieving mother and Bruce Davison as her husband that has to support her through a difficult time? Perhaps we’re captivated by veterans Lily Tomlin and Tom Waits as a trailer-park couple questioning their marriage later on in life, or Jennifer Jason Leigh trying to balance motherhood with working as a phone-sex operator? Maybe it’s Lyle Lovatt as a sinister baker, or Annie Ross as a past-her-prime jazz singer that draws our attention? Personally, I found solace in the performance given by the legendary Jack Lemmon, whose later arrival into the film (as well as early departure) gives it a sense of volatility – he’s the embodiment of both a guardian angel, and an angel of death, sent to resolve problems without ever realizing it. Altman so deeply adores his casts, and Short Cuts has one of his very best – both in terms of the sheer pedigree that it carries, and the quality of the performances given. Having a strong story isn’t enough for a film like this – the people put in charge of embodying these characters and making them real is equally as paramount, and is undeniably the area in which this film succeeds the most.

Only Robert Altman could’ve made a three-hour film that purported to be a sweeping analysis of an entire population, and have it be such a charming and effervescent experience. The precise quality that makes Short Cuts so special is up to individual interpretation, but it’s very clear that there’s something underlying this film that exceeds all boundaries of what we’d expect from such material. Altman was a director who had a firm grasp on the cultural pulse, and was able to adapt his stories around his keen understanding of some of the most fundamental concepts underpinning our lives, which have resulted in films that find the humanity in some of the most abstract ideas. If I had to select one aspect of Short Cuts that would define why this strikes such a chord with viewers, it would be related to the fact that, while we may adore escapism, we do appreciate something that reflects us on screen, which is one of the most notable qualities of this film. None of the characters here are all that special, and we can see ourselves in any of these parts. We don’t need to be a middle-aged waitress in a dead-end job, or a bourgeois painter, or a philandering police officer, or a down-on-her-luck travelling clown, to understand what this film is saying – we just need to be ourselves, and bring our own individual experiences to this film, which is such a rewarding experience. Our stories could have very easily been one of those told in Short Cuts – there’s nothing overly fantastical or far-fetched in this film, and even at its most absurd or outrageous, the film lingers on a sense of realism that is very recognizable. It all contributes wonderfully to the fact that this film manages to cut to the core of the human spirit, and not only defied the odds by capturing it in its purest form, but managed to disseminate it into a coherent form in a truly extraordinary way. Singing the praises for someone like Robert Altman isn’t ever a challenge, but it sometimes takes a work as unbelievably distinct as Short Cuts to remind us precisely why he was one of the finest filmmakers to ever work in the medium, and one whose influence is still ever-present, both artistically and in the lingering consciousness of anyone who has had the great fortune of sampling from his weathered wisdom and outright refusal to conform to expectations, which we garner from simply experiencing his films through our own unique perspective.