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Directed by Robert Altman.
A woman walks a razor's edge between reality and madness in this impressionistic drama written and directed by Robert Altman. Cathryn (Susannah York) is a woman who begins to suspect that her marriage to Hugh (René Auberjonois) is falling apart after receiving a mysterious phone call from a friend who tells her Hugh has been having an affair. Cathryn herself has not been happy with Hugh, and years before she took a lover, Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi), though he died some time ago in a plane crash. Thinking they both need to get away, Hugh takes Cathryn to their house in the country, where Hugh indulges in his hobbies, hunting and photography, and Cathryn works on a book of fantasy tales for children. Before long, Cathryn begins to see apparitions of the late Rene around the house, much to her consternation; while confronting her feelings about the late Rene and the wandering Hugh, Marcel (Hugh Millais), a friend of the couple who makes little secret of his attraction to Cathryn, arrives for a visit, with his daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison) in tow. As Rene's appearances become more vivid and Cathryn reaches the end of her tether, she begins to drift deeper into a fantasy world, where it's difficult to tell what is real and what is imagined. Beautifully shot on striking locations in Ireland by Vilmos Zsigmond, Images earned Susannah York an award as Best Actress at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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CinemaRianCinemaRian Images (1972, USA, Robert Altma ...
by CinemaRian in CinemaRian Blog
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"Images is an awful, awful, awful movie- frustrating, annoying and pretentious. It is what Roger Ebert calls a Jerk Around Movie- a movie that establishes one premise, only to knock it down, and then another, and another, often in altered state of reality. These movies are rarely good (Jacob's Ladder came close), but Images takes on a special kind of badness because of its pretensions. Robert Altman, the writer and director, was clearly introduced in a evoking a creepy, horror movie atmosphere, while at the same time making a "serious" psychological drama. The movie fails on both counts, for the same reason- the story is so stupid and simplistic that it we see through the obvious script and don't get involved with the characters, either to be afraid for (or of), or to root for them. The story involves a British woman named Cathryn (Susana York) who is apparently schizophrenic. She is married to Hugh (Rene Auberjonis), a caring but somewhat abrasive American. Or i ... " [More]
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
Another exploration of female psychosis akin to his earlier That Cold Day in the Park (1969) and later 3 Women (1977), Robert Altman's Images (1972) is a flawed but hypnotic journey through one woman's descent into homicidal schizophrenia. Rather than observing Susannah York's disturbed wife, Cathryn, from the outside, Altman channels the narrative of the film through her increasingly warped point of view, merging her fantasies with reality as all of the "abusers" in her life become (literally) interchangeable. The lush, sharp cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond renders Cathryn's hallucinations all the more immediate, while John Williams' remarkably low-key, Oscar-nominated score enhances the haunting atmosphere. Though Altman keeps the relationship between Cathryn's visions and the real world deliberately ambiguous and leaves her childhood trauma unexplained, some critics objected that Cathryn's ills were paradoxically too clear even as Images was willfully obtuse. A critical and financial failure despite a New York Film Festival berth and a Best Actress prize at Cannes, Images has been rarely seen since the 1970s; the studio reportedly burned the negative. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
 



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