Oct. 12
1606.) The Deceased Artiste department makes a return, as I pay tribute to the first decade of Shelley Duvall’s career by discussing and showing excerpts from her work with Robert Altman. Duvall was discovered by Altman while he was making his very unconventional comedy Brewster McCloud (1970); she went on to feature in his work up to 1980, when she costarred in Popeye (the film that was labelled a “box office bomb” but actually was a big success money-wise in the U.S and worldwide, and one of Altman’s biggest grossers). Sure, she had two side gigs, one small (Annie Hall) and one that loomed large in her legend (The Shining, where Stanley clearly decided he had to treat her the way Jack treated Wendy), but the films with Altman were her greatest legacy. They found her playing more and more complicated roles, from the hippie chick of McCloud to the failed “Cosmo” reader of 3 Women (1977) who ends up the leader of a family of women. In the process, Shelley established herself as an excellent actress who was also one of American cinema’s more unconventional beauties. As a bonus, I include a post-Altman clip of Duvall acting for premier fantasist (and Funhouse interview subject) Guy Maddin in the late 1990s.
