Altman and co-writer Frank Barhydt do their darndest to replicate the capricious nature of Raymond Carver's short stories; we never know whether a particular incident will become central to the story, or turn out to be just another random occurrence. The film starts and ends with quintessential Los Angeles events, Malathion spraying for the Medfly and a heavy-duty earthquake of the kind that takes Angelenos by surprise every twenty years or so.
A rough synopsis can only suggest the film's complexity. Waitress Doreen Piggot (Lily Tomlin) hits a child with her car, and frets when he runs away claiming he's unharmed. The kid then falls into a coma, which sends his parents Ann and Howard Finnigan (Andie MacDowall and Bruce Davison) into a panic mode that isn't helped when Howard's estranged father Paul (Jack Lemmon) suddenly chooses to come back into their lives. Unemployed salesman Stuart Kane (Fred Ward) and his wife Claire, a children's party clown (Anne Archer) make a dinner date with the Finnegans' doctor Ralph Wyman (Matthew Modine) and his artist wife Marian (Julianne Moore). Stuart takes off on a fishing trip with two buddies; they find a dead woman's body in the river but wait two days to report it, until they've caught their limit. Phone-sex worker Lois Kaiser (Jennifer Jason Leigh) doesn't realize her job is having a negative effect on her husband Jerry, a pool guy (Chris Penn) who works for night club singer Tess Trainer (Annie Ross), whose daughter Zoe (Lori Singer) plays the cello and is deeply concerned about the Finnegans, her neighbors. Jerry Kaiser is also the best friend of makeup artist Bill Bush (Robert Downey Jr.) who cheats on his wife Honey (Lili Taylor). Finally, divorced mother Betty Weathers (Frances McDormand) is seeing married policeman Gene Shepard (Tim Robbins), much to the consternation of Gene's wife Sherri (Madeleine Stow) and Betty's ex Stormy, who happens to be one of the helicopter pilots spraying Malathion (Peter Gallagher).
The tangles continue. Sherri Shepard is a friend of Marian Wyman. Claire Kane gets her birthday cakes from the same unhappy baker that the Finnegans frequent, Andy Bitkower (Lyle Lovett). Honey Bush's photos of her husband's gruesome makeups get switched with the snapshots of the dead body in the river taken by Stuart Kane's fishing pals Gordon and Vern (Buck Henry and Huey Lewis). The fishermen also like to stop at Doreen Piggot's cafe to ogle her short waitress dress, much to the consternation of Doreen's alcoholic husband, Earl (Tom Waits).
That mass of relationships explains why the whimsically titled Short Cuts is three hours long. Beautifully crafted, the film interweaves its various subplots without bothering to make the frequent character intersections any more meaningful than the random nature of life itself; the effect is a sprawling mosaic of Los Angeles life, from the unemployeds through the wannabes up to the more successful citizens in their hilltop houses.
To say the characters are richly drawn is an understatement as the talent arrayed here is staggering. There isn't an inappropriate actor in the bunch. Tim Robbins plays an atypically obnoxious cop, while Jennifer Jason Leigh's porn-spouting young mother is certainly disturbing. And you can feel the inner conflict in roles like Anne Archer's disappointed wife, or Frances McDormand's desperate single mother. It's all done without hype or grandstanding for Oscars, and Altman's careful direction plays to the narrative. He avoids showoff effects and overreaching dramatic fireworks of the kind seen in the trashy, mostly false potboiler Magnolia.
It was easy to take potshots at some of Altman's 70s films, many of which (Nashville, Buffalo Bill and the Indians) seemed to be directed by training five telephoto cameramen on a complicated scene, saying 'action,' and trying to stay in focus. In Short Cuts Altman has opted to go for a carefully controlled illusion of random events, as opposed to the disorganized real thing. Cuts do more than just recharge scenes that have run dry. Subtle character reactions are carefully nurtured while broader actions, like the Finnegan boy's accident, are covered in unbroken long takes.
There's a lot of sex in the film both wayward and faithful. In most of the pairings, at least one partner is looking elsewhere out of boredom. The unstable characters played by Robert Downey Jr., Chris Penn, Peter Gallagher and Tim Robbins demonstrate a capacity for violence that creates an uncomfortable tension. Altman keeps this all going, perhaps showing his own preferences through the recurring use of frequent female nudity. The film's success can be measured in the fact that it does indeed play as a series of interlocking short stories, little slices of drama that can change from the absurd to the tragic on a moment's notice, all tied together with smoky jazz music from Annie Ross and the Low Note Quintet.
Criterion's 2-disc DVD set of Short Cuts is almost exhausting in its thoroughness. There is no commentary but Altman is well represented in a feature-length making-of docu, along with many of his stars. Author Raymond Carver is also covered through several shorter featurettes and a 60 minute audio interview from 1983. There a number of deleted scenes and original demo recordings of some of the songs in the movie. One extra shows over sixty graphic concepts for unused marketing campaigns. Finally, there's a specially-printed edition of Short Cuts, Carver's collection of short stories assembled as a companion to the movie.
Short Cuts was also prophetic: Only a few months after its release, Los Angeles was hit by a major earthquake like the one depicted at the end of the movie.
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by Glenn Erickson
