"We have lost interest in our Constitution and democratic ideals. None of this has made us happier, wealthier, healthier, safer or better custodians of this land." - Sam Smith
"If it moves, tax it." – Ronald Reagan
A satire of the 1980 American presidential campaign, Robert Altman's "HealtH" takes place entirely within a glitzy Florida hotel, and uses a zany health food convention as an allegory for the various deceptive, dishonest and downright bizarre political manoeuvrings which typically occur during an election year.
Despite the film's title, an acronym for "Happiness, Energy And Longevity Through Health", Altman seeks not only to mock the health and fitness craze of the early 80s, with its fad diets and grotesque leotards, but to deride those "sickly people" responsible for looking after a country's "health" and "productivity". The "candidates" running for "election" at this health food convention are thus a trio of emotionally and intellectually challenged oddballs, one a 83 year old virgin who occasionally slips into a catatonic state, and another a pseudo-intellectual transgender. Rallying against what he sees to be an unfair two party system, which allows voters to choose only between a pair of idiots, is an "independent candidate" called Dr Gil Gainey. But Gainey is so ignored by the media that he relies on spectacular stunts to garner whatever publicity he can, and when the cameras do finally turn to him, he simply reveals himself to be yet another scheming huckster.
The film is anarchic, but Altman's humour is so deadpan and his various symbolic episodes so difficult to read, that the film's overall tone is one of monotony. All the usual Robert Altman traits are here - layered dialogue, multi-threaded plot lines, ensemble casts and a style in which a roaming camera floats from one nodule to the next, stumbling upon bits and pieces of a "story" which is non-defined and left up to the viewer to synthesise – but rather than enrich his tale, Altman's sprawling style seems to dilute the film's satirical and comedic edge.
But though the film doesn't work as drama, comedy or satire, for those willing to pay close attention to what is actually going on, some pretty timely themes begin to appear. Observe, for example, how Altman has Texan businessmen controlling the film's election. Observe how the votes are rigged and the film's electoral outcome already predetermined. Observe too how the "next convention" at the hotel is a "hypnotism convention" (implying that the nation's acceptance of the presidency is a kind of sham or mass delusion), how various motifs hint of the assassinations of "third party candidates", how Altman deftly aligns politics with show business, how completely disillusioned the film's ending is (despite its upbeat facade), how the lead characters symbolise America's cultural shift away from the liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s, how the "health food" candidates are either staunch adversaries of consumer capitalism or exude the kind of passivity and doped up self-satisfaction of Reaganism and how the film anticipates today's "prozac nation", the allure of health fads and anti-depressants the dark underside of a system that is wholly unhealthy. And of course Altman has always been great - particularly in his terrible films - in the way he captures the increasingly simulacral fakeness of contemporary capitalism.
For this reason, the capitalisation of the second H in the film's title ("HealtH") is very important. With the second "Health" capitalised, the film's title becomes an acronym within an acronym, meaning (quite paradoxically) "Happiness, Energy and Longevity Through Happiness, Energy and Longevity". In other words, the American Dream through believing in the American Dream. This was a common theme for Altman, many of his films dealing with a nest of characters whose faith in the ubiquitous virtues of the market is seen to be as monomaniacal and psychotic as the creeds of religious fundamentalists.
Like Altman's "California Split", "HealtH" is therefore not only about national/personal health, but national/personal addiction, where the cure for capitalism's discontents is itself "the cause of the problem" (think the miracle drug Prozac, which relies upon repeated acts of commodity consumption).
So everyone in this film, like "California Split", is "normal" despite being an addict in some way. As "addiction" is a process which converts human pleasure into a kind of consumer dependency, it's unsurprising that consumer capitalism is the economic system in which addictions have diversified and awareness of addiction itself has become commonplace. Not only does capitalism encourage its users to become dependent upon a particular form of repetitive action, it is in capitalism's interest to engender addictive dependency in its subjects in order to maintain itself and produce the illusion that there is no alternative.
Incidentally, this film was shelved for a number of years and didn't receive a mainstream release. Altman's next film, "Popeye", was a big box office hit, but he'd spend the 80s filming stage plays, TV shows or very small productions.
6/10 – Prophetic but ponderous. Worth one viewing.
"If it moves, tax it." – Ronald Reagan
A satire of the 1980 American presidential campaign, Robert Altman's "HealtH" takes place entirely within a glitzy Florida hotel, and uses a zany health food convention as an allegory for the various deceptive, dishonest and downright bizarre political manoeuvrings which typically occur during an election year.
Despite the film's title, an acronym for "Happiness, Energy And Longevity Through Health", Altman seeks not only to mock the health and fitness craze of the early 80s, with its fad diets and grotesque leotards, but to deride those "sickly people" responsible for looking after a country's "health" and "productivity". The "candidates" running for "election" at this health food convention are thus a trio of emotionally and intellectually challenged oddballs, one a 83 year old virgin who occasionally slips into a catatonic state, and another a pseudo-intellectual transgender. Rallying against what he sees to be an unfair two party system, which allows voters to choose only between a pair of idiots, is an "independent candidate" called Dr Gil Gainey. But Gainey is so ignored by the media that he relies on spectacular stunts to garner whatever publicity he can, and when the cameras do finally turn to him, he simply reveals himself to be yet another scheming huckster.
The film is anarchic, but Altman's humour is so deadpan and his various symbolic episodes so difficult to read, that the film's overall tone is one of monotony. All the usual Robert Altman traits are here - layered dialogue, multi-threaded plot lines, ensemble casts and a style in which a roaming camera floats from one nodule to the next, stumbling upon bits and pieces of a "story" which is non-defined and left up to the viewer to synthesise – but rather than enrich his tale, Altman's sprawling style seems to dilute the film's satirical and comedic edge.
But though the film doesn't work as drama, comedy or satire, for those willing to pay close attention to what is actually going on, some pretty timely themes begin to appear. Observe, for example, how Altman has Texan businessmen controlling the film's election. Observe how the votes are rigged and the film's electoral outcome already predetermined. Observe too how the "next convention" at the hotel is a "hypnotism convention" (implying that the nation's acceptance of the presidency is a kind of sham or mass delusion), how various motifs hint of the assassinations of "third party candidates", how Altman deftly aligns politics with show business, how completely disillusioned the film's ending is (despite its upbeat facade), how the lead characters symbolise America's cultural shift away from the liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s, how the "health food" candidates are either staunch adversaries of consumer capitalism or exude the kind of passivity and doped up self-satisfaction of Reaganism and how the film anticipates today's "prozac nation", the allure of health fads and anti-depressants the dark underside of a system that is wholly unhealthy. And of course Altman has always been great - particularly in his terrible films - in the way he captures the increasingly simulacral fakeness of contemporary capitalism.
For this reason, the capitalisation of the second H in the film's title ("HealtH") is very important. With the second "Health" capitalised, the film's title becomes an acronym within an acronym, meaning (quite paradoxically) "Happiness, Energy and Longevity Through Happiness, Energy and Longevity". In other words, the American Dream through believing in the American Dream. This was a common theme for Altman, many of his films dealing with a nest of characters whose faith in the ubiquitous virtues of the market is seen to be as monomaniacal and psychotic as the creeds of religious fundamentalists.
Like Altman's "California Split", "HealtH" is therefore not only about national/personal health, but national/personal addiction, where the cure for capitalism's discontents is itself "the cause of the problem" (think the miracle drug Prozac, which relies upon repeated acts of commodity consumption).
So everyone in this film, like "California Split", is "normal" despite being an addict in some way. As "addiction" is a process which converts human pleasure into a kind of consumer dependency, it's unsurprising that consumer capitalism is the economic system in which addictions have diversified and awareness of addiction itself has become commonplace. Not only does capitalism encourage its users to become dependent upon a particular form of repetitive action, it is in capitalism's interest to engender addictive dependency in its subjects in order to maintain itself and produce the illusion that there is no alternative.
Incidentally, this film was shelved for a number of years and didn't receive a mainstream release. Altman's next film, "Popeye", was a big box office hit, but he'd spend the 80s filming stage plays, TV shows or very small productions.
6/10 – Prophetic but ponderous. Worth one viewing.