Images (1972) User Reviews

IMAGES (Robert Altman, 1972) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 23 August 2006]

An arty horror movie is the last thing one expects from Robert Altman - although, apparently, he had already tried it out with his earlier, little-seen THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK (1969). The writer/director (itself an unusual combination for Altman, but it shows how strongly he felt about the project) himself does not think of it as such and, in any case, reviews at the time were decidedly mixed.

Even if he was "inspired" by Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA (1966), the film actually feels closer plot-wise to Roman Polanski's REPULSION (1965). Originally intended to be shot in Milan with Sophia Loren, the film definitely benefits from its picturesque Irish locations and Susannah York's fragile performance (which eventually earned her the Best Actress Award at Cannes) as a schizophrenic; she, too, was unusually committed and actually allowed a story for kids she had written - called "In Search Of Unicorns" - to be incorporated into the narrative!

The film features only five major characters and, interestingly, these are named after each of the actors themselves: so Susannah York plays Cathryn just as Cathryn Harrison (Rex's daughter, a very natural performer who later featured in another strange film - Louis Malle's BLACK MOON [1975]) plays Susannah; Marcel Bozzuffi's character is named Rene', Rene' Auberjonois is Hugh and Hugh Millais is Marcel! Of course, all this fits perfectly well with the film's theme and the characters' penchant to exchange 'faces' with each other in the mind of the disturbed protagonist; actually, this concept is pretty frightening because the lead character at one point decides to get rid of her 'ghosts' - but, not having a complete grasp on reality, one is never sure whether the victims are mere figments of her imagination or else real people!

Also essential to establishing the film's unique mood is Vilmos Zsigmond's stylish cinematography and John Williams' stark yet evocative score (interspersed with eerie sounds provided by Stomu Yamash'ta, a Japanese sound designer); even though his work here is galaxies away from Williams' renowned anthemic scores for the likes of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, he still managed to earn an Oscar nomination for it!

schizophrenic dream

[asako · 7/10 · 4 February 2007]

This film does not represent what Altman is well-known for - community mosaic or documentary style films such as "MASH", "Nashville", and "A Prairie Home Companion". Instead, Altman extended what he tried in "That Cold Day In the Park (1969)" depicting the inner world of a psychopathic woman, but his approach here is more complex. In fact, the fragmented style of the film is quite appropriate to portrait the shuttered mind of heroine.

The use of sound and the twin image of the character somewhat reminded me of "Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)" by Maya Deren. However, the visual style of this film is distinctively the seventies - beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond. A mesmerizing film.

Challenging and compelling film

[rosscinema · 8/10 · 30 March 2004]

Many film viewers consider Robert Altman as a director that allows his actors to improvise and then shoot around the loose ends and in most cases they would probably be right but this film is easily his most disciplined effort and the actors accomplished their job by sticking to the complex script. Story is about a woman named Cathryn (Susannah York) who is having a difficult time establishing what is reality and what isn't. Her husband Hugh (Rene Auberjonois) takes her to their home in the countryside of Ireland but she keeps encountering her former boyfriend Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi) who died three years ago and at times Hugh catches her speaking to herself.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

One day Hugh brings home their close friend Marcel (Hugh Millais) and his daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison) and Cathryn starts to fantasize and/or hallucinate about the sexual triangle between her and the three males in her psyche. Finally Cathryn decides to rid herself of these images by killing them but she isn't sure which of these people are real or not.

Altman fans frequently point to this film as his most polished piece of work and they may be right as not only is this technically superior but the actors are restricted to a very challenging script. This is a film that still has many unanswered questions when it ends and there are so many pieces of the puzzle left unexplained. Several clues are scattered throughout the film such as the jigsaw puzzle, the chimes, the dog, both homes, the camera, the mirrors, and probably many more. The cinematography is by the great Vilmos Zsigmond and he does two things splendidly and the first is capturing the beautiful and open countryside of Ireland. Secondly, he also shows that even in the vast landscape Cathryn feels claustrophobic and it's expertly shot with perfect composition. Susannah York gives arguably her finest performance and I've always been one of her biggest fans and I urge everyone to view her in "The Shout". While some compare this to Catherine Deneuve's performance in "Repulsion" I think it's very different and one cannot notice how energetic and aware York is in this film while Deneuve wandered around looking totally confused and even dreamlike. You can see York battling to win her senses back but it seems to be a lost cause and when the film ends it appears that she may have made a fatal mistake. Altman has also changed everyone's name around from actor to character and when you look at the credits notice how everyone's first name is flip-flopped. I wonder if this is a clue to the story or is it just Altman's wicked sense of humor? I definitely think that the young girl Susannah is a piece of the puzzle and it can't be just a coincidence that she looks exactly like Cathryn. Also, the story that Cathryn narrates during certain parts of the film is a real children's story that was written by York herself. Some viewers may find this to be totally baffling but for others that can enjoy an intelligent and challenging film they should definitely check out this well made psychological mystery.

Altman's lost dream sonata

[nunculus · 16 September 1999]

I have spent a grown lifetime seeking this 1972 Altman dreamscape, and lost all hope when a friend reported that the director told a Q-and-A audience that Columbia had mistakenly destroyed the negative. A specialty store in Santa Monica somehow found a video copy, and it was worth fifteen years' wait.

Suggestive of the tinkling, misted-over fugue states of QUINTET and THREE WOMEN, IMAGES riffs lyrically off Polanski's REPULSION. Where Polanski's film is pitched somewhere between sixties horror and the dry joke-telling of Bunuel, Altman's version is lush, druglike, sensuously baroque. Susannah York plays a children's writer in a remote Irish cottage who seems to be spending too much time indoors. (Were the movie not lost in obscurity, you might think her an antecedent for Jack Torrance and Barton Fink.) As she copes with the would-be-regular-guy puttering of her schmucky husband (Rene Auberjonois, in a role rightly intended for Michael Murphy), two other loathsome men flit into her life--the husband's buddy, an Irish lecher played by Hugh Millais, and a seemingly dead ex-lover, played by Marcel Bozzufi. As these men appear to bleed into one another in York's mind, so do they soon start bleeding into the cottage's Persian rugs.

IMAGES defines Altman as the freest and most fearless of all American moviemakers. Most critics only stand behind Altman's we-are-the-people movies--his community mosaics. But he clearly is as passionate about mapping inner worlds as outer ones, and these Expressionist chamber pieces are his most feckless works. The movie is also a reminder of what Altman lost when he stopped hiring Vilmos Zsigmond to shoot his movies. Almost no one on the planet has such an intuitively graceful and expressive shooting style, but Zsigmond's stunning work here--among his finest--reveals that it's a long walk downstairs from Zsigmond to the likes of Jean Lapine. And note should be made of the work of the youngish composer who wrote the elegant, sinewy, restrained score--a decidedly non-bombastic, anti-symphonic fellow whom we now know as John Williams.

Imperfect, but fascinating, complex early Altman

[runamokprods · 7/10 · 13 August 2010]

This is a a film I'll definitely watch again. I have the feeling it could feel even stronger on repeated viewings. A character study of a schizophrenic from inside her subjective point of view, so the whole story is told by an unreliable narrator. Some fascinating moments, and good tense twists as we (and she) wonder what's real. The film isn't wildly stylized, so the line between hallucination and reality is truly, effectively blurry. On the other hand a lot of the style feels awkwardly dated, and some story elements feel manipulative and not easy to believe. For example, she's very obviously a potentially dangerously disturbed woman, but her husband seems to barely take that in. Even if he's the supercilious prig that Rene Abougenois plays him as, his complete ignoring of her state feels like a cheat. And some twists just feel like they were 'a cool idea' at the time, but not rooted in deeper character or story elements. A little like Nic Roeg, but not at his very best. All that said, certainly a must see for any Altman fans - it's not quite like anything else he ever did - although '3 Women' could be seen in some ways as a more mature follow up.

Brilliant, Chilling, Lost Treasure.

[TheTwistedLiver · 10/10 · 9 October 2003]

Under the assumption that Altman was creatively peaking between the years 1970 and 1975, (I realize this is debatable) I sought out every film that was made during that period. Surprisingly, I could not locate the brilliant, chilling lost treasure that is the film "Images" it seemed to have simply vanished into history. Although Susannah York deservedly earned best actress at Cannes for her performance, and it was sandwiched between "The Long Goodbye" and "Mccabe and Mrs. Miller" this film, like "3 women" and "California Split", remain mysteries. Luckily, "Images" was released on DVD this past September. I immediately bought it without a second thought. I am very thankful that I did.

Images is one of those gems that make you appreciate cinema, directors and the creative process in general, because of the exploritive potential within the medium. Dredging up the inner fears and archetypes of the subconscious and weaving together what comes to the surface synergistically is Altmans vision in this film. Sadly, lately, film is about loud bangs and shiny things and very few adroitly capture the lost art of character development.

"Images" seems to be one of those films that could only have taken place in the early seventies. During the era of psychedelic drugs, the film indubitably feels as though it is on some kind of mind altering substance. It is completely trippy and unnerving. Logic seems to have flown out the window from the onset of the story. I won't give anything away, because you need to go into this film knowing nothing, or little to nothing about it, and just enjoy the ride.

May have got good ratings, but it didn't do much for me!

[The_Void · 6/10 · 6 February 2007]

Robert Altman isn't a director that you would usually associate with the horror genre - but that was what made this film all the more intriguing for yours truly. However, while Altman takes obvious influence from Roman Polanski's Repulsion - an idea good enough to spawn a good horror film and ambiguous enough to be given a different slant to the original - Altman's film really didn't do much for me. The plot concerns Cathryn; a housewife who visits a 'weekend cottage' with her husband. However, while at this tranquil location; she begins seeing various apparitions, and proceeds to kill them off one by one. The film slots into the 'slow burn horror' niche, and while this sort of film can often produce good results, this one doesn't generate a great deal of interest and as intrigue is key to the plot, it all falls down. The film deserves some plaudits for the fact that it's all of a very high quality; Altman's direction is generally strong and he gets good performances out of his cast, but this doesn't count for much when the film moves at a snail's pace. Images tends to get good ratings across the board, so perhaps I've missed something and my criticism is misplaced - but I doubt it!

Idiosyncratic masterpiece, even for Altman

[treadway237 · 10/10 · 26 July 2005]

Early one morning about two months ago, I watched IMAGES for the first time; it's still a movie memory that haunts me. The empty house I was in seemed to grow more and more cavernous as I took in this unforgettable story of a woman whose guilt and grief are driving her further into a stark inner world of madness. Yes, there are similarities to Polanski's REPULSION and even to Antonioni's BLOW-UP (in shot composition); but that is not to say it lacks a feel all its own. Altman shows his typical good judgment as a filmmaker, employing Vilmos Zsigmond as cinematographer, shooting in Panavision with rich, saturated colors oozing through each frame. He was also wise to get John Williams to compose an even-then atypically noisy score, for which the film garnered (wrongly) its only Oscar nomination. How Susannah York escaped at least a nomination as the film's star and co-writer is beyond me; her performance is one of the greatest ever committed to film. She truly seems confused, horrified, and at her wit's end. Her screams will pierce your soul. I can say more, but I will leave it at this: IMAGES is Robert Altman's neglected masterwork, a film that will scar your mind, if you have the strong countenance to endure it.

An Awkward Attempt By Altman to Tackle the Psychological Thriller

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 23 April 2007]

Robert Altman applies the same widescreen canvas he had previously used to capture the chaotic communities of a Korean War MASH unit and a primitive Pacific Northwest mining town to the quieter but no less chaotic internal workings of a troubled woman's psyche in this unsettling and uneven psychological thriller.

Susannah York plays Cathryn, wife of a distracted husband (Rene Auberjonois), whose affairs with two men (one a family friend) and her inability to have children become obsessive memories that haunt her and drive her over the brink of insanity during a stay at a quiet country home (the country is never identified, though the movie was filmed in Ireland). She begins the film as a wounded and hunted animal, jumping at every sound and image she hears or sees. One of her past lovers appears as a ghost, the other arrives at the country home with his daughter and gropes Cathryn when her husband's back is turned. The two lovers are vaguely threatening and abusive; her husband is dismissive and treats her like a child. Cathryn realizes that she can take control and kill off her unpleasant memories -- but at the same time she loses the ability to distinguish between reality and her own feverish imaginings.

On a first viewing, "Images" is absorbing and oddly fascinating, but it doesn't hold up well. For one, Cathryn isn't a compelling character, and that dooms the project from the start, since there's barely a scene in the film that doesn't revolve around her. She begins the film unhinged and really has nowhere to go from there except more unhinged. We don't learn much about her, and her illness isn't placed in any context. Susannah York delivers a shrill performance, all screeches and irrational outbursts; the male characters all come across as asses. Altman seems to be trying his hand at a feminist text, but he goes about it in the clichéd way that male artists too often address "female" issues. I think he's making some point about the way movies objectify women, turning them into "images" for the consumption of male viewers. After all, Cathryn is little more than something for the men in the film to enjoy, and cameras figure prominently in the film's mise-en-scene (Cathryn's husband is an amateur photographer). At one point, she fires one of her husband's guns (that universal symbol of male sexual power) at the ghost of her dead lover, and finds that she has instead destroyed her husband's camera. Nice try Altman, but awfully heavy handed if you ask me.

I'm a champion of Robert Altman's films, and he's never failed to fascinate me with any of his experiments, but such is the nature of experimenting that some are going to succeed more than others. "Images" came on the heels of a marvelous trio of films ("MASH," "Brewster McCloud" and "McCabe & Mrs. Miller") with which Altman announced his arrival as an important figure in American cinema, and he would follow it with four more ("The Long Goodbye," "Thieves Like Us," "California Split" and "Nashville") that would reinforce that claim, but "Images" itself is a weak link in the chain.

The stars of "Images" are the mesmerizing production design and the sterling cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond.

Grade: B

Terrifying

[mrosesteed · 9/10 · 2 March 2019]

Images is a disorienting and hallucinatory experiment in psychological horror, in which the audience is forced to share in the protagonist's confusion. In order to depict the world from her perspective, the camera becomes an unreliable narrator. The film is full of jarring editing: jumps and overlaps in time and abrupt changes in the actors in the scene. Its soundscape is a deliberate combination of realism and expressionist experience, including a recurring voiceover of the fantasy story the protagonist is writing in her head and a contrasting musical score that shifts suddenly from melodic to jangling, percussive, and eerie. Unlikely to appeal to everyone, Images is a conceptually terrifying film, effective in its execution.

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

[kirbylee70-599-526179 · 7/10 · 9 July 2018]

Growing up in the sixties and seventies I had plenty of opportunity to be exposed to some of the most well-known directors of the time. Not all since I was still too young to go to R-rated movies yet early on but then later I had the chance. Of those directors of the time one that has always surprised me is Robert Altman. I'm not saying he had no talent just that I never understood the love of the critics for nearly every movie he ever made.

Back then I saw some of his films. I loved M*A*S*H. I wasn't fond of THE BIG GOODBYE or CALIFORNIA SPLIT. I hated BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS. I never understood the mystique of NASHVILLE that remains a favorite of so many critics. Strangely enough I enjoyed QUINTET but the critics disliked it. When I heard about a movie called IMAGES back then the story sounded intriguing but I never got the chance to see it. That's been rectified with the film being released by Arrow for their Arrow Academy series.

The film stars Susannah York as Cathryn, a wealthy housewife and children's author waiting for her husband to get home one night. While waiting she receives a call from a female voice claiming that her husband Hugh (Rene Aberjonois) is with another woman. Troubled she waits for him to come home and after a shocking nightmare convinces him to take her to their country house the next day.

The two make their way there but more visions plague Cathryn. In the middle of conversations with Hugh when he dips out of sight and returns she sees another man in his place, Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi). As the film progresses we learn that Rene was a man Cathryn had an affair with who died in a car crash three years earlier. In addition to seeing Rene she sees doppelganger later looking at her from a waterfall while on a walk through the woods.

Later Hugh returns home from going shopping with two guests, Marcel (High Millais) and his 12 year old daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison). Whenever Hugh pops out of the room Marcel makes advances on Cathryn, apparently having had an affair with her as well. Unlike Rene though Marcel seems to be more inclined to be forceful, rough and more brutally physical with Cathryn.

As the film moves forward the viewer is left to decipher the difference between reality and what is in Cathryn's head as much as she is. Are these visions emotions that plague her to this day? Or are some of them real and in that case which ones? For that matter is her husband Hugh real or not? The film moves back and forth between realities and leaves you to decide for yourself, giving a hint at what must be by the film's end.

While there is a somewhat straight narrative to the story being told here at moments it jumps around as well, catapulting the viewer from the current to the past without warning. The lines between reality and the reality in Cathryn's head are blurred often and change frequently. This doesn't mean you can't follow, just that it seems strange. The end result is an interesting movie but not one that mainstream audiences would flock to. The fact that it didn't fare well at the box office confirms this. At the time Altman blamed the studio for not promoting the film. My personal guess would be that word of mouth didn't help the film.

As one of the premiere directors of the time though Altman's films deserve to be preserved. Fortunately that's taken place in the past but now this edition offers a definitive release for the film. Arrow once more shows why they are one of the top companies when it comes to items like this providing a brand-new 4K restoration from the original negative made just for this release. They also made sure there were plenty of extras on hand as well including an audio commentary by Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger, scene-select commentary by Altman, an interview with Altman, a brand new interview with Cathryn Harrison, an appreciation by musician and author Stephen Thrower, the theatrical trailer, a reversible sleeve with new artwork by Twins of Evil and for the first pressing only an illustrated collector's booklet with new writing on the film by Carman Gray and an extract from ALTMAN ON ALTMAN.

Fans of the director will want to add this one to their collection. If you've never seen the film before it is worth watching and perhaps one of his more direct films to enjoy in spite of the jumping back and forth in time and reality. It's entertaining enough and is definitely worth at least one viewing.

The mirror crack'd

[drownsoda90 · 9/10 · 9 September 2014]

Altman's little-seen psychological thriller, "Images," takes on the plot of a woman working on a children's book. One night, she receives a series of mysterious phone calls from a woman who tells her that her husband is cheating on her. After the probability of this is dismissed, she retreats to a country farmhouse with her husband to work, where she is visited by a series of people from her past, as the line between reality and fantasy is continually blurred.

Perhaps less thick with dream fog than "3 Women" but ten times more unnerving, "Images" is a film that truly hasn't gotten the audience it deserves. It's two parts art film and two parts psychological horror, while Altman toes the line the entire way through. Taking cues from Ingmar Bergman as well as Polanski, it's an incredibly bizarre film, especially when taken as a cohesive piece; but the real strength of it lies in the effective cinematography and the successive sequences that could almost stand as monumental short films all on their own. Slick cinematography amplifies the reality (or unreality) of the film, with characters changing bodies between shots, and Cathryn's husband walking through a swinging door only to return as her dead ex-lover.

It's precisely this jarring technique that really make this work as a horror film and elicit true moments of shock and fear; we don't know what to expect from one moment to the next, just as Cathryn doesn't. It's a film of doubling, identity, and hallucination— Cathryn sits at the bottom of a waterfall writing, while the camera pans down river to Cathryn sitting on the edge of a bluff, watching herself write. Which Cathryn is the "real" Cathryn? Who is Cathryn? Is her ex- lover dead? Why have her husband's friend and his doppelgänger daughter come to visit? It's the these questions that haunt the audience throughout, and remain with you after the shocking final scene.

Many have referred to "Images" as a portrait, even Altman himself, and I can think of no more accurate description. In many ways, it is a series of portraits; shards of a broken mirror that are haphazardly put back together. It's one of the most haunting and obscure films of the '70s, brimming with atmosphere, lush cinematography, and truly effective recreations of the schizophrenic mind. Susannah York's performance as Cathryn is the icing on the cake here, full of vulnerability and incognizant power. Fans of bleak psychological films will be particularly rewarded here, as well as admirers of Bergman and Altman alike. 9/10.

A horror film by Robert Altman!

[preppy-3 · 7/10 · 30 March 2018]

Altman's only horror film. It stars Susannah York as a woman suffering from schizophrenia. She's married but keeps seeing--and hearing--dead lovers from the past who torment her. Then she starts seeing people who are still alive and can't tell if they're real or not. What will she do?

Unsettling film. It's shot in stark, bleak landscapes and has a VERY unnerving score from a young John Williams. This is unlike anything Altman ever did. Him and York in fact wrote the movie together. The acting is excellent and the film has a satisfying ending. It was not a big success and Altman never tried another film like this. It's fallen into obscurity which is a shame--it's really not that bad. Worth a look.

"I'm not going to be able to finish this puzzle...there are too many pieces missing."

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 9 September 2009]

Robert Altman wrote and directed--and misfired--with this psychological thriller about a wealthy female schizophrenic. Susannah York, an interesting actress (though not so interesting as to make this artistic jumble take hold), plays the future author of a children's book about unicorns who is upset one night by repeat calls informing her that her husband is having an affair; she begins imaging other lovers in her husband's place, splintering herself off from reality. Gorgeous cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, working the wintry landscapes of Dublin, Ireland with a painter's finesse, adorns the picture with prestige; however, enlightenment into our heroine does not follow. This is a rich person's prism, a slick fantasy of ghosts and musical chairs, the kind of which only seem to affect the well-heeled and bored. With two homes to vacillate between (and no pressing engagements), York's character begins to seem stultified rather than schizophrenic, and the scenario is underpopulated and lax. John Williams received an Oscar nomination for his percussive score, but nerves can hardly be jangled when the script is stuck in such a plushy muddle. ** from ****

Composite Images

[tieman64 · 17 March 2009]

Robert Altman's generally thought of as a weak visualist, his films messy, shapeless and dialogue driven. This is not quite true. And even if it were, there has always been another side to Altman; films like "3 Women" and "Images" single him out as a strong surrealist, adept and spooky imagery and menacing atmosphere. Indeed, "Images" sometimes seems like it was ghost directed by Roman Polanski or Luis Bunuel.

The plot? Cathryn and her husband Hugh spend a few days in a spooky country house. She suffers from delusional disorder, "images of past lovers" spontaneously popping into her head. Like Altman's "3 Women", there are hints of temporal displacement, characters merging and occupying the same spaces or conversing with little girls who may or may not be their own younger selves.

Is Cathryn crazy? Are supernatural forces at work? Is her mind being consumed by guilt? Why not all three? Cathryn seems to have had an adulterous affair with a French man called Rene. He died in a plane crash but returns as an "image" to haunt her. Meanwhile, Cathryn's infidelity is personified as Marcel, a large brute of a man who constantly tries to force himself upon her. Meanwhile Marcel's wife, an unseen character who we know had affairs, has divorced him, but not before having a young child, a girl who is herself the splitting image of Cathryn.

Continuing with the theme of images, Cathryn's husband is a photographer whilst she is an author. The film's soundtrack often consists of Cathryn narrating one of her books, the audience forced to conjure up images to the words she reads.

So what are we to make of this? Cathryn and her husband are image-makers. Cathryn, because of her overactive imagination, imagines that her husband is having an affair. These thoughts, fuelled by her own past infidelities, attack her as "images". In order to restore her sanity, Cathryn thus murders her "image" of Rene and her "image" of Marcel. Finally cured, she drives to her husband before encountering an "image" of herself on the road. The implication is that Cathryn must now destroy her "image", confronting the paranoid source of these monsters. And so Cathryn pushes her own "image" off a cliff. With this symbolic suicide, she is now free. But we then learn that the final "image" was not a self-image at all. It was her husband whom Cathryn encountered and murdered on the road. And so the film ends with a reversal of the classic Hitchcock shower scene. Cathryn faces a deadly "image" of herself; she is the monster, her delusions fragments of her own warped persona.

Altman hints at this by naming his 5 characters after the actors who play them. They're not only "images", but "composite images". Marcel Bozzuffi plays "Rene", but "Rene" is the name of actor Rene Auberjonois who plays "Hugh", "Hugh" being the first name of Hugh Millais, the actor who plays "Marcel". Similarly, Susannah York plays "Cathryn", whilst the actress Cathryn Harrison plays a "Susannah".

8/10 – Eerily similar to "3 Women", this is essentially an art house thriller. The film seems to have inspired the end of Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", in which Travis Bickle famously sees himself in his car's rear view mirror. Altman's female psycho does this as well, complete with that familiar little audio zing.

"I think it's the unicorn's fault..."

[RodrigAndrisan · 7/10 · 18 May 2020]

What is life! By the time I write these lines, I find out that all the actors in this movie are dead. Cathryn Harrison, only 13, makes her film debut here. John Morley, the old man with the dog, appears instead in his last role in a film. The unique Marcel Bozzuffi and Hugh Millais, they both have some frustrating roles, they are both killed by Susannah York's character. The very prolific Rene Auberjonois, who has collaborated with Altman in several films, has a more consistent role. The image of the master Vilmos Zsigmond ("McCabe & Mrs. Miller", "The Sugarland Express", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "The Deer Hunter", to name just 4 of his many masterpieces), is exceptional. The music of John Williams and Stomu Yamashta (both great musicians), is also very special. The great Susannah York from absolute masterpieces like "A Man for All Seasons" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", also demonstrates to Robert Altman (another unique filmmaker) and to all of us, what a great actress she is, in a difficult role, in a difficult film, a film that is not for everyone, but only for the stubborn enthusiasts of the 7th art. I don't consider it a masterpiece, but Susannah York's interpretation, the atmosphere created by Altman, the music and the image, make the film worth watching.

Out of Her Head and No Where to Go

[Bob-45 · 6/10 · 29 December 2004]

Robert Altman created the greatest film about madness ever made. It is called "M*A*S*H," and it is MUCH better a "head study" than this rather pretentious swill. Actually, "swill" is too harsh; "Images" is better than that. It boast fine performances, eerie sound effects and lots of atmosphere. It's just not very interesting. Like Jack Nicholson's doomed character in "The Shining," Susannah York's character is just too far gone in the beginning for either her or the movie to develop. This lack of development eventually becomes tedious, which undermines what could have been a shock ending. Wanta see something better along the same lines? Try "Mulholland Drive," which manages to be both compelling AND suspenseful.

I give "Images" a "6," and remind Altman he STILL hasn't made a better movie than "M*A*S*H".

A nice nightmare

[pmdawn · 6/10 · 13 July 2008]

I'm not really familiar with Robert Altman - I liked Gosford Park, but that's it. However, the plot summary intrigued me enough to check this long lost film.

Yes, like all the other reviews say, there are obvious parallels with "Persona" and "Repulsion". It's the kind of movie that messes with your mind, and I love movies like this. I would like to add that the eerie, bizarre atmosphere of this movie reminded me of David Lynch.

We see the movie through the eyes of a schizophrenic woman, and just thinking that someone in real life can go through this gives me shivers. It's also what I like to call a "hallucinogenic" movie, in which the dreamy scenery, the incredible camera work and the twisted dialogue play as if you were on a psychedelic substance.

Susannah York gives a strong performance, and the beautiful Cathryn Harrison also make this movie worth viewing.

If you like surreal movies, with a haunting atmosphere or psychological subjects, do yourself a favor and dig this good arty flick up. Others should not bother.

6/10

a trend-setting thriller as a sound testament that Robert Altman is a virtuoso all-rounder

[lasttimeisaw · 8/10 · 9 April 2016]

Shot in Ireland with only two major locations and a micro cast of six, Robert Altman's IMAGES is a visually innovative, narratively intriguing and thematically cohesive probe into a woman's slow descending into schizophrenia, with a phenomenal leading performance from Susannah York (crowned BEST ACTRESS in Cannes), which also revealingly exhibits Altman's protean sleight of hand.

York plays a minted woman Cathryn, a children's author who is currently writing a new book named IN SEARCH OF UNICORNS, which is in fact written by York and Altman applies its text extensively in the diegesis, notably in paralleled with reality, to emphasize on Cathryn's aberrant mind composed with her own imagination. After disturbed by a ostensible series of prank calls and the startling illusions of her dead French lover Rene (Bozzuffi), Cathryn and her husband Hugh (Auberjonois) retreat to her country house where she grew up, a bucolic haven with mountains, cascades and a herd of sheep. There they also reunite with their common friend Marcel (Millais), who is also Cathryn's old-flame, and his teenage daughter Susannah (Harrison), yes, the first names of the five main characters are coined according to the real names of their co-stars. But illusions are tailing her, she sees a double of herself and soon will be embroiled into the complicated sex entanglement with all three men, obviously Rene is dead, Hugh is real, and Marcel seems to be real too, but what about his aggressive intention to get intimate with her, is that also real?

Determined to get rid of the bedeviling hallucinations, Cathryn executes "corrective killings" to regain the grasp of her senses and secure her marriage, after two apparently successful clearance, it seems that she is back on the right track to normality, but a fatal third action will prove everything has gone awry, a chilling ending reveals that schizophrenia has completely seized her psyche.

Shot by the late maestro Vilmos Zsigmond, IMAGES exhibits his nimbleness of lurking his camera within a confined space, and the surreal segments are fantastically otherworldly, namely, the sex scenes rotates among Cathryn with her three different mates are aesthetically uncanny, and strategises crystal chimes as an indelible cue to provoke Cathryn's delusional condition. John William's eerie score portentously captures Cathryn's emotional upheaval and the mysterious atmosphere, and earned him an Oscar nomination (after all, the movie is not entirely snubbed by the Academy).

Susannah York, occupies almost every single scene of the movie, stoutly calls forth the most daring performance of her lifetime, perpetually tormented by apparitions and descending into her own segregated universe with no one to turn to, she feistily fights a losing battle all by herself, it is a helluva display of bravura to behold, where the final revelation in her shower scene is so powerful that it is evocative of her terrific Oscar-nominated turn in Sydney Pollack's THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (1969).

Overall, IMAGES can be read as a think piece against the overlooked symptoms of mental illness, and a trend-setting thriller as a sound testament that Robert Altman is a virtuoso all-rounder, and left us so many cinematic legacies to hold in esteem!

A Psychological English Fog

[ThurstonHunger · 7/10 · 16 February 2008]

An audacious title for a film? But ultimately a playful rather than presumptuous outing. Well, as "playful" as a trickster god can be with one of his subjects, or as a filmmaker can be with the fragile psyche of his subject.

The "images" in the film often settle on glass objects, several times focusing the frame on a camera's lens to make the symbol as transparent as can be. We are reminded that how we see things, the medium we look through, is crucial. Thus how the main character, Catherine, here views the world is shown to be unreliable.

The suspense of the film mounted strongly for me in the first half, it avoids being a mere whodunnit in favor of whodonewhat, if anyone did anything. Susannah York I thought was excellent as the jittery lead, and having her cast as a children's fantasy writer was a nice touch. Somehow that made her seem more susceptible to madness and a break from reality. Her psychosis seems to have a sexual link, if that pushes your buttons.

Reading in bits of her fantasy over the film might bother folks (those who hate any sort of narration), but here the fact that the narration has nothing to do with what is on screen again underscores that sort of madness. We all have been doing one thing while thinking of another, but by and large the doing part is dominant. Here the dubbed in narration makes it feel like the thinking is eclipsing the doing.

The male characters all have a seventies stiffness, especially Rene Auberjonois who seemed like he was taken from a cassette on how to talk like and be a successful US businessman. Not sure if that bugged me as much as trying to place him as the younger version of the shape-shifting Constable Odo. Allegedly Altman wanted Sophia Loren once in the female role, but I think York was the better choice, as her sultriness unwraps itself more surprisingly. Sophia's genie would be hard to keep in the bottle.

Overall a pleasant surprise to me, the video quality of my rental from Netflix was not as splotchy as others' copies, but the idea of this being a good rainy day watch, I'll second. The first half was an 8, the second a 6...so...

7/10 Thurston Hunger

A brilliant and disturbing journey inside one woman's mind

[Galina_movie_fan · 8/10 · 14 August 2006]

"Images" is another great movie from the master of the living paintings, Robert Altman. It is a brilliant, scary, beautiful, and very disturbing journey inside one woman's mind that was leaving her as the movie progressed. What we saw was not a ghost story but a very real descent to the world of nightmares and monsters that would not stop torturing the struggling and guilty mind for a second.

Susannah York as Cathryn, a young, beautiful writer who tries to finish a children's book in a remote country home is simply breathtaking. She carries the movie (which only has five characters) almost by herself and being present in every scene, she is equally sympathetic and frightening. In his interview on DVD, Altman mentioned that he had started making the movie in Milan with Sophia Lauren. As much as I admire Lauren, I don't see anyone other than York playing Cathryn. While watching her, I kept thinking of her Alice in Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Alice, one of the participants and victims of a killing dance marathon, loses her mind by the end of the movie and the scene where she breaks down mentally, was heartbreaking. Altman himself reminded me of the witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth that would throw all kinds of ingredients in their cauldron. The director mentioned how he would add the new details to the script as the real life situations changed: York was writing the children's book about Unicorns at the time - we can hear the long parts of her book in the background. I am not too crazy about the book but the idea seems to be brilliant. York had informed Altman that she could not make the movie because she was pregnant but Altman just decided to add her pregnancy to the script. There is some dry humor in the movie - all five characters have the first names of the actors who played them: Susannah played Cathryn and young Cathryn Harrison plays a girl named Susannah, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi, and Hugh Millais played three men in Cathryn's life - Hugh, the husband, Rene - the neighbor, and Marcel, her dead lover (who was quite alive for a dead man, at least in her memory). John Williams wrote an absolutely unforgettable score for the film (it is not a melody, rather some strange, persistent, scary, and disturbing sounds - very experimental at the time, it is still quite unusual).

As for its visual site - the film that was made during one wet November in Ireland is brilliantly dark and hypnotizingly beautiful. I am jealous of everyone who was able to see it in all its glory on the big screen at the theater - it would be impossible to forget.

8/10

Intriquing but mindnumbingly incoherent....intentionally.

[Otkon · 5/10 · 7 December 2021]

I guess the disoriented feeling is part of its design. But I am mentally exhausted watching this film once. And I doubt multiple viewings in order to decipher it will prove fruitful or productive. The Irish countryside is resplendently quaint though.