Brewster McCloud
Directed by Robert Altman
Written by Doran William Cannon
1970/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime Rental
The Lecturer: In these words, the German poet Goethe expressed man’s desire to fly, “How I yearn to throw myself into endless space and float above the awful abyss.”
A murder mystery with no solution, a fairy tale with no happy ending, and all around chaos mark this early work by director Robert Altman.
The film is set in an alternative universe somewhat similar to that we know. The film is intersper)ed with meditations on flight and the characteristics of various birds by a crazed Lecturer (Rene Auberjonois). Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort) lives in a fall-out shelter in the Huston Astrodome. There he works on a contraption that will allow him to fly like a bird. He is assisted in this by mysterious beauty Louise (Sally Kellerman). Meanwhile, various people that have crossed Brewster are found strangled and covered in guano.
Louise warns Brewster not to have sex because that will interfere with his flying. But Brewster succumbs to the advances of Astrodrome tour guide Suzanne (Shelley Duvall). Suzanne’s talents as a race-car driver come in handy in the inevitable car chase. With a cast of thousands including Margaret Hamilton as an old crone, Stacey Keach as Brewster’s ancient boss, William Windom as a pillar of the community, and Michael Murphy as Frank Shaft, a San Francisco cop brought in to help in the murder investigation.
Altman throws in every off-beat idea he can come up with plus a bunch of movie homage and winds up with something that is mildly amusing if not particularly great. It probably didn’t help that he threw out the entire screenplay and made things up as he went along. Bud Cort already had his “Harold” persona perfected by this time and is quite good.
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