SOURCE: "The Role of the Writer in The Player: Novel and Film," in Literature/Film Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1994, pp. 11-5.

In the following essay, Sugg traces the role of the writer in Altman's The Player as compared to his role in the novel of the same name.

Though the novel The Player was written first, the film precedes the novel in most of the audience's consciousness, for few who see the film will have read the novel. So let's consider how the writer is presented in the film, and how our understanding of these changes from novel to film helps us see more clearly Robert Altman's ultimate purposes and their achievement in the film. Three sequences are of especial importance to establishing the role of the writer in the film. The first is the opening eight-minute-long shot, which satirizes the Hollywood image production system as well as the...