SOURCE: "A Fishy Lot, Mankind," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4745, March 11, 1994, p. 21.

In the following review, Shone discusses the relationship between Raymond Carver's short stories and Altman's adaptation of them in his film Short Cuts, and asserts that "the union of writer and director is occasionally rocky, may in some cases have needed a little more guidance, but it has a weathered solidity."

There is a moment in the first half-hour of Short Cuts, Robert Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver's short stories, when a man on a fishing trip with his buddies, having set up camp by a river, flips down the hinged shades of his glasses with a casual flick of his forefinger. It's a brilliantly mock-heroic gesture—a grey old man is suddenly transformed into something mean, menacing and ready to do battle with trout. Among American directors, Altman is almost alone in getting such...