Apart from their intrinsic quality (often very high indeed) Altman's films are interesting by virtue of their centrality to the development of the American cinema, their synthesis of contemporary tendencies. First, Altman is very conscious of his legacy; a number of his films are overtly retrospective, establishing their significance through their relation (half-homage, half-sardonic critique) to the Hollywood past….

Second, that awareness of the European cinema that marks one of the decisive differences between the American cinema of today and the Hollywood of the studio/star/genre system—the increase in artistic consciousness or self-consciousness and the rise of the director as the recognized prime determinant of quality—is especially strong in Altman. One can recognize an Altman film as one can a Fellini or Antonioni—from its stylistic self-assertion.

Third, an equally conscious contemporaneity, a desire to capture impressionistically the mood of the age, dominates those films...