That Cold Day in the Park

Robert Altman – 1969 – USA 

It may not seem like it at first glance, but That Cold Day in the Park is a significant film. It’s not the first film that Robert Altman directed but it is the first “Altman film,” an honor that is usually reserved for his immediately following film, M*A*S*H (1970). M*A*S*H has the scope, bustle and satire that Altman become known for, but That Cold Day in the Park boasts the debut of nearly all of the trademarks of Altman’s signature style, so much so that it seems a quantum leap from his immediately preceding film, Countdown (1968), which looks like a TV show and has little evidence of Altman’s hand save for the presence of actor Michael Murphy and a smidge of overlapping dialogue. In this film, a modest psychological drama between only two main characters in a confined space, Altman throughout showcases his eavesdropping techniques with both sound and visuals. Rarely are shots of characters head on; they are always filtered, either through windows or screens, or just beyond items going in and out of focus in the foreground. In one remarkable scene, Altman’s camera remains outdoors while shooting into a doctor's office and following a character as she moves from room to room before finally becoming conscious of her vulnerability to prying eyes and closes the blinds. (The same approach would guide the famous opening of The Player years later as well.) Altman’s roving, curious, endlessly zooming camera is one of his most recognizable devices, and it’s the dominating motif of That Cold Day in the Park, (a film about strangers interacting with spikes out for the entire story and never actually understanding each other), and it appears out of nowhere, without any precedent (as far as I know) in Countdown or any of his earlier work. The film is also significant as the first of what several critics have identified as a series of feminist films that focus on women dealing with some fairly severe emotional problems; others being the Bergman-esque Images (1972) and the full-fledged masterpiece 3 Women (1977). Sandy Dennis plays Frances Austen, a highly repressed Canadian spinster who one day spots and takes interest in an unnamed younger man (Michael Burns) sitting in the rain on a park bench. Soon commences a dance between them that quickly moves from sexual tension to an all-out war of wills in which violence seems the only inevitable outcome. Completely on its own merits, the film is not incredibly substantial, but I consider it comparable to other modest dramas of the burgeoning American New Wave in the 60s, such as Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People (1969). Between this film and M*A*S*H, you have a complete introduction to the diversity of attitudes and interests that characterize Altman’s cinema.