Mark Turner Growing up in the sixties and seventies I had plenty of opportunity to be exposed to some of the most well-known directors of the time. Not all since I was still too young to go to R-rated movies yet early on but then later I had the chance. Of those directors of the time one that has always surprised me is Robert Altman. I'm not saying he had no talent just that I never understood the love of the critics for nearly every movie he ever made.Back then I saw some of his films. I loved M*A*S*H. I wasn't fond of THE BIG GOODBYE or CALIFORNIA SPLIT. I hated BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS. I never understood the mystique of NASHVILLE that remains a favorite of so many critics. Strangely enough I enjoyed QUINTET but the critics disliked it. When I heard about a movie called IMAGES back then the story sounded intriguing but I never got the chance to see it. That's been rectified with the film being released by Arrow for their Arrow Academy series. The film stars Susannah York as Cathryn, a wealthy housewife and children's author waiting for her husband to get home one night. While waiting she receives a call from a female voice claiming that her husband Hugh (Rene Aberjonois) is with another woman. Troubled she waits for him to come home and after a shocking nightmare convinces him to take her to their country house the next day.The two make their way there but more visions plague Cathryn. In the middle of conversations with Hugh when he dips out of sight and returns she sees another man in his place, Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi). As the film progresses we learn that Rene was a man Cathryn had an affair with who died in a car crash three years earlier. In addition to seeing Rene she sees doppelganger later looking at her from a waterfall while on a walk through the woods.Later Hugh returns home from going shopping with two guests, Marcel (High Millais) and his 12 year old daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison). Whenever Hugh pops out of the room Marcel makes advances on Cathryn, apparently having had an affair with her as well. Unlike Rene though Marcel seems to be more inclined to be forceful, rough and more brutally physical with Cathryn. As the film moves forward the viewer is left to decipher the difference between reality and what is in Cathryn's head as much as she is. Are these visions emotions that plague her to this day? Or are some of them real and in that case which ones? For that matter is her husband Hugh real or not? The film moves back and forth between realities and leaves you to decide for yourself, giving a hint at what must be by the film's end.While there is a somewhat straight narrative to the story being told here at moments it jumps around as well, catapulting the viewer from the current to the past without warning. The lines between reality and the reality in Cathryn's head are blurred often and change frequently. This doesn't mean you can't follow, just that it seems strange. The end result is an interesting movie but not one that mainstream audiences would flock to. The fact that it didn't fare well at the box office confirms this. At the time Altman blamed the studio for not promoting the film. My personal guess would be that word of mouth didn't help the film.As one of the premiere directors of the time though Altman's films deserve to be preserved. Fortunately that's taken place in the past but now this edition offers a definitive release for the film. Arrow once more shows why they are one of the top companies when it comes to items like this providing a brand-new 4K restoration from the original negative made just for this release. They also made sure there were plenty of extras on hand as well including an audio commentary by Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger, scene-select commentary by Altman, an interview with Altman, a brand new interview with Cathryn Harrison, an appreciation by musician and author Stephen Thrower, the theatrical trailer, a reversible sleeve with new artwork by Twins of Evil and for the first pressing only an illustrated collector's booklet with new writing on the film by Carman Gray and an extract from ALTMAN ON ALTMAN.Fans of the director will want to add this one to their collection. If you've never seen the film before it is worth watching and perhaps one of his more direct films to enjoy in spite of the jumping back and forth in time and reality. It's entertaining enough and is definitely worth at least one viewing.

Rodrigo Amaro Robert Altman doing a psychological horror film. Hmm, okay, seemed interesting. After all, the creator of "MASH" and "The Player" was talented and courageous enough to helm a film of almost every genre available, with limited resources and presenting his own method of cinema: free of rules, realistic, artistic and almost always fascinating despite the lack of audience for the majority of his works. Drama, comedy, sci-fi, musical, thriller, film-noir...you name it: he made it all. Unfortunetaly "Images" isn't the kind of film where I can say I was enthralled or deeply invested. It was too much on and off, with wonderful sequences put together with prolonged dreary moments that managed to obscure its qualities. The final scene comes and you wondered how simplistic and off-putting most of the film were. Susannah York plays Cathyrn, a children's book author in need of peace and quiet to finish her latest work, and those solitude moments will be find at a country home along with her husband (Rene Auberjonois). Well, not really. As the days move, she sees strange visions that disturb her peace and sanity, or the least of that she still has. From strange phone calls telling her husband is having an affair to appearances from a ghostly former lover (the always effective Marcel Bozzuffi); strange noises and occurrences; and the odd behavior of a neighbor/friend of the family (Hugh Millais) who happens to be a former lover of Catheryn and who still feels a deep attraction to her, so peculiar and intrusive to the point of the man seducing her while the clueless husband is on the room next to them. Are those visions and scenarios real or imagined? And what are they're meaning to the woman? Sane or going crazy? We go to movies like this to find out how it all gets together. The problem with "Images" is that, after years of watching horror films or even psychological thrillers one gets easily fed up in seeing clichés after clichés. I was remind of the brilliant "Repulsion". Some parts brought me minor memories from Louis Malle's surrealistic tale "Black Moon" - it gets even more coincidental that Cathryn Harrison (she plays Millais' daughter and Catheryn's only ally) stars on both Malle and Altman films. The visual, the concept, the presentation...it all feels made before - but you can argue that "Black Moon" in that case was the copy film because it got released later, but the order when you watch is how it affects the experience or the enjoyment. Sure, it's edgy, filled with suspense and shock, Vilmos Szigmond's careful cinematography and John Williams' appropriate (though not memorable) score are first-rate. It thrills. However, I always think that a horror film can only succeed if the drama is good. Otherwise, you're just wanting for everyone to die or get killed because there's not enough room to make you invested in their story, in their problems. It must have a great dramatic element, with some life relevance or slightly believable. "Images" almost got there. It's easy to say that Altman was portraying a bigger-than-life idea of what schizophrenia might be with the duality of real vs. imagination, and the consequences it leads when those clash at each other with just one person having to deal with both sides, not knowing how to act or cope with their current reality. That's great drama. It only gets wronged and confused due to a mumbled presentation, that doesn't satisfy neither fully convince, and the whole children book narrated by York (her own real creations) were awfully distracting. The movie feels more concerned in terrifying than giving us a relatable story - and a movie has to be both. It helps a lot. The whole time I kept wondering how low in self-esteem Cathryn must have been to get involved with three misogynist, self-absorbed jerks. Instead of pouring the odd horrific elements from time to time, Altman should have insisted in developing little by little, just like he does in the menacing phone-call scene (that was genius!) than evolves but the drama keeps on real throughout. It was too bizarre seeing the ghost coming and going, then one face changing to another. If schizophrenia goes like that, and in such a hurry and state, then I guess the movie succeed in its portrayal. Another touch of genius from Altman is with the characters/actors names traded: Susannah plays Cathryn, Cathryn plays Susannah, Rene plays Hugh, Hugh plays Marcel and Marcel plays Rene. I'd like to be on this film set and see how communications worked between them - must have been hilarious specially if there's method actors involved. The performances? So and so, nothing so brilliant and York only got Best Actress in Cannes due to lack of good competition. Final verdict: a few years from now and I might rewatch it and find more rewarding qualities. As of now, it goes as one of Altman's most disappointing efforts but far from worst. 4/10

moonspinner55 Robert Altman wrote and directed--and misfired--with this psychological thriller about a wealthy female schizophrenic. Susannah York, an interesting actress (though not so interesting as to make this artistic jumble take hold), plays the future author of a children's book about unicorns who is upset one night by repeat calls informing her that her husband is having an affair; she begins imaging other lovers in her husband's place, splintering herself off from reality. Gorgeous cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, working the wintry landscapes of Dublin, Ireland with a painter's finesse, adorns the picture with prestige; however, enlightenment into our heroine does not follow. This is a rich person's prism, a slick fantasy of ghosts and musical chairs, the kind of which only seem to affect the well-heeled and bored. With two homes to vacillate between (and no pressing engagements), York's character begins to seem stultified rather than schizophrenic, and the scenario is underpopulated and lax. John Williams received an Oscar nomination for his percussive score, but nerves can hardly be jangled when the script is stuck in such a plushy muddle. ** from ****

tieman64 Robert Altman's generally thought of as a weak visualist, his films messy, shapeless and dialogue driven. This is not quite true. And even if it were, there has always been another side to Altman; films like "3 Women" and "Images" single him out as a strong surrealist, adept and spooky imagery and menacing atmosphere. Indeed, "Images" sometimes seems like it was ghost directed by Roman Polanski or Luis Bunuel.The plot? Cathryn and her husband Hugh spend a few days in a spooky country house. She suffers from delusional disorder, "images of past lovers" spontaneously popping into her head. Like Altman's "3 Women", there are hints of temporal displacement, characters merging and occupying the same spaces or conversing with little girls who may or may not be their own younger selves.Is Cathryn crazy? Are supernatural forces at work? Is her mind being consumed by guilt? Why not all three? Cathryn seems to have had an adulterous affair with a French man called Rene. He died in a plane crash but returns as an "image" to haunt her. Meanwhile, Cathryn's infidelity is personified as Marcel, a large brute of a man who constantly tries to force himself upon her. Meanwhile Marcel's wife, an unseen character who we know had affairs, has divorced him, but not before having a young child, a girl who is herself the splitting image of Cathryn.Continuing with the theme of images, Cathryn's husband is a photographer whilst she is an author. The film's soundtrack often consists of Cathryn narrating one of her books, the audience forced to conjure up images to the words she reads.So what are we to make of this? Cathryn and her husband are image-makers. Cathryn, because of her overactive imagination, imagines that her husband is having an affair. These thoughts, fuelled by her own past infidelities, attack her as "images". In order to restore her sanity, Cathryn thus murders her "image" of Rene and her "image" of Marcel. Finally cured, she drives to her husband before encountering an "image" of herself on the road. The implication is that Cathryn must now destroy her "image", confronting the paranoid source of these monsters. And so Cathryn pushes her own "image" off a cliff. With this symbolic suicide, she is now free. But we then learn that the final "image" was not a self-image at all. It was her husband whom Cathryn encountered and murdered on the road. And so the film ends with a reversal of the classic Hitchcock shower scene. Cathryn faces a deadly "image" of herself; she is the monster, her delusions fragments of her own warped persona.Altman hints at this by naming his 5 characters after the actors who play them. They're not only "images", but "composite images". Marcel Bozzuffi plays "Rene", but "Rene" is the name of actor Rene Auberjonois who plays "Hugh", "Hugh" being the first name of Hugh Millais, the actor who plays "Marcel". Similarly, Susannah York plays "Cathryn", whilst the actress Cathryn Harrison plays a "Susannah".8/10 – Eerily similar to "3 Women", this is essentially an art house thriller. The film seems to have inspired the end of Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", in which Travis Bickle famously sees himself in his car's rear view mirror. Altman's female psycho does this as well, complete with that familiar little audio zing.