California Split

Now I really thinks that this is an amazing good movie. Amazing both for the story and for the actors: they produce a common effort in saying some real true things about gambling. Great directing, too, and great places to shoot the story (how clever to choose the depressing Reno instead of Las Vegas! Atlantic City would have been a good choice, too). Gambling is what people do when they have anything else left to do. Gambling is all about losing, feeling sad, and loneliness. And it's the same if you win or if you lose, no difference. Other films usually show winners, when they solves their common life problems through gambling, or losers, when they ruin their own common life trough gambling. What is shown by California Split is that, if you are a gambler, then there's no space for anything else, say life, love, or hope. And that's both for winners and for losers.

Why California Split remains among the most obscure of Robert Altman's extraordinary 1970s oeuvre is a mystery. Its stars -- Elliot Gould and George Segal -- were at the top of their form, free and comfortable working in Altman's off-the-cuff, low-key style. Its supporting cast -- Ann Prentiss, Gwen Welles and especially Bert Remsen, as the cross-dressing old jane "Helen Brown," -- is memorable. And its full gallery of extras (many drawn from the therapeutic community Synanon) populate a surreal gambling netherworld in California and Nevada. Altman is working in highest gear with the layered, semi-improvised and alluringly murky style he pioneered. As in Altman's best work, the story just sort of happens, without much distinction between foreground and backdrop, principal characters and walk-ons. Lacking the rigid and didactic "dramaturgy" of its competitors, California Split endures as one of the most probing examinations of the soul and psyche of the abnormal gambler ever filmed.

It's surprising how little known California Split is but even in a career filled with great movies such as Robert Altman's it deserves more recognition. It is Altman the auteur in top form, his quirks and distinctive traits that separate him from all directors of his time emblazoned over every minute of this delightful mixture of comedy and drama.

It's the handling of the subject matter that makes the difference. Sure this is not the first movie to be made about the compulsiveness of gambling and people trying to find meaning and pleasure in empty addictions but it is such a fresh and enjoyable movie one has to sit down and take notice. What makes it work so well? I'll say the success rests on a combination of three things: the infectious chemistry between the two leads Elliot Gould (in a hilarious role) and George Seagal; the fully realized world Altman creates for his characters; and that overall the movie is capable of both belly-laughs and profound sadness but it is always subtle, never says anything more than it has to, leaving just enough for the viewer to participate. Even the bitter aftertaste of the ending is never expanded more than two or three lines and a look on Seagal and Gould's faces and it's then counterpointed with a spin of the wheel and a sweet jazz song as the end credits begin to roll.

This combination of those three things ultimately achieves the most important and difficult thing for any director to master: to make the camera disappear. This is not the first time Altman succeeds in doing so but California Split is still a very good indication of the craftsman at the top of his talent.

The gambling world here is not the glitzy and glossy Las Vegas of Ocean's 11 or Four of a Kind - not it is for gambling movies what The Long Goodbye was for neo-noir. A look inside a crummy, cheap world without prospects and the rent's running. It makes perfect sense then that the last act takes place in Reno and not Vegas and that the bleachy look of Paul Lohmann's cinematography (no Vilmos Zsigmond this time) reflects that there's no glamour to be had here.

I was fortunate enough to see California Split this past weekend on the big screen. The American Film Institute (AFI) Theater in the Kennedy Center is currently (February '02) having a retrospective of Altman's 70s films, and, while I had never heard of the film, I was mysteriously drawn to it. I'm glad I went. The chemistry between Gould and Segal is amazing. It's is if they've been friends their whole lives. They seemed very relaxed and care-free. The story is sad yet exciting, the dialog witty and almost innocent, and the direction is, of course, great. Plus, there is a brief scene with a very young Jeff Goldblum, who plays Segal's boss.

If you happen upon this film on TV one late night, or it's shown in a theater near you for some reason, please see it. It's a lost treasure.

As usual, the greatness in Altman comes in the unexpected nuances: the perfect Las Vegas lounge act, with Elliott Gould putting in his repartee like joining a musical theatre number onstage. George Segal "getting down to the oldies" may date the film, along with his sweaters, but this is an enjoyable and surprising movie that exposes the hollowness and joylessness of compulsion without getting all holy about it. The younger working girl's search for feeling with her endless succession of tricks is a more easily noticeable parallel to what emerges as the film's core: George Segal's character finding his capacity for change. The shenanigan with Gould, Segal and the cross dresser strays dangerously close to outtakes from MASH. The film's greatest moment, aside from the surprisingly shattering denouement coming two minutes later, is when Segal has run from $2000 to $82,000. He's rolling everything right at the craps table when this little pea brained moron comes up and puts $1 on the seven. Elliott Gould offers to throw a hundred dollar chip at her to make her go away (if you don't know, the seven ends the streak and betting on it in the middle of a streak should be punishable by water torture). Sure enough, Segal rolls a seven and the streak ends. Everyone looks at the little moron and she says, "I don't care, it's my birthday and I won!" and picks up her $2. That is classic. Looking at Segal's performance you can see shades of what Ben Gazzarra would do decades later in Todd Solondz's "Happiness" as another man who doesn't feel anything.