KANSAS CITY
US, 1996, 116 minutes, Colour.
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, Harry Belafonte, Michael Murphy, Dermot Mulroney, Steve Buscemi, Brooks Smith, Jane Adams.
Directed by Robert Altman.
Robert Altman made many key films of the 70s including M*A*S*H and Nashville. After a quiet 80s, he appeared in the 90s with The Player and Short Cuts and re-established himself as an important film-maker. Now he looks back into the past of his own town, Kansas City. This is smaller scale Altman but it has his distinctive style: telling a story by telling many stories at once and intermingling them so that the audience feels that it is part of the action and the passing parade.
Here he goes back to the gambling days of the 30s. Perhaps we are overwhelmed by films of Chicago and New York gangsters but, apparently the midwest city had its own massacres. Harry Belafonte is Seldom Seen (but he talks incessantly so is always heard) who sets up expensive card games, philosophises but is absolutely ruthless in getting rid of enemies.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is a Bonnie-like telegraph operator who, resentful of Seldom Seen's threats to her petty criminal husband that she kidnaps the would-be governor's wife and holds her to ransom. Miranda Richardson is a strong performance as the wife, and Michael Murphy as her ambitious husband. Kansas City is that kind of city with its background of racism, class distinctions and rigged elections. Midwest gangsters.
1. Robert Altman film? Exemplifying his style? Complexities of plot, intercutting of characters? Long takes? Musical background?
2. Robert Altman coming from Kansas City? His memories, tribute, critique?
3. The visuals of Kansas City, the downtown area, the public buildings, the railway station, the streets, the clubs? Kansas City in the 1930s?
4. The significance of the musical score? The Jazz? Jazz as a character? The range of pieces throughout the film, their length, lengthening the visuals accompanying the jazz? A portrait of 30s jazz – and the traditions of Kansas City, Count Basie and others?
5. The world of gangsters, Harry Belafonte as Seldom Seen? The world of politics? Ambitions, corruption?
6. The racial background? Racism and tensions? The image of Johnny O’ Hara and putting on blackface for the robbery? Mrs Stilton and the white cream?
7. The robbery, Johnny O’ Hara, the taxi driver, the failure, O ’Hara’s death?
8. The consequences for his wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh and her style as Blondie O’ Hara? Her devotion to her husband, reaction to his death, her plans, some vengeance, abducting Carolyn Stilton, holding her? The interactions between the two, conversations, the city issues? Carolyn, her personality, tensions with her husband, the political background? The link with the gangsters? The final confrontation, deaths?
9. Stilton, political ambitions, relationship with his wife? Gangsters?
10. The world of the gangsters, black gangsters, white gangsters?
11. The world of the clubs? The music? The club characters, Charlie Parker and the pregnant woman?
12. Kansas City as a microcosm of the US in the 1930s?
