Robert Altman's "3 Women"

Legendary director Robert Altman claimed the idea for his 1977 film "3 Women" came in a dream, causing one critic to say, "Yeah - he was dreaming he was watching 'Persona'". Yet despite the similarities to Bergman's film of women finding their relationship is changing their behavior in numerous strange ways, Altman's relentless searching focus and attention to detail takes "3 Women" to several other dimensions, including looking at a society so adrift, plastic, and interchangeable that it's a struggle to attain a single persona within it, much less hold onto one.

After the movie, we'll head to the nearby Emerald at 216 N. Wabash to talk about those dimensions, the distinctions of the three performances by Shelly Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Janice Rule, compare to other Altman films, as well as other films on alienation and disconnection that came out in the crest of the New Wave of American film.

You can get tickets in advance ($14) at: https://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/3-women NOTE: the movie is very unconventional and doesn't even try to make usual narrative sense. The discussion will aim to illuminate what the movie is trying to express, and you can check out these links for further impressions on the movies' ideas:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/319-3-women-dream-project
https://cinema.wisc.edu/blog/2016/04/28/3-women-altman-and-feminine-mystique
https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/8574/lessons-we-can-learn-from-3-women