Pseudonyms: Gerald Cormier

18 December 1943 --

Films as director and producer, unless otherwise noted:

Whiffs of Robert Altman's influence have weaved their way throughout Alan Rudolph's otherwise admirable career. Altman's influence is twofold, seen in the jagged, surrealistic crime drama style of Remember My Name, inspired by Altman's Images mode, and in the mush-centered, "quirky" love tales of Chose Me through Love at Large, derived from Altman's whimsical Brewster McCloud and A Perfect Couple mood.

Just as Philip Larkin needed to free himself of the fever caused by Yeats's intoxicating music, so Rudolph needed to realize his own personality. When Rudolph goes off on his own, as in Roadie, or engages with a commercial project over which he may not have complete control, such as with Endangered Species, he is a genre craftsman who brings an engaging insouciance to otherwise conventional materials. The residue of Altmanism therein causes no harm. As an analyst of contemporary relationships, Rudolph is on shakier ground, veering from the exquisite complexities of Choose Me to the muffled vision and forced frivolity of Love at Large. When Rudolph inserts into otherwise love-resistant projects, he makes them special, and in Mortal Thoughts, Rudolph explores the darker complexities of romance with an unexpectedly grim and fluid determination, though the success of that movie may be in part attributable to the tenacity of producer/star Demi Moore.

Rudolph is attracted to uncertainty, to shifting perspectives, and to life on the road, and he succeeds when he sees them clearly within the intervening prism of Altmanism, which means he can veer from the chaos of Equinox to the sweet and sour, subtle and unsubtle at the same time, contrast of callow youth with seasoned adulthood of the intriguing Afterglow.