Just a Station on His Way? Altman's Transition From Television to Film

Abstract

This chapter discusses the themes and content present within Bus Stop, a series well-known for its controversial episode “A Lion Walks Among Us”, yet neglected insofar as Altman's other seven episodes are concerned. Positioned at the chronological mid-point of his initial television career, Bus Stop is emblematic of the broader diversity of Altman's work on the small screen. The episodes show that Altman's work on this series was as varied in quality and intent as his overall television career. It overviews the extent to which one of the most prominent markers of Altman's filmic style frequent and visually distinctive zoom shots are seen in embryonic and rehearsed forms in his 1960s television work. It shows that by paying attention to how Altman used the zoom in television, certain continuities can be identified with his later film work.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 12 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.