Tonight at the Film Forum I saw Robert Altman’s California Split, a great movie about gambling, a not-bad buddy movie and one full of supersaturated stylings from 1974 Los Angeles.
George Segal ostensibly has a job writing for a magazine but he only ever seems to argue on the phone with his bookie or sneak out of his office to the track. He’s a bundle of nervous energy with a home and a job, but not for much longer as he sinks deep in debt. At last he pawns his typewriter and car, skipping town to Reno on a Greyhound with Elliott Gould for a last chance at the big score.
Gould, with his relaxed gait and charmingly goofy long face, cracks wise as he drifts through life gambling, his only ambition to wonder where he might gamble next. He wears a series of button-down shirts with collars wide enough to generate aerodynamic force and with designs so explosively hideous, I became mesmerized, then desensitized, then convinced that they looked cool.
As the movie opens, the two meet and become friends while scamming suckers at cards and as it closes they've gone their separate ways after counting their chips. In between there’s little plot and a lot of odds-beating. They play poker, blackjack, craps and roulette. They gamble on basketball, boxing and horseracing. After many beers at a dive bar one night, they even bet on which of them can name all Seven Dwarfs and neither gets further than three valid dwarves and Dumbo. Gould later disappears, then shows up unexpectedly days later at Segal’s house wearing a giant sombrero and bursting with tales of Tijuana track dog racing.
Altman’s trademark everyone-talking-simultaneously1 is the low, constant current that powers the film and at points, it’s like when you’re in the middle of a busy party or family gathering, cocooned in the warmth of friends and conversation. There’s a great breakfast scene taking place the morning after Segal and Gould get jacked for their cash. They crash at the home of friends, two heart-of-gold hookers (Ann Prentiss and Gwen Welles), nurse their bruised flanks with a dubious remedy of warm shaving cream, then sit down to breakfast on sugar cereal. Clad in a bathrobe, Gould cracks open a can of Budweiser to complement his bowl of Lucky Charms. They’ve just lost their money and you can sense their weariness, but everyone at the table is joking and talking and eating at once, and, dammit, that’s a breakfast you want to be in on.
With its grittiness, wavering camaraderie, bursts of violence, black humor and desperation, this film is like Trainspotting, the thrill of the bet substituting for smack.
1 There was a wonderful meta-moment during the film when a couple seated a few rows in front of me got so caught up in the constant overlapping conversation onscreen that they began talking themselves, apparently thinking it would blend in naturally. The angry coot sitting in front of me shouted, “COULD YOU PLEASE TAKE YOUR CONVERSATION OUTSIDE. THANK YOU.” The couple said nothing further but finished their large bag of popcorn slowly, chewing very, very loudly. [back]