Brewster McCloud

Brewster lives in a shelter under the covered stadium in Houston. He has one task: to build wings and fly. A woman called Louise protects him and tells him what to do; who she is is never explained. People in the city are being strangled and bird droppings are found on the bodies. The police cannot solve it and a celebrated detective is brought in from San Francisco. Meanwhile an ornithologist lectures to camera about birds, and the subject of the lecture matches the state of the film at each point. Robert Altman directs. Bud Cort plays Brewster and Sally Kellerman plays Louise, with Shelley Duvall in her first film. It was made straight after a film that had been a large success for Altman and went in an entirely different direction; it failed commercially and was received in two minds. The narrative is a mix of genres: crime, comedy, fable and a lecture on birds in one film. None of them explains another. The whole film was shot in and around the Houston stadium; the building had just opened and was taken as an emblem of modernity. The last section becomes a circus and the cast is introduced by their own names; the narrative breaks its own fiction. It counts as Altman's strangest film and was little known for a long time. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies American cinema and unusually structured films. Who it is not for: the narrative is scattered, the humour is strange, and the film answers no questions.