the now never-to-be-seen next Altman film....

At Altman’s Death, Much Left Undone
By RICK LYMAN

The films of Robert Altman were notoriously messy affairs: dozens of characters talking over one another, fuzzy bits of improvisation, storylines intertwining like linguine, odd occurrences at the edge of the frame. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that Mr. Altman, who died of cancer Monday at the age of 81, left behind a rather messy desk.

Among the unfinished works that may never see the light of day, in any form, are an autobiography announced in early October by Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, which promised all sorts of juicy anecdotes from the director’s long, irascible and often boozy life within the heat of creative ferment. In his time as an industrial filmmaker in Kansas City, itinerant television director in the 1950s and ’60s and in his many ups-and-downs as a Hollywood titan from the ’70s onward, Mr. Altman befriended, mentored and feuded with just about every major figure in the movie industry.

And despite having suffered with cancer for the last 18 months of his life, a period when he also shot, edited and released his last film, “A Prairie Home Companion,” Mr. Altman had been forging ahead on several film projects.

One tantalizing project was a film to be set in the art world, perhaps destined to be the sort of intricate, multicharacter movie in which the director specialized, like 1975’s “Nashville” (county music and political campaigns), 1978’s “Wedding” (social class and conspicuous consumption), 1994’s “Prêt-à-Porter” (the fashion world) and 2003’s “Company” (the ballet world).

But the most immediate project, set to begin shooting in February, was “Hands on a Hard Body,” a fictionalized version of S. R. Bindler’s 1997 documentary about a contest at a Texas car dealership. The contest went like this: People placed one hand on a Nissan truck in the dealership’s showroom and the last one left touching the truck, days later, became its owner in a kind of “Survivor”-like endurance contest that is an updating of the Depression-era dance marathon.

Mr. Altman had said he hoped to make the film for $10 million, and it was unclear last week what would become of the project without him.

If it helps to conjure in the mind’s eye the movie that might have been, among the actors said to have been in the mix for roles in the film were Billy Bob Thornton, Hilary Swank and Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company