‎Images (1972) directed by Robert Altman • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Images

1972 Directed by Robert Altman

Schizophrenic housewife, engulfed by terrorizing apparitions, kills off each, unknowing if these demons are merely figments of her hallucinatory imagination or part of reality.

Susannah York Rene Auberjonois Marcel Bozzuffi Hugh Millais Cathryn Harrison John Morley Barbara Baxley

101 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Adam Cook ★★★★½ 10

Robert Altman is arguably most famous for his large ensemble dramas yet, for me, his most interesting work can often be found in his smaller and more experimental pictures like 3 Women, Secret Honor and the startling and criminally underseen, Images. Inspired by Bergman’s Persona and sharing a fair few similarities with Polanski’s Repulsion, Images is a film about fractured realities, repressed sexuality and extreme psychosis.

Susannah York stars as Cathryn, a children’s writer who is terrorised by phantoms, or so she thinks, as she attempts to write her new novel. Schizophrenic horror is nothing new in cinema (not even back in ‘72) but to Altman’s credit, whilst there are clear influences, he very much makes it his own. For…
Review by nathaxnne walker (undead) ★★★★½ 5

If one is to be crazy and potentially dangerous to those in the immediate vicinity it is probably best to be crazy and dangerous in as wide an array of lovely floral prints as can be mustered even if so doing does not help one keep track of time or space in the least and if there is a country cottage available in which to be clad in floral prints, dangerous and crazy, and space to roam about in, let there also be rollicking ponies and peacefully baa-ing sheeps to co-occupy that space because there might as well be even if their presence cannot alter the outcome of the story one seems to be writing or being written by, it is altogether more pleasant that way.
Review by Dirk Diggler ★★★★½ 5

Part of the Film School Dropouts Challenge
Week 27: Robert Altman

An immersive, compelling and creepy tale of mental illness, desperation and sexuality that's unsettling throughout with its eerie and noisy score, striking editing (there's some awesome transitions in this), and its dream-like imagery. Its small-scaled, simple yet effective, and wholly atmospheric and expressive, it draws you into its dreamy, strange world and doesn't let go. Susannah York delivers an Oscar-worthy, energetic performance of a woman going through a mental breakdown, slowly loosing grip on reality, its through her fractured mind the film is seen. Man, those screams... haunting. Didn't know much about this one going in, but it has turned out to be one of my favorites from Altman. Fans of 3 Women would dig this as this gives a similar vibe, and is different from what Altman is known for. Give this one a restoration for christ sake, Criterion! It really deserves one. Its an overlooked gem.
Review by Jeff ★★★★ 2

One of the things I found refreshing about Robert Altman's Images was the fact that he doesn't play the is-she-or-isn't-she-crazy game that has become standard in today's psychological thrillers; Susannah York's character is pretty clearly in the throes of schizophrenia. So the viewer is left to parse out what is and isn't real, instead. Same type of movie, different flavor.

It's also a bit of a departure for Altman in that, while there is a quite a bit of dialog, it doesn't have the same manic, boisterous quality that is usually the case for him. He does manage to cram quite a few visual motifs in, but the obvious ones (mirrors, cameras) tend to work very well in the film,…
Review by Chance ★★★★½ 4

Altman sure knew how to draw out compelling and eerie performances from women, be it Sandy Dennis in That Cold Day in the Park or Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule in 3 Women, but Susannah York's performance in Images goes beyond the realm of eerie. Images as a whole is beyond eerie. It's arguably Altman's only true horror film, full of psychological ghosts, but most of his films have always had a touch of menace.

Smaller in scale than most Altman films, Images is a tightly-crafted shocker with weaving reality and unreality. Absolutely nothing can be taken at face value. There's a moment when Cathryn (Susannah York) is standing on the edge of a cliff looking down at…
Review by Aaron Michael ★★★★½ 1

Images is a lot of things, but what struck me the most is the way it exemplifies Robert Altman's talent for filmmaking. I'm a huge fan of Altman's loose method of storytelling, but to see him craft a really tight story supported by fantastic technical elements was a treat.

Hard not to compare this to films like 3 Women, Persona, A Woman Under the Influence, and Mulholland Drive. While I don't think it's necessarily as complex as those other films, it's so strong in its convictions that it doesn't matter.

Recent reviews

Review by Avathoir ★★★★

The movie I thought mother! would be, and a wonderfully gothic tale this is. It suffers from the usual Altman problems (a complex premise mostly winged, a mistake of overlapping dialogue for automatic naturalism) but York is fantastic as a woman whose in far over and out of her head.

I'll let the song take it from here:

I dim the lights
And think about you
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you
You said you loved me
Or were you just being kind!
Or am I losing my mind?
Review by Michael K. Hill ★★★★

An unsettling fever dream of a movie, with a haunting score by John Williams, gorgeous cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, and a fantastic performance by Susannah York. An underseen gem by Robert Altman.
Review by fffillyy ★★★½

Recommended to me by krakenloco as part of the TFD Roulette.

Images is about a woman with schizophrenia. She imagines certain disturbing things about her current husband and her two ex-lovers. This film, while dated, conveys an important and expanded message about different opinions and perceptions from different people through the themes of imagination by portraying this character with schizophrenia. As you watch this movie, you will try to piece the puzzle together but it proves to be a challenge that will take a long time. This film represents that with a jigsaw puzzle that the characters try to piece together in the film and they show it multiple times throughout the film. This film challenges different perceptions that people…
Review by Yuri Deliberalli ★★★½

O horror da falha. A esquizofrenia da personagem de Susannah York não deixa de ser um fruto da culpa por não conseguir gerar filhos e, por isso, ser a esposa infiel e desonesta com seu marido, mas Altman, incursionando em gênero pouco amigável, tem consciência de que o mistério se sustenta naquilo que é efetivamente encenado (e em como é encenado), e não naquilo que está no extracampo.

É por isso que o horror é todo articulado sob uma narrativa fragmentária que ganha contornos distintos pela exploração do espaço cenográfico frio, cinzento e remoto como essa casa de campo antiquada e, portanto, própria para os truques da mente doente. Nasce, assim, um filme quebra-cabeça (e o jogo está lá, um tanto didático) carregado de tensão psicológica e sexual.
Review by Terry Drosdak ★★★½

Worth a watch, keeping in mind that this was made before "main character having a psychotic break" was used about a million times.
Review by Blake ★★★★★

A masterpiece of psychological horror. Brilliant acting, brilliant camerawork and cinematography, and that absolutely brilliant score. Altman crafted such a dreadful vision of psychosis and schizophrenia and it’s so well crafted.
Review by Nicholas DeVivo ★★★★★

Arrow Academy release

A haunting score from John Williams, stunning cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, and a jaw dropping performance from Susannah York.

While a bit heavy handed with the imagery, this film is seriously fantastic.

It's very easy for a film dealing with mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, to write the characters as crazy, psychotic and violent people. Altman, however, while personally admitting to have done no research on mental illness, does not give in to this tactic. He is able to take us inside the mind of a struggling human and deliver an eerily sincere story without creating a monster.
Review by Andrew Ford ★★★★★

Operating (surely by coincidence) as a sort of photo-negative version of Straw Dogs, Altman proves here that his remarkable, almost savant-like understanding of humanity is just as well suited to the psychological thriller genre as it is to his more traditional, ensemble-heavy works.

He may initially seem like an odd fit for this material, especially coming as it did in the midst of his truly exceptional (and notably quite popular) run of post-MASH success, but he's still at his absolute peak here. He's certainly aided by the strength of his collaborators, with John Williams coming up with the novel idea of incorporating a wealth of found-sound into the audio mix, and Vilmos Zsigmond conjuring a smattering of the most hauntingly…
Review by Lisa ★★★★

"When I'm alone, I think."

There is an otherwordliness to this film. Watching this in 2018, the thought of being isolated in a cabin without so much as a phone seems like a situation of the distant past ... one that would need to be carefully and thoughtfully constructed in a modern-day film to seem real. It's all so natural here (thanks, 1972). Cathryn lazes about the house, her head filled with writing her book. She might cook, take a walk, make some tea. There's a puzzle. The cast of characters that surround her incite more curiosity by the moment.

Ebert described this one as admirable, yet complex and cold. I agree that I felt somewhat removed the entire time.…