"Most of the words in movies aren't worth hearing anyway, and you forget them — they're like words on television — dramatic shows. It's no great loss if you don't get all the dialogue...."

Says Pauline Kael in 1971, here:

 

She's fighting for a particular movie — Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" — that got trashed by some critics for it's hard-to-hear soundtrack. But watch as the camera pulls back and reveals that sitting next to her is Rod Serling, whose "Twilight Zone" was a television dramatic show and it absolutely did expect you to get every word. There was no random chitchat that you could let drift by and be satisfied to think of a component of the general ambiance.

I respect Kael's staunch defense of a great movie that needed saving from oblivion, but that gratuitous swipe at television writing while sitting next to Rod Serling? Painful.

Here's Robert Altman himself — shortly thereafter, on the same TV talk show (Dick Cavett) — explaining that the soundtrack of "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" really had a technical problem. It wasn't an artistic choice. 

 

Altman doesn't bullshit and fight for himself the way Kael fought for him. He's more of a bumbler, like a character in one of his films. Ironically, Kael, the appreciator of the messy workproduct, is crisply delineated, like a character on "Twilight Zone."