Asked about the working model and narrative template for his star-stuffed ensemble pic Bobby at a press day at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles some two weeks back, writer-director Emilio Estevez held forth on some of his inspiration, which — not surprisingly — included multi-arc maestro Robert Altman.

“Robert Altman and P.T. Anderson are two of my favorite filmmakers,” said Estevez.
“I admire their audacity, their boldness. I mean, the falling frogs in Magnolia? I thought it was outrageous. And
as outrageous as I thought it was, I thought it so courageous as well. But Altman
is certainly an inspiration for me. I’d love to meet him. He doesn’t know he’s
my mentor, but he is. I’d like to meet him someday and tell him that.”

“Altman
has the luxury of having final cut,” Estevez continued, “and with that comes the length of a picture
that he determines, which is why Short
Cuts is three hours and 10 minutes, and he allows every character to be
fully realized. I don’t have the experience or the cachet to have final cut,
but had I on this one it might have been three hours, and each character would have been more fully realized than they are.”
Here Estevez pauses and laughs. “But, you know… alas.”

While his dream of meeting Altman unfortunately wasn’t realized, in a twist of kismet, Estevez did befriend Nashville writer Joan Tewkesbury a number of years back while directing an episode of The Guardian. He credits her with helping him smartly whittle down his original draft of more than 160 pages.