Altman’s improv-heavy, overlapping dialogue and roving camera made his pictures feel caught on the fly, brimming with babbling, picaresque ensembles who’ve been there before the movie started ...

I first saw Robert Altman’s teeming, sprawling, exultant, tragic, transporting masterpiece, which came out 50 years ago this summer (the release date was June 11, 1975), when I was a freshman in ...