Conclusion

Calling into question authorship criticism’s tendency to treat undersupported claims about formal design as starting points for the deployment of an interpretive hermeneutics aimed at revealing political and expressive significance, the conclusion instead considers how a historically precise rethinking of Altman’s innovations broadens the field of questions we might ask about the possibilities of Hollywood authorship. In its recognition of elaborative authorship as a position within Hollywood filmmaking practice, the account presented here suggests a reconsideration of the nature of Hollywood norms. The conclusion argues that Altman’s novelty is best understood not as rejection or assimilation but in the context of a Hollywood cinema whose norms have always been a work in progress on multiple levels. It is not only Hollywood’s conventions and techniques that are constantly in play, contingently open to a range of modifications and renegotiations, but also its underlying principles and aims.