CALIFORNIA SPLIT Retrospective

In CALIFORNIA SPLIT, George Segal plays Bill, a magazine editor whose friendship with gambling addict Charlie (Elliott Gould) sucks him into a lifestyle of adrenaline and risk. Soon, Bill finds himself in debt, forcing him to head to Reno with Charlie for one last make-or-break game. With this film, Robert Altman — who grew up watching his father gamble, and learned that, in Altman’s own words, “losing is an identity” — gave audiences not only one of the most exciting gambling movies ever made, but also one of the most profound. – Gillian Horvat