This is Russell’s only interesting film, and sees him applying himself to the excesses and longueurs of award-winning author and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s direly introspective rumination on God, consciousness and sensory deprivation. Chayefsky famously had Russell sign an agreement that he wouldn’t change one word of the screenplay, and his response shows: the film jumps between beautifully rendered, hallucinogenic nightmares and tedious, wordy sequences that not only reveal Russell’s usual dismissive attitude towards his material, but the egotistical preoccupations of writers like Chayefsky, who believe themselves to be an essential component of the film-making process.

Whilst remaining openly hostile of the auteur theory – which postulates the director as the film’s main creative force – successful writers like Chayefsky, who has won recognition from an industry that places mediocrity and lavishness before austerity and interest, vainly suggest themselves as the ‘true’ visionary behind a film’s production and direction. Instead of merely offering a well-researched framework for other creative talents to embellish and explore, they see their work as sacrosanct and beyond reproach: Chayefsky, William Goldman, Ernest Lehman, Nicholas Kazan and many more have argued that the only creativity within a film begins and ends at the typewriter. Not only is this garbage, it is elitist bullshit. Russell’s (admittedly misguided) massacre of Chayefsky’s preciousness is, quite rightly, a testament to the creative effort invested on a film set and in the editing room, and a two-fingered insult to the self-righteous behaviour of writers (and their supporters) who see themselves as the centre of the cinematic universe.

Altered States at the IMDb