Images (film)

Images
original film poster
Directed by	Robert Altman
Produced by	Tommy Thompson
Written by	Robert Altman Susannah York (book, In Search of Unicorns)
Starring	Susannah York René Auberjonois Marcel Bozzuffi Cathryn Harrison
Music by	John Williams Stomu Yamashta
Cinematography	Vilmos Zsigmond
Edited by	Graeme Clifford
Production company	Hemdale Film Group Ltd.
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	December 18, 1972 (1972-12-18) (US)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	$807,000

Images is a 1972 British-American psychological thriller film directed by Robert Altman and starring Susannah York. The picture follows an unstable children's author who finds herself engulfed in apparitions and hallucinations while staying at her remote vacation home.

Wealthy housewife and children's author Cathryn (Susannah York) receives a series of disturbing and eerie phone calls in her home in London one dreary night. The female voice on the other end suggests mockingly to her that her husband Hugh (René Auberjonois) is having an affair.

Cathryn's husband comes home, finding her in complete disarray. Hugh attempts to comfort her, but then he is gone, and she sees a different man who is behaving as if he were her husband. She screams in horror and backs away, only to see her vision of the figure revert to her husband.

Hugh attributes her outburst to stress and her budding pregnancy. He decides to take a vacation to the countryside at an isolated cottage. But as she dwells there, Cathryn delves into darker delusions as the stranger returns, and she finds it difficult to determine what is reality and what is in her mind.

Roger Ebert gave Images three stars out of four, recommending it to fans of Altman's filmography but also writing that it "inspires admiration rather than involvement. It’s a technical success but not quite an emotional one."

Although having received many award nominations, Images is now one of Altman's lesser-known works.