A man whose name rarely appears in print without the word "maverick" close by, Altman has built a 40-year career on confounding expectations—unless you count the expectation he'll do the opposite of what's expected. When I tell Altman I've read interviews where he compares the movie to Nashville, he bristles at the comparison. "I never said that," he snaps. "People have said that, I guess." Then, a few days later, I hear him doing a radio interview: "You know, this movie's like Nashville in a way." So much for leading questions.

Indeed, apart from his one grand thesis, Altman is reluctant to impute any interpretation at all to his newest film. "I don't have anything to say," he says. "And I don't think I'm going to develop anything to say in the time I have left to say it." Asked if the movie's interest in mortality might have something to do with the heart operation he announced as he accepted his honorary Oscar in March, Altman is equivocal. "I'm sure it does. My very existence and what I deal with every day in my life affects everything I do. It's what's on the side of the road on the path I'm taking. That's a given, not even a phenomenon. That's the way it is."

Altman opens up, at least slightly, when the subject shifts from the movie proper to the old-time radio programs to which it pays homage. Growing up in Kansas City, Altman says the sonorous radio poet Norman Corwin was "my hero," but after World War II, "radio went into a deep sleep, a death, really." But just as radio was reaching its pinnacle, it was replaced by television, "and we went right back to kindergarten. And I don't think we're out of it, at all." When I ask if Altman has ever felt that TV posed a threat to his chosen profession, he replies, "Not a threat to filmmaking. A threat to the population."

Altman is no Luddite. Even though he still prefers that people see his movies in theaters, he realizes that most will see them at home. "The way people watch movies has changed," he says. "People don't rush down to the corner and get into a little hot tent to watch a movie, when they can see it better wherever they choose to see it." Although Altman is sometimes painted as a misanthrope, he's always shown a great concern for the way audiences receive his movies, and the environment in which they receive them. "I don't much care how this picture gets to an audience, but I have to take it into consideration," he says. "If the only place they could see it was in a hot tent, I could make the film a little different, because I've got 'em captured. Now, that doesn't exist anymore. I think this film, or any film, is better off in a little hot tent, because the audience hasn't got distractions. But I don't think we can have it that way."

Not to worry: Altman isn't about to start using slice-and-dice editing to keep his audience's attention (although he's not above casting an out-of-her-depth Lindsay Lohan to lure in the young'uns). "You try and point the audience in the right direction, but you let them wander around with their eyes and ears," he says. "I try not to say, 'Hey you have to look at this only,' because then the pressure's on me, and I think the truth is in the bushes, in the surroundings. I just like to put it all out there and let the audience have to pick it out. You notice right away: If you don't pay attention, you're gonna miss it, because I'm not gonna tell you twice."