At the Movies II

Well, Altman certainly succeeded in putting Rainer off the scent of his Hollywood criminal class: the directors (“Here’s the Deal: ‘The Player’ Takes Hollywood Genre One Step Beyond,” April 19).

Long before the corporate producers arrived with their illusions of artistry, and the screenwriters “glommed onto the producers’ market-research attitudes,” as Rainer puts it, the new director class of the ‘70s had staked out all this territory.

Now they’re in Washington and in Bern, Switzerland, pleading for protections for their “art.” The generation of directors currently in power has obliterated the moral questions once suggested by the phrase sell out .

DIANA QUINN ROSE

Los Angeles