California Split - Altman's Sound Design is Wild!

Okay, so I just re-watched "California Split" last night, and while the story is cool and the performances are awesome (Gould is SO good at being a lovable loser), I'm really fixated on the sound design. Altman always did interesting things with audio, layering conversations and ambient noise to create this almost overwhelming sense of realism, but this movie takes it to another level. Like, during the gambling scenes, it's not just the clatter of chips and the dealer's voice – it's this constant murmur of overlapping conversations, the distant sound of other games, people yelling, everything bleeding together. It's chaotic, stressful, and totally puts you right there in the casino, feeling that same anxiety as Charlie and Bill. Did anyone else notice how he uses that layering to build tension, especially as things start going downhill for them? I also think there's something interesting going on with the use of silence, or rather, the *lack* of it. Even in supposedly quiet moments, there's always some low-level hum or background noise, which keeps the movie from ever feeling static or staged. It makes the world feel so alive and unpredictable. Do you guys think this was intentional? Or am I just reading too much into it, lol? And alright, a random question: Did anyone have similar feelings as me, that the final scene seemed a little… anticlimactic? I get what Altman was probably going for (the emptiness, the lack of resolution), but I felt like the sound design could have made it more impactful. Though maybe the muted final act was the intention after all. What are your thoughts?