Nashville

Nashville couldn't understand "Nashville," and no wonder. Anyone who watches "Nashville" for insights to country music probably views "The Godfather" for tips about olive oil. Altman's 1975 film uses country music and the people who perform, listen to and produce it as a metaphor about America in the '70s, when, as Warren Beatty said in "A Parallax View," released a year earlier, "everytime you turned around, one of the best people in the country was getting shot." Anyone who has seen the film and visits the Parthenon, where the final scenes are filmed, may feel a sense of unease. Listen closely and you can hear Haven Hamilton pleading to the stunned crowd, "Show them what we're made of! They can't do this to us here! This isn't Dallas; this is Nashville!"

The ending is astonishing, tidying up some plot lines and leaving others open ended. A star is born when the Albuquerque character and a gospel group minus its leader belt out a Nashville standard, "It Don't Worry Me." The Sueleen Gay character, meanwhile, suffers one final indignity; Albuquerque, on the same stage and with the same ambitions, achieves the fame that might have gone to Sueleen, a waitress/stripper/wanna-be recording artist, had Sueleen gotten the microphone first.

We never know what caused the Kenny Frazier character to crack; perhaps like Mark David Chapman (John Lennon) he was obsessed with the Holden Caulfield character in "Catcher in the Rye," although we can feel fairly certain that he did not share John David Hinckley's (President Reagan) obsession with Jodie Foster since "Taxi Driver" would not be released for another year.

Watching "Nashville" for the first time, you may feel protective of Barbara Jean's character for reasons you can't immediately explain but will learn all too well. I feel the same urge to shout at the screen, warning her character of possible danger, that I experienced in "From Here to Eternity," knowing that Pearl Harbor was imminent and would change everything.

Characters transform before our eyes. Del Reese (Ned Beatty), bored with his marriage to a Nashville superstar and as a father to hearing-impaired children, cares enough at the end to lead a wounded Haven Hamilton to safety. Hamilton (masterfully played by Henry Gibson) would stomp anyone in his path to create a hit record but is the first to care for Barbara Jean in her moment of need.

Sure, some of the songs are terrible -- some country music is terrible -- but could anything be more poignant than Barbara Jean's rendition of "My Idaho Home" or Keith Carradine singing "I'm Easy" in a nightclub where four of his conquests look on equally with lust and bewilderment. Country singers, like stock-car drivers, inspire tremendous loyalty and jealousy among their fans, which Altman depicts beautifully when Scott Glenn, a devoted fan of Barbara Jean, leaves the Opry as Connie White appears to sing a tribute to her ailing rival. Hamilton's character is never better than when between songs he asks listeners to send Barbara Jean a card and "tell her that Haven told you to write."

Altman would rate among the greatest directors -- as the American Fellini -- if this were his only effort. Despite its convoluted plot structure, "Nashville" achieves greatness and searches for truth. If the 1970s shaped your life in any respect, this is a movie experience not to be missed.

Let's get the obvious out of the wa first. Nashville is a Robert Altman film and that's as close to a guarantee of a well directed, well acted film as one's likely to find in 70's cinema. However Nashville is also an almost three hour film and for its duration and amount of talent involved the payoff is not what one would expect.

Now what is it that we all look for in movies of Nashville's calibre? Why do we ask in exchange for our money and undivided attention to the screen? I'd say it's little moments of insight; into ourselves, human nature, the world by and large. Nashville has them. So what's the problem you say? The problem is that they're buried and suffocating under the enormous weight of the rest of the movie, a barrage of country and western songs, five or ten actors crammed in every other shot, three or four people talking one over the other, a narrative slump of miniplots that criss cross in every scene. Typical Altman quirks yes but here they trump what in other cases they help surface: substance.

The double axis Nashville revolves around is music and politics. An interesting combination subject in and off itself. Altman follows a reverse process, he wisely takes these two universal concepts and limits their scope significantly, music becomes the country scene of Nashville and politics a political convention of the Replacement Party. Altman lets the universal spring from the specific, for in the end of the day, despite man's countless efforts to prove the opposite, we have more in common than not. A naive, almost pathetic waitress's dream of becoming a country singer should resonate as powerfully in every culture. In that sense Nashville is more about human beings, their dreams, ambitions, secrets and inadequacies than it is about music or politics.

The politics part of Nashville is handled equally breezy and smart. Politics is largely an abstract concept for the average person, an unseen, unknown force that magically appears in television screens, newspapers and radios and governs our lives. Altman translates that same essence in the form of a political campaign van that appears throughout the movie, the unseen speaker making promises of change with a monotonous voice. The actual presidential candidate he represents never appears in the movie. He remains elusive and unseen.

However well crafted and intelligent in the handling of theme Nashville may be, in the end it's those little moments of insight into human nature that count. The charming, young country singer talking on the phone with his girlfriend while the older, married woman he just had sex with prepares to leave the room, unable to hear what is being said. The husband of said married woman who has his suspicions about the strange phonecalls his wife receives hits on the naive waitress that wants to be a star. The waitress whose lack of talent is only surpassed by her naive ambition that is driven to do a striptease in a room full of men with the promise of singing with country star Baby Jane. Baby Jane is a popular and beautiful country star only on the outside, on the inside she's fragile, neurotic and empty.

The problem with Nashville is that those little moments of insight are dwarfed by the entirety of the movie. Many of the singing scenes for example should have been left on the cutting room floor - not everyone is a country fan after all, "we get the gist now move on". In the end the way I see it is that if I'm gonna give you almost three hours of my life, you better have something really important to say. Nashville is only mildly important and not as entertaining as it would have you believe.

Nashville was the first "R" rated film that my father took me to see. At 14 years of age, I was many years from NYU film school, and a neophyte when it came to appreciating cinema.

I am now 39, and to date I have seen tens of thousands of films, not to mention possessing a sizable video library. Considering my love of social politics, there is not a month that goes by that I have not thought of this film for one reason or another. There are some movies that you simply see, and there are the rare few that become part of the soul.

Simply said, Nashville is a singular work of cinematic genius that has gone dreadfully under appreciated for the last 25 years. It is a film chock full of life's little (and not so little) truths; some happy, some sad...all meaningful.

Now that it is making a long overdue reappearance on DVD in it's original (and integral) widescreen format, it is my sincerest hope that people will avail themselves of the opportunity to discover this forgotten gem for themselves.

Lastly, that this film did not make the AFI's 100 great American films is an absolute sin.

I suppose the brilliance of "Nashville" is that almost 30 years after its initial release, Robert Altman's slice of Americana has lost none of its punch. Despite being made in the Watergate and Vietnam era, the film remains relevant as ever.

In fact, one could argue, the film's even more relevant today in this age of celebrity-worship and apathetic, gutless American media who believe missing suburban wives are more pertinent and crucial to this nation's well-being than questioning facts and our leaders' motives for waging a needless, costly war.

The film's about the politics of country music, families, stardom, search for stardom, political manipulation and populist political candidates. The unseen presidential candidate's spiel in "Nashville" could easily have been sound bites from contemporary populists; he could be seen as the cinematic trend-setter for the Ross Perots, Jesse Venturas, Howard Deans and Ralph Naders.

The film is at once a political drama, musical and documentary all effortless woven together by a master storyteller, who truly is an American treasure. In "Nashville," Altman's overlapping dialogue works to perfection as he captures this panoramic view of five days in Nashville through the eyes of two-dozen characters.

With so many characters, it's Altman's genius that he keeps this an engrossing character study. Although he tosses aside all conventions of narrative storytelling, we get to know characters better in "Nashville" than we do in many contemporary dramas with fewer characters. There's Ronee Blakley's country singer; Lily Tomlin's doting housewife and mother; Scott Glenn's caring soldier; Keith Carradine's lecherous pop star; Ned Beatty's disinterested father; Keenan Wynn's loving husband; Michael Murphy's sleazy campaigner; and Gwen Welles' sad wannabe country singer, whose scene at a political fund-raiser is heartbreaking. And Jeff Goldblum's motorcyclist and Geraldine Chaplin's Opal are the threads that weave through all the lives in this marvelous tapestry.

There are plenty of terrific songs in "Nashville" - some might complain too many - but the best are Carradine's Oscar-winning "I'm Easy" and "It Don't Bother Me." They add to the nice sense of cynicism that layers the movie.

Altman's one of the big reasons the 1970s is regarded as the greatest decade of American filmmaking. Look at just a few of his contributions in that decade - "Nashville," "MASH" (1970), "Brewster McCloud" (1970), "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (1971), "Images" (1972) and "The Long Goodbye" (1973). His films also influence other talented filmmakers, including Alan Rudolph (who worked on Altman films) and Paul Thomas Anderson, whose storytelling style - "Boogie Nights" (1997) and "Magnolia" (1999) - clearly is Altman-inspired.

Director Robert Altman impressed me with this two earlier directorial efforts M.A.S.H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but I believe he really comes into his own with 1975's Nashville. The way he directed his movie and the way he made it a very intelligent movie with many important themes but can be understood by the general public is just outstanding. However, if you don't keep up with the movie, you can be sure to get lost in the overload of information Altman throws at you. On paper, the film may seem like a mess but it's really not. The film really does not have an overall plot, but it has interwoven segments that are related with each other and I'll discuss a little bit later on. This film is full of unique performances from an unusually large cast. It's not unusual that there are many characters, but how many major characters there are. There are approximately 25 major speaking roles, and that has to be some sort of record. But all the performances are wonderful and unique and you feel for each character in the country music setting of Nashville.

So what exactly is this film about? Well, that's really hard to pinpoint as there is no one big linear plot line. It is essentially about a group of people living life in Nashville during a political-happy time (kind of reminds me of the current 2016 political race). But let's break down the plot into the little segments. We have Barbara Jean (Ronee Blackley) who is the current reigning country queen of Nashville, but health problems is causing her to fall apart and she also later becomes a symbol for political assassination. Then we have Delbert (Ned Beatty) and Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin) who live a rather sad life because of a failing marriage and trying to take care of two deaf children. Delbert is involved in a politics as he is trying to bring politics and country music together. Then we have a British journalist named Opal (Geraldine Chaplin) who decides to get into the thick of events within the Nashville scene. As the famed movie critic Roger Ebert paraphrases what this movie is about, it's many things. A musical, a docudrama about life in Nashville, a political story that was influenced by events like the Watergate scandal, and it is also a satire about country music.

With such a large ensemble, I was surprised how much Altman was able to get from all of his characters. They were superbly written and the performances were genuine. Many of the characters do their own singing, and you can tell they are not professional singers. While the voices may not be the best ones ever, I loved the raw, edgy sound with added to the realism of the performances. The film is not composed of big stars (at the time or even by today's standards), but they often hit the spot. I loved Ronee Blackley's performance as the country queen, Barbara Jean. Her singing is decent, but she brings a sensitive side to her character and she is involved in a big political showdown at the end of the movie. She reminds me of a similar real-life country singer, Loretta Lynn. Lily Tomlin delivered one heck of a impressive performance as the mother of two deaf children. I relate to her character because I suffer from partial deafness myself and I understand her pains. She brings such vulnerability to her character. Ned Beatty does a good job in playing the asshole husband who doesn't care about his family but only about his job. We have very early performances from future stars from the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Scott Glenn, and Keith Carradine (who was impressive as a rock singer). Henry Gibson does a solid job as another famous country star named Haven Hamilton (and did have a good voice).

So there were many aspects to the plot I thoroughly enjoyed. I enjoyed the rather brutal satire on country music which gathered criticism from people within this industry. But my favorite was the political aspect of the movie. Maybe its because history and politics go hand in hand or maybe we are living in a political-happy environment at current time, but I feel like the politics aspect hold up strongly. I like the random scenes where we have this political party in support of a candidate named Hal Philip Walker whom we never meet, but his presence is always known. His politics and the country stars end up clashing in the end for a very powerful ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed Nashville. I don't think it's good of a masterpiece of Altman's earlier McCabe and Mrs. Miller but this is his more mainstream effort. But use that word "mainstream" lightly because Altman brings his complicated style of directing to this movie. His use of the actors and his political and social commentary is widely shown throughout the film. As I say for most of Altman's films, they are not for everyone. This film has excellent performances from everyone with my favorite performance coming from Lily Tomlin. There is an hour of music recorded for the film and despite the inexperience of the singers, the music mostly works with the film. Nominated for 5 Oscars and a 9 Golden Globes (a record that still holds today), Nashville is a solid work of filmmaking.

My Grade: A-