Nashville (1975)

i must have seen a different film!!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A different way of telling a story

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is Altman's masterpiece without a doubt. It is filled wonderful performances from a huge cast, several of which are real gems.Having said that, I must say that as amazing as it sounds, Lily Tomlin is the biggest standout. At the time, she was known mostly for her comedic work on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In so her work in "Nashville" was an astounding surprise. The scene where Keith Carradine sings "I'm Easy" is beautifully filmed with Tomlin stealing it without saying a word and yet still saying so much. She is the dramatic heart of the film. While I love Lee Grant and am glad she finally got an Oscar after being blacklisted early in her career, I wish Tomlin had won the Oscar in 1975 for this film.My second favorite has to be Barbara Harris who spends most of her scenes in the background until she gets to end the film with a spectacular final scene.

My rendezvous with "Nashville" goes back to seven years ago, I could get any movie I wanted but "Nashville" resisted. I needed to see the fifth Best Picture nominee of 1975, this very movie Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael raved about, that topped both Ebert and Siskel's annual top ten, this American Film Institute's Top 100 entry that was a total mystery to me.It took seven years but better late than never… At first, I didn't get what was so brilliant about it but so many story lines and only one viewing? I saw it again. And then, I went like "oh, what the heck", a third time won't hurt. Three times in less than four days, could have been four or five times, as many as the stars in the American flag, that's how good it is. This is one flew over a cuckoo's nest you don't recover from, and the more ordinary people and situations are, the more extraordinary the journey is. Altman should be damned… if he wasn't such a genius.The film spans a period of five days during a country-music festival, coinciding with some populist politician's party rally, this is enough to have a panoramic view across the lives of dozens of characters who, through their considerable differences, reach ever possible dimension of the American spirit of 1975, and in such a way that I guess even a non-American can enjoy it. Well, there's me at least.So, what is "Nashville"? Simply, the Mecca of country music, the reason why everybody came in the first place and were reunited by the end.There are dozens of them but there's no small part in the sense that they're all equally small in the scale of the significance of music, the common thread, the real star. Some sing, some wish they could, some manage or look for singers, some screw or get screwed by them… or just pop up and aimlessly wander, like in real life, no one crosses your path who should necessarily has a significance.I wonder to which extent these fascinating hazards were part of Joan Tewkesbury's script or improvised by the actors… the same way they wrote their own songs.And not any songs, country songs… this is crucial because country music isn't just deeply rooted in American tradition, it is also the most cinematic of all forms of music: it tells stories.I can perhaps tell you the name of four or five country singers but I know a great deal about the way country music affects me, because any song I hear finds a powerful echo in my own memories. It is like this scene from "The Simpsons" where Homer leaves the house after an argument and hears Lurleen Lumpkin singing "Your wife doesn't understand you but I do". You listen to country music because you feel like 'it' has listened to you in the first place.Just compare the upbeat patriotic starting song from Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) "we must have done something right to last 200 years" with the neutral political slogans the loudspeaker keep on hammering all day, which one will reach the hearts first? Compare the obnoxiousness of the character played by Keith Carradine who seemed to have gotten half the female cast on his bed with the melancholic tune of his "I'm Easy" you can't even tell whether he has pride or contempt toward himself, but the gaze of Lilly Tomlin while listening to him says everything.Music is like the only way to arouse genuine emotions, in another powerful scene, a wannabe singer (Glew Welels) of mediocre talent gets booed, she can only indulge to a striptease to provoke the cheers. In another scene, a father doesn't even have the patience to listen to his deaf son's story as if silence was the antithesis of communication, and music its apotheosis.Many people communicate, others don't… some meet, others don't… I remember a girl in high school, we never talked together, never went in the same class, but for some reason, we always met in some place or another. When it became obviously repetitive, we smiled at each other; like a private joke. Just like in "Nashville", the more we meet these people, the more we care for them, as we care for ourselves.Only the New Hollywood period could have made this gem possible, a time where America was still mourning an innocence and where the baby-boomers like today's millennials (count me among them) were cherishing their childhood, a time without the Vietnam War, incarnated by a Wizard-of-Oz-like childhood, Kennedy's dashing smile, the very American Pie Don McLean said bye-bye to.And this end-of-an-era is magnificently captured by the performance of Roney Blakely (Oscar-nominated along with Tolmin) as a fragile and emotionally vulnerable country singer named Barbara Jean. She's a sweet and delicate flower with a ticking bomb of a heart, she faints at her arrival, in her first representation, she interrupts her songs to mumble about her childhood until her husband (Allen Garfield) takes her away, simply overwhelmed, and easily upset like a part of America is.But there's room for every possible identification: capitalists, disillusioned soldiers, drifters, lunatic, has-beens, romantics and losers, this is a microcosm of America, all in characters and emotions, for the sake of laughs, anger, tears, frustration, the spirit of a country in a nutshell and its heart is Barbara Jean, whose "Idaho Home" song awakened again that symptomatic feeling of millennials: being nostalgic over eras we didn't live.And if I could keep one image from these 240 minutes, I'd keep the sight of the American flag gently rippling under the wind while Barbara Jean sings "we were young then, we were together. We could bear floods and fire and bad weather", hell, how can I seriously write a thousand-word review when this image alone speaks for a thousand words.

While Altman's offering contains important information on 70s fashion, perfect for research purposes, it delivers nothing in terms of entertainment.The only positive aspect to this thoroughly unenjoyable marathon is that, at 5x fast forward, it lasts only a little more than 30 minutes.On a side note, the minimum 10 line requirement for this review guarantees flabby, flimsy, meandering rhetoric. For 15 years I have looked forward to visiting Nashville. I will go despite this film, and look forward to expressing my expressing my opinions to both locals and tourists.In summary, the 5 minutes I have spent writing this review offered several times the order of enjoyment of the movie itself.

There are dozens of relevant characters as they spend their time in the city of Nashville. The stories weave an interconnected tapestry. There is a forthcoming political rally for Hal Phillip Walker as the Replacement Party candidate for President which is omnipresent throughout the movie.I disliked this movie the first time I tried to watch it. There are so many characters that it's hard to follow anything. It's story chaos. It's not just a matter of being lost. I couldn't see the point of not following the lead characters. After a few half-hearted attempts, I finally gave it a serious try. There is a zen feel about watching this movie. I could lock onto a couple of characters especially played by some of the most recognizable actors. I let the movie wash over me. The singing gets me zoned out. It's a hypnotic form of people watching. It's got the Altman style. I'm not sure whether most modern audiences could ever truly love this.