683 Nashville

[Magic Hate Ball]

Nashville



This cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Robert Altman is a panoramic view of the country’s political and entertainment landscapes, set in the nation’s music capital. Nashville weaves the stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast wrote and performed their own songs live on location, which lends another layer to the film’s quirky authenticity. Altman’s ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways was never put to better use than in this grand, rollicking triumph, which barrels forward to an unforgettable conclusion.

Disc Features

• New 2K digital film restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring director Robert Altman
• New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with actors Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, Allan Nicholls, and Lily Tomlin; assistant director Alan Rudolph; and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury
• Archival interviews with Altman
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• Demos of Carradine singing his songs from the film
• Trailer
• One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all content available in both editions
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Molly Haskell






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Does Christmas smell like oranges to you?

Altman's fabulous take on the heart and home of country music, featuring 24 main characters in his trademark style, looks, sounds, and feels just as right today as it did in 1975, honing in all of the patriotism and passion of Nashville itself into one three hour celebration of life, liberty, and the pursiut of happiness.

Now that's out of the way, let's discuss Nashville, one of Altman's crowning achievements. I saw this today, and it held me at the edge of my seat a number of times, mostly during the Barbara Jean segments, as well as dazzle me with a whirl of colorful characters, including Opal, the intrusive and omnipresent BBC reporter (I honestly did not know whether to love her or hate her: "BUSES! SPEAK TO ME!"), Sueleen Gay, an aspiring singer who cannot sing, Marthe, the airheaded floozy who is in town to visit a sick aunt, Winifred, a small woman who runs away from her husband so she can sing, and about twenty more who have to be seen to be believed.

Fabulous in every way of the word.

[denti alligator]

Can someone explain why this film is so loved and critically acclaimed? I saw it for the first time earlier this year and was nearly bored to tears.

[Polybius]

"If you have to ask, you'll never know." - Louis Armstrong.

Was it your first time seeing it, MHB?

[denti alligator]

I figured.

Yes, it was my first time viewing it. I have no aversion to Altman, mind you, but this one just didn't "click" in any way.

[Magic Hate Ball]

Was it your first time seeing it, MHB?

Yeah. I liked Short Cuts, The Player, The Company, Gosford Park, and Popeye, so getting this seemed like an obvious choice. I think I liked Altman before the jazzy 90's rage; Short Cuts and The Player are both nearly too "90's jazz" for me, with all the blues and pinks and pukey saxophones, and Gosford Park and The Company seemed too crisp for Altman. Really, he worked best in the 70's and early 80's, when the film grain and the lives of everyone were gritty.

Anyways, I'd heard so much about it I made a special presentation of it and took the big television into my room and hooked the stereo up to it. Really terrific (but what a time to learn your television has a dead CRT pixel!) Every moment of the film is incredible. The first thirty minutes are pocked with exciting events, and the not-very-exciting moments are just plain interesting. I think half the fun of this movie comes with the characters themselves. If you can't like any of them, then either you've got the most disagreeable person on the planet or you're blind and deaf. What I really like about the characters is how oddly balanced they are: you can both love and hate any of them equally.

[zedz]

Yes, it was my first time viewing it. I have no aversion to Altman, mind you, but this one just didn't "click" in any way.

I can't help you, but I adore this film: sort of 'essence of Altman' for me, and maybe his ultimate achievement in that 'multi-focal' mode, though A Wedding goes even further in many respects, and is wonderful as well (what do you think of that one, denti?)

I approach these films as wonderfully chaotic symphonies / cacophonies that create an impressionistic idea of a time and place through glancing character bits and dramatic moments, rather than fleshed-out characters and conventional narrative arcs. The threat of constant distraction is part of the whole atmosphere.

And 'Dues' is a hell of a song. At the very least go back and have another look at / listen to that.

[Polybius]

Yes, it was my first time viewing it. I have no aversion to Altman, mind you, but this one just didn't "click" in any way.

Let it settle for a while, then think about giving it another shot.

This is the template, for me, of how to do this sort of film. Altman came close to equalling it with Short Cuts, and John Sayles works similar ground well, especially in City of Hope, but no one else is really in the same ballpark.

Paul T. Anderson wakes up every day thinking he's this good, and a lot of people who should know better (and many others who probably don't) seem to agree with him, but the fact of the matter is that he's not. Not on his best day, standing on his tiptores on top of the CN tower could he even see Altman's ass, let alone kiss it.

And below him, you have those clowns who wrote and filmed Crash.

[Magic Hate Ball]

Paul T. Anderson wakes up every day thinking he's this good

There's a thread for this.

Personally, I love Robert Altman and P. T. Anderson both. Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love are all equally enthralling films.

[Polybius]

Paul T. Anderson wakes up every day thinking he's this good

There's a thread for this.

A thread which we both contributed to, extensively.

I'm not interested in derailing this discussion, or having this latter part of it merged into that thread, but...just to clarify: I had actually forgotten the last part of it, so don't take my shot at Anderson as being aimed at you as well, because it wasn't.

Having said that, I despise Anderson's hamfisted attempts to do this sort of film and I feel compelled to point that out where appropriate (and maybe, in this case, where I have to stretch a bit to fit it in.)

[Magic Hate Ball]

This movie needs more love.

[Adam]

For me, it's not only a fine representation of Nashville, but probably the finest of America ever in film. The mix of characters desiring success, the difficulties of making it, and the coddling of those who have, the ways in which some cry out to be seen, and others disappear in the woodwork, the possibility of violence (and its occasional explosion), the nebulous nature of politics, all in a community that consistently declaims its devout nature, even though religion is largely practiced as another affectation. Along with the overt expressions of patriotism.

All with a bunch of characters (no single one of which carries the film, or needs to) who are likable, inscrutable, humorous, of varying degrees of talent. The normal folks you see in most parts of the country.

I find it rich, dynamic, insightful, entertaining. Far superior to Short Cuts, which tries a similar thing with Los Angeles. However Short Cuts for me (entertaining and well-executed) remains a portrait of just one side of Los Angeles, whereas Nashville extends far beyond its titular city.

[ColtonicAndy]

Great film. The irony is that I watch this film literally one week before I vacationed in Nashville.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I am working on the TSPDT 1000 Greatest movies, and this was one I really wasn't looking forward to(reasons: I tried watching Short Cuts when I was like 13 and it bored the crap out of me, and it's almost 3 hours), but it really was amazing. I really like it when I am not particularly looking forward to a movie and it blows me away.

I liked how all the dialogue in the film wasn't really front and centre, either due to multiple conversations going on at once, or through music, or through the politician's platform being blasted through loudspeakers. It was really interesting to me that Altman was able to make such an engaging film that relied very little on a story, or on dialogue. The characters just interacted in different settings, and by the end of the film you feel like you know them all, just through some gesture or glance. I don't think I have ever seen another film like it.

That final scene was pretty devastating too. Just captivating stuff. And the music is tremendous as well.

[Antoine Doinel]

Finally saw this recently and loved it, particularly the final 45 minutes. The film really defines "slice of life" filmmaking in a way that many other films that slapped with that tag fail to live up to. The viewer is really dropped into the world of these characters for a few days and gently lifted out. While I understand where Paul Thomas Anderson gets the inevitable Altman comparison, and certainly he owns up to that fact, films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia (both of which I love), while structurally similar to Nashville and Short Cuts differ most importantly in that they follow very defined melodramatic arcs. In Roger Ebert's review of Nashville he pointedly notes that there are no character entrances. Anderson, on the other hand, gives his characters very clear introductions and clearly focused scenes. Altman's approach is more casual, almost demanding multiple viewings to take in all the layers of relationships, perceptions, motivations and relationships of the characters.

Watching the film, I did notice was that there were several instances where the camera seems to be shake or be bumped and final crane shot seems particularly shaky. Is this an issue with Paramount's DVD transfer (which certainly needs to be improved on) or was this something that occured during filming? I recall reading that budget for the film was tight and I would imagine reshoots were limited.

[Magic Hate Ball]

Is this an issue with Paramount's DVD transfer (which certainly needs to be improved on) or was this something that occured during filming? I recall reading that budget for the film was tight and I would imagine reshoots were limited.

Probably the latter.

[feihong]

I watched it again recently with a sort of informal "film club." I'd been watching a number of Altman's 70s films all over again, and it struck me for the first time what a harsh tone this film actually has. Placed next to other Altman films of the era - none of them too short on cynicism to begin with - NASHVILLE seems to bemoan every situation it brings to bear. The film seems shot through with disillusionment, directed at both political and social spheres of American life.

In retrospect, NASHVILLE seems to reflect less about the particular place of its setting than on a reaction to larger waves of social despair sweeping American society in 1975. Not only is the picture of music and politics bedding down together sickening (usually signified by the appearance of Michael Murphy's greatest slimeball ever) as we watch it collide, but Altman paints a distressing portrait of families (Ned Beatty and Lily Tomlin's marriage seems to be a disaster quietly paralleling the enormous highway wreck early in the film) and of interpersonal relationships failing to connect (Keith Carradine's callous singer is nonetheless overwhelmed with melancholy in private moments, but the most disturbing relationship in the movie is between L.A. Joan and anyone who crosses her path). As Altman has it, Nashville, and America at it's bicentennial, is a dessicated hulk of ideals rubbing shoulders clumsily with aspirations; music soars low over the wasteland, dipping close to the claws of a massively impersonal capitalism. It is interesting how many times the Kennedy assassinations come up in the film, and interesting as well how the ubiquitous political candidate anticipates Ross Perot.

The sense of specific place and time integrates well with these larger themes in NASHVILLE. Later films like THE COMPANY fail to draw such powerful associations around them. Interestingly, NASHVILLE seems to have picked up a great number of critics at the time of its release, complaining that the setting wasn't observed faithfully. It reminded me of the alienation I felt from THE COMPANY, whose sense of the world of ballet clashed so harshly with my own personal experience with it. Was NASHVILLE so reckless, so far from believable as THE COMPANY? I think not; the actors may have written their own songs, but Altman seems far more involved in NASHVILLE than in many of his later films. SHORT CUTS, meanwhile, reflects a Los Angeles I know is there. But it clashes harshly with my sense of another L.A., less homogenously white and less upper-class, which never appears in SHORT CUTS. The Los Angeles of SHORT CUTS never seems a city with a border close to Mexico and one of the world's largest ocean ports, and it made me feel as if Altman had missed something real that was there (there is much more feeling for Los Angeles in THE LONG GOODBYE, for my money, than in SHORT CUTS). I don't feel the same about NASHVILLE, regardless of the similar criticisms, because NASHVILLE has gathered around it so many expansive references; it isn't Nashville, Tennessee that has captivated Altman in the film, but rather the nation, captured in a suffocating phase of transition - the same nation that swallows up its country cultures with faceless capitalism in McCABE & MRS. MILLER. But while McCABE is sweetly, sorrowfully elegaic, even as it is touched by the intractability of romance between its leads, NASHVILLE is a ravished corpse Altman has found in the forest and laid at our feet. The film reeks with the sense that there is no escaping the hardship to come. Incidentally, upon review the film seems far shorter than its 3 hours. If it seems less expansive than 3 WOMEN, McCABE, or THE LONG GOODBYE, it's because the people of Altman's America are retreating, or contracting, in NASHVILLE. Their national wound is hardening into a scar that perhaps will not ever fully heal. Later on, 3 WOMEN ends in apocalypse and then seemingly in a new phase of human evolution (in which the male is perhaps abandoned?).

This 70s phase of Altman's career is still the most dynamic; the movies continue to engage. It is often described how Altman faltered or floundered in the 80s. But I wonder if what really happened was that the engaging, dynamic phase of his work ended with the armaggeddon at the end of 3 WOMEN. Where could he have gone from there?

[Polybius]

SHORT CUTS, meanwhile, reflects a Los Angeles I know is there. But it clashes harshly with my sense of another L.A., less homogenously white and less upper-class, which never appears in SHORT CUTS. The Los Angeles of SHORT CUTS never seems a city with a border close to Mexico and one of the world's largest ocean ports, and it made me feel as if Altman had missed something real that was there (there is much more feeling for Los Angeles in THE LONG GOODBYE, for my money, than in SHORT CUTS).

I think both of those things are largely due to the writers Altman used as source material.

Excellent post

[Foam]

What does everyone make of the final shot, as the camera starts pointing up towards the sun? Did Altman just want to make a nice little outro there, or is he saying something? I'm not suggesting that Altman wants us to all run out and convert to Christianity--he definitely doesn't--or that he's even making a necessarily spiritual statement of any kind, but the whole movie seems to me concerned with the basest, earthiest sort of stuff: societal structures and politics, and maybe Altman wants us to turn away from these things as-a-form-of-salvation and towards something else, like nature? When I type it out it seems very new-agey and unlikely, and the fact that he went on to make more overtly political works like Tanner and A Secret Honor suggest that I'm probably wrong, and it's probably just a meaningless aesthetic camera movement, but it's also something I can't help thinking about after each viewing.

[Polybius]

denti, have you had occasion to revise your opinion?

Asked out of nothing but idle curiosity.

[Magic Hate Ball]

What does everyone make of the final shot

I took it as a kind of suggestion that humanity's like one big group. You know, we just spent three hours on this drama, what about the rest of the world, what kind of drama's going on elsewhere? Lots and lots. It somehow implies that we're both utterly insignificant and extremely significant, the former on a global scale and the latter on a human scale.

[sevenarts]

Jason Bellamy and I have just posted a lengthy conversation about this film at Slant/The House Next Door.

[Antares]

Jason Bellamy and I have just posted a lengthy conversation about this film at Slant/The House Next Door.

Very interesting read. I'm definitely in Jason's camp when it comes to this film.

I loved his line about Streep and Tomlin 'doing Altman' in Prairie Home Companion and everything he says in the last paragraph.

[Polybius]

Personally, I'm a lot closer to Ed's take on things.

For whatever that's worth.

[essrog]

After bookmarking Jason and Ed's conversation when it was first posted, I finally got around to reading the whole thing. Outstanding stuff -- both writers make several interesting points, though I'm definitely on Ed's side when it comes to the movie's relevance today, as well his analysis of the songs in the film. For his part, Jason articulates some valid complaints about the film that I'm sure will be expressed far less cogently when my class finishes watching the film tomorrow.

[jbeall]

I finally got around to seeing this and loved it. (The town has definitely changed a bit since 1975! But then again, I jogged around the Parthenon last Sunday, so the more things change...)

This has gotta be my favorite Altman along with Short Cuts. What I especially like is the large ensemble that cross paths, but only in the most tangential (and rarely meaningful) way. But the main thing I wanted to post was that it's amazing to me that Ronee Blakley didn't become more of a star, either as a singer or as an actress. She's great in this film!