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In response to America's 250th anniversary this summer, I decided to watch Robert Altman's 1975 movie Nashville to see if it holds up and I think it does. This is one of the best movies ever made and a genuine work of art from a masterful director. It's a rare kind of movie that works in all sorts of ways. It works as a musical, as a satire, as a comedy, as a political parable, and most importantly, as a love letter to America.
The movie takes place in Nashville Tennessee during the country's bicentennial and it focuses on 24 characters who crossed paths with each other. Rather than using a traditional three act structure, the film uses a mosaic to tell these 24 individual stories in 160 minutes. Rather than using traditional good guys and bad guys, the film uses flawed, three dimensional characters the the audience is supposed to care about.
Among these interlocking stories are Lily Tomlin as a married woman who is having an affair with a local country singer (Keith Carradine), Ronne Blakely as a country singer who gets sent to the hospital after a supposed nervous breakdown during her arrival in Nashville, Ned Beatty as a lawyer who is married to the Lily Tomlin character and is a local organizer for a political candidate, Geraldine Chaplin as a BBC journalist who is covering the music scene, and Shelly Duvall as a groupie who deliberately missed out on her late aunt's funeral. Each of these stories were given and equal amount of screentime to the point where it doesn't get confusing to the audience.
The film covers topics like adultery, success, and American politics to the degree that the film accurately depicts what American life is like, even though the movie is fiction. The movie's docudrama approach gives the movie more realistic weight and helps make the characters more human than other traditional Hollywood films.
What further elevates the movie is the great performances from an ensemble cast. Altman was known for encouraging his actors to improvise their lines and they even wrote their own music, making their performances more real and naturalistic. Some of the actors themselves are even convincing as country singers, making their songs more authentic to their characters. These naturalistic performances help give these characters depth and not come across like they were just reading lines from the script.
Speaking of the dialogue, Altman uses overlapping dialogue to make the characters' conversations feel natural. He achieves this by wiring his actors with hidden microphones, then he records them talking over each other. This innovative technique enhances the realistic nature of the film and makes the audience active spectators because overlapping conversations do happen in real life.
The movie is shot in widescreen by cinematographer Paul Lohmann and he beautifully captures the essence of Nashville by giving the city a sense of scale. There are large crowds, concerts, car races, and a traffic collision that opens the movie. It gives Nashville a more panoramic feel and a sense of realism to the visuals. It must be seen on better formats like DVD or Blu Ray, since VHS tapes often pan and scan widescreen images to fit 4:3 TV screens, so it's for the best not to watch this movie on VHS and no one really uses the format today anyways.
Apart from it's cinematic innovations and and strong performances, the movie's core strength is that it's a love letter to America but its not patriotic about its message and blind to its faults. This movie was made when the country was in a state of turmoil with the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal and not much has changed in 50 years. Since then, we had the wars in the Middle East, the presidential scandals of people like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the assassination of John Lennon, and even COVID-19. The fact that history repeats itself makes this movie more relevant, timely, and meaningful today.
Overall, this is a great movie. It's one of the greatest movies of the 1970s (and the New Hollywood period in general), it's one of the greatest American stores ever told, it's one of the greatest works of art period. The late great Roger Ebert said it best when he said "this is a film about America. It deals with our myths, our hungers, our ambitions, and our sense of self. It knows how we talk and how we behave, and it doesn't flatter us but it does love us."
