Put quite simply, Robert Altman’s “Nashville” is one of the most exhilarating, overwhelming, and well-directed films I have ever experienced. I use the word “experienced” very deliberately, as this is not a film that you sit and watch. It is an epic that, over its running time of nearly three hours, sweeps over you with its grand scope, its songs, and an extraordinarily extensive cast of 24 fascinating characters.

In “Nashville,” Altman paints a dynamic, lightly satirical but sincere portrait of post-Vietnam America through exploring the country music culture in Nashville, Tennessee over the course of just a few days, where waves of musicians, singers, managers and devotees are gathering and preparing for a concert/political rally being staged on behalf of a sort of ominous presidential candidate named Hal Phillip Walker who is running as a populist on the Replacement Party ticket.

The characters that we meet along the journey include: A gospel singer named Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin), her husband “Del” (Ned Beatty) who is the local organizer for the Hal Phillip Walker campaign and lawyer to Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson), a veteran Nashville country music star with political ambitions of his own. The beloved country star Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley) is also coming into town with her husband/manager Barnett (Allen Garfield), who tries to protect her public image by keeping at bay her emotional outbursts. There is also a music trio called “Bill, Mary and Tom” (Allan F. Nicholls, Cristina Raines and Keith Carradine, respectively) on the verge of breaking up, a black singer named Tommy Brown (Timothy Brown) whose race leads to some controversy, and a young waitress named Sueleen Gay (Gwenn Welles) who wants to be a country star, but cannot sing a note in key.

The non-musical characters include an elderly man, Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn), and whose wife is sick in the hospital. Mr. Green’s groupie niece Martha (Shelley Duvall) is in town from L.A. for the concert/rally, and is staying with him. He also ends up renting out a room to a drifter with a violin case (David Hayward). There are a few characters that seem to be everywhere: There is a supposed BBC journalist named Opal (Geraldine Chaplin) who tries to interview just about every other character, an eccentric man who offers rides on his three-wheel motorcycle (Jeff Goldblum), and a gossipy chauffeur named Norman (David Arkin) who no one wants to listen to. These three somewhat act as linking devices in the film, interacting with many characters and allowing scenes to transition with some kind of constant thrown in.

It all sounds so overwhelming and disorienting, but Altman somehow manages to juggle around all of the characters named above, and more, in an absorbing way. This is a film that above all requires you to focus on the events taking place on the screen. Because there are so many characters and so many stories, chaos does breakout from time to time. Characters talk over each other, no clear-cut resolution is spelled out for us, and that is the way I like it. There is a story somewhere in here, but it would be unproductive to attempt to explain what it is—if I even could—for “Nashville” is not really trying to tell a story, but rather it is expressing a place and time in American history during which a great deal of uncertainty and vulnerability were in the air. It is the finest piece of work that screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury has ever written.

Nearly all of the songs in “Nashville” are performed by the actor/actors who also wrote them. They make up about an hour of the film’s running length, and reveal more about the characters singing them than many films do with traditional character development. Because there are so many characters and so little time, the songs are what truly allow us to get to know them. It is also worth noting that although they are all intended to be gently satirical, there is something to be said for the music that the production of this film generated. One of the songs that Keith Carradine wrote for his character Tom, called “I’m Easy,” won the Academy Award for best original song. I haven’t yet been able to shake these songs out of my head—particularly Ronee Blakley’s song “Dues,” which I have read that Altman himself did not like—and I mean that in a good way.

Now, onto the performances. Each and every actor in this film is able to create a character that is worth watching and listening to. Initially, the standouts are the louder characters, such as Chaplin’s pretentious journalist, who may or may not be the real deal, and Blakley’s emotionally unstable country star. But as time passes, it is the quieter characters that really begin to grow on you, which for me includes Carradine’s womanizing Tom, Tomlin’s gospel singer who is faithfulness to her husband is tempted, and Gibson’s Haven Hamilton, who is a country star trying to maintain the tradition and grace embedded within the Nashville that he believes in as it is being challenged by sociopolitical forces beyond anyone’s control.

“Nashville” is my first thorough exposure to Altman’s innovative style. There is so much to celebrate and write about this film, and although I have seen many movies in my life, seeing this for the first time, I realized that I had never seen anything quite like it. I have seen similar attempts at the format and technique used in the film, but never quite as wonderfully messy, moving and genuine as this at least not in the same way. Altman, who passed away in 2006, was a true artist and innovator who clearly denied anything less than what his vision entailed, and whose integrity and attention to detail amounted to the stunning masterpiece that is “Nashville.” And as its tagline suggests, it is the damndest thing you ever saw.