Thanks, Brad. I’ve only seen this film once and a very long time ago, too. Your post makes me want to see this again.
I’m not a fan of Altman’s sanctimonious camera that you see in both Nashville and Short Cuts.
To me, Nashville is a portrait of everyone in America you haven’t met. You know, those people, the ones ruining everything. Nobody you know in your own life is like that, but people are. Kind of like the way things are going to hell, but your neighborhood is just fine.
^ Yeah, I get some of the same vibe from this one.
Any specific examples? There are as many likable as unlikable characters in the film. Also, this is not a slice of life drama, so characters, either part of or wanting to be part of, a celebrity culture, generally wouldn’t act like your next door neighbor.
It’s not really about likability, Brad, it has more to do with Altman’s apparent attitude toward the characters in the film.
About the music: yeah, it’s just not country music. But I agree with you that this shouldn’t in itself be grounds for dismissing the movie out of hand. Altman’s ‘70s films did weird things with milieu—MASH isn’t really the Korea War in a realistic sense, Thieves Like Us isn’t the Depression, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Buffalo Bill aren’t really the West.
Having seen the film so many times, maybe I’m too close to it to notice. I’m curious as to how this attitude is being manifested because I’m not seeing it.
I know I felt similar to how Jirin feels about Nashville when I watched Short Cuts. It almost felt at times like Altman was ticking off a checklist of the character’s faults. As someone who loves the compassionate viewpoint of the films of people like Mike Leigh’s feature films or Eric Rohmer I found Altman’s less compassionate viewpoint kind of irksome. Still I’ve enjoyed all three Altman’s I’ve seen (all three have received 7.5/10s from me), so I’m looking forward to seeing Nashville (especially as it’s so critically acclaimed).
I actually disagree that Altman’s stance is smug or condescending. By the end of Nashville, all the likable characters have done something unlikable, and vice-versa. I can’t think of many other films that aim for such complexity, and if he does show America as some kind of gigantic mental institution, I think Altman clearly has sympathy for all the inmates.
FWIW, I’m a little surprised by the “attitude” that people mentioned. I’m beginning to wonder if I missed something.
Matt said, Altman’s ‘70s films did weird things with milieu…
My sense is that Altman was concerned with the genre, more than the millieu. He frequently seems to work within a superficial framework of a genre and then just do whatever he wants in them—often subverting or ignoring the typical genre conventions and the expections that people have for them. But I don’t think he’s very interested in accurate depictions of certain millieus.
Yeah, I agree with that, Jazz.
Me too. Genre subversion is key to Altman’s artistic strategy, particularly in his early films. I go into more detail about that in my director intro at http://mubi.com/topics/director-introduction-robert-altman
Cinesthesia’s comments are right on the mark IMO.
Good intro Brad and good luck in the match.
I don’t want to discuss my opinion of the film but I must say it is sanwhiched between two of his best films:
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson
and
California Split
Has anyone seen the original longer cut that Pauline Kael raved about, or the shooting script of the original cut? I am somewhat curious to know what was left out of the final version.
Don’t forget to vote today for the Replacement Party’s DC candidate – Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE!
Is this today? Cool.
“It has more to do with Altman’s apparent attitude toward the characters in the film.”
Which is what? The more I watch Nashville, the more inscrutable it seems. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s a grand statement without a grand statement.
“Which is what?”
Other-ness.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Nashville, but I don’t recall getting the vibe that some people have described above. There might be a quality of “other-ness” as Matt suggests, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
The movie works for me because it’s so broad in its ambitions and so inscrutable (Ari’s term) in its details. And given that there are so many characters in the film, I don’t think it is realistic to expect them all to be fully developed people; they are caricatures in a weird American mosaic.
Will Nashville get a BD anytime soon? That would be gorgeous.
I know its routinely touted as a masterpiece, but you guys haven’t heard this take on the film before?
Dave Kehr: " there was a sudden urge in the mid 70s to make movies about “the people” and yet all of these films were incredibly condescending. Altman, he’s just sneering at these people, he’s laughing at the people in Nashville."
Kent Jones: “I tried to watch Nashville again recently and I found it utterly impossible. I think it’s just a bad movie. But I still remember her excitement over it. At the time the film seemed good, and I love other Altman movies, but that one just seems hopelessly pretentious and hokey to me.”
Wish I could find the text of Manny Farber’s piece on the film from Coppola’s old City magazine. He called it “an Airport (1970) or Grand Hotel (1932) structure pretentiously convoluted so that it is an epic poem about disillusioned Americans” and called the characters “single-note stereotypes.”
>>he’s just sneering at these people<<
Still waiting for actual examples from the film where this occurs.
I suppose you could cite Opul from the BBC’s antics, but her comic cluelessness is contrasted by real affectionate portrayals, like the relationship between Lilly Tomlin and Keith Carradine’s characters, which reveal subtle levels of loneliness, non-judgmentally.
“Nashville” is one of my favorite movies, and I never really got the idea of it being snobbish either. I didn’t think Altman felt superior to the people in it, generally, so much as he was either objective or in some cases sympathetic. I really felt for Barbara Jean’s fragility, for example, the way she was manipulated by Barnett (Allen Garfield) and the people around her until she just flips out on stage. The same goes for Gwen Welles as Sueleen Gay, this little girl in a woman’s body who gets completely exploited, also on stage. Keenan Wynn was a sympathetic character, too; by contrast, L.A. Joan (Shelley Duvall), his niece, was just a selfish little bitch. And Wade (Robert Doqui), Sueleen’s friend, was a solid character, a good guy trying to keep someone from being hurt.
Also, I have to say, it’s a very prescient film. In 1975, he figured out how politics and celebrity culture were going to collide, how political ideas are packaged and sold, what it takes to appeal to the dissatisfied masses. Brad is totally on the money to say Hal Phillip Walker predicted Ross Perot; I though precisely that 20 years ago, as Perot’s campaign was gearing up. I think today he would be running as a Tea Partier today. I suspect, though, that Altman at the time was thinking of the threat of another George Wallace — a refashioned, more packaged one, not so much racist as doggedly right-wing.
“I know its routinely touted as a masterpiece, but you guys haven’t heard this take on the film before?”
Yeah, I’ve heard this dig but I’ve never understood it. Even the one-note characters aren’t so one-note compared to most movies of that kind.
On the other hand, I never quite understood people citing Nashville as Altman’s masterpiece either. In my mind, it’s barely in his top ten.
^^really?
I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 i’d put ahead of it.
Nashville is an important work in the history of American cinema. How many films had previously tackled that many story lines at a time, in a mosaic like way?
Considering the direction that film narrative went in after the mid 90’s, it was almost 20 years ahead of its time.
My top Altman would go something like this:
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
California Split
The Long Goodbye
3 Women
Short Cuts
MASH
The Player
Kansas City
Nashville
I agree, Joks, about the film’s importance. In that sense, compared with his other works, I appreciate it more than I love it.
^^^You’d really put Short Cuts ahead of it? Interesting. i felt that when Altman returned to that multi-narrative film making in the 90’s it was too precise for me. I loved how ‘casual’ ‘Nashville’ felt.
Don’t care for Mash, or Kansas City personally.
I’d put 3 Women and McCabe ahread of it, that’s it.
Long Goodbye and California Split round out my top 5.
I think “Nashville” is far and away his best film. In memory, it arrived in 1975 almost as a culmination of his work up to then: the big, important film that took on more of America itself rather than regional pockets (although the region is obviously still there). He had the best winning streak of any American director in the 1970s: “MASH,” “Brewster McCloud,” “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “Images,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Thieves Like Us,” “California Split,” then “Nashville.” That’s five mostly great films and two stumbles (Images and Brewster) before delivering his masterpiece. And then, for the next 30 years, a very up-and-down body of work, great films like “The Player” and “Short Cuts” followed by turkeys like “Pret a Porter.” I liked “Kansas City” but I’d call it middle-tier, maybe third-tier Altman.
“On the other hand, I never quite understood people citing Nashville as Altman’s masterpiece either. In my mind, it’s barely in his top ten.”
Yeah, that’s sort of where I am. I like Altman a lot, just not this particular film so much.
@ Brad
I’m not sure what would work as an example for you since obviously it involves interpretation. No self-respecting recording artist (not even Porter Wagoner) would wear a Nudie suit into the recording studio—to have Hamilton do so in the opening scene is buffoonery.
“…hokey…”
Sure, though that sense of the contrived certainly isn’t by accident. I don’t dig NASHVILLE, but I don’t dig it in the way I don’t dig POPEYE: NASHVILLE’s populated by a lot of cartoon characters incongrously navigating a live-action setting, and I just didn’t get into that tone. Altman obviously did.
To make matters more complicated, some of the characters are more “flesh and blood” depictions than others—not cartoonish at all—with traditional psychological depth and differing acting styles employed on a player by player basis in order to convey that…in short, it’s all over the place, and I was too surprised on my first and only viewing to ever get used to it. However, I felt the final musical number miraculously tied the two and half hour emotional roller-coaster together.
Brad S.
The Directors Cup match between Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE vs. Richard Stanley’s THE SECRET GLORY starts this Monday! I hope you all get a chance to watch both films regardless of how you vote.
No other film has ever involved me as deeply as Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE and it speaks to me in ways I can’t really define. It’s magic is not just in its ability to manipulate the viewer’s emotions. Hitchcock and Spielberg do it all the time. Altman does it so subtly that it’s easy to forget that you are watching a movie.
NASHVILLE focuses on 24 characters in and around the music scene of Nashville. There is no lead and no big star dominates. The dialogue is mostly improvised and the music performances are real. There is literally not a false note in the film. Each character is invested with such vivid traits that they become memorable in their first few minutes of screen time.
Many of the characters are country singers of varying abilities and we get to hear a number of songs all the way through. Much of the music is wonderful, but Altman uses the songs to further our empathy for the singers. He does this by having the actors write their own songs, which reflects the role they are playing. Eventually it becomes clear that the huge cast is meant to represent a microcosm of the city and the country as a whole.
In a nutshell, NASHVILLE is about our obsession with celebrity and our willingness, as Americans, to let hero worship lead us into apathy. Music and politics are the connecting themes. Altman never states these themes explicitly, but by the end, the message is so clear that a shot of the American flag becomes haunting in its context.
Altman uses a number of devices to tie everything together. Everyone is in some way attached to the homecoming of a Loretta Lynn type country star or the presidential campaign of an independent candidate for President who seems to have predicted Ross Perot.. The candidate is never seen, but Altman reveals in his commentary that he had a real campaign team created and told them to “invade” his movie and just show up in various scenes to interrupt the improvisations.
I purposefully haven’t described any specific sequences because each has resonance due to its context. In a traditional movie, the folk singer seducing a married woman is a plot point. Here, it’s a moment of great drama because of what we already know about the singer and the woman. There are no Hollywood clichés here. There is a “surprise” ending that’s well telegraphed, but its implications make you rethink everything that has come before. Altman has practically forced the viewer to care deeply about these characters and the effect of them all being drawn together at the end and singing “You may say that I ain’t free, but it don’t worry me,” is stunning. What have the charcters learned? What have Americans learned by our own history?
Another thread discussing Nashville can be found here:
http://mubi.com/topics/the-damndest-thing-you-ever-saw-nashville-35
In this discussion and a few others, I’ve noticed a tendency for some to view it, pro or con, in terms of its depiction of country music. I’d urge against this interpretation as country music is only the environment that allows us entry into Altman’s larger themes. It is in no way attempting to accurately depict the Nashville music scene, but the songs included do provide further insight into the characters singing them.