That Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975) is a brilliant movie was recognized at the time. The movie was boosted by Pauine Kael in particular and received various awards. (Although the major Academy Awards that year were swept by "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," which did not and does not much impress me, "Nashville" was at least nominated for best picture and Altman for best direction, and two of the actresses (Ronee Blakeley and Lily Tomlin) received nominations, and Keith Carradine won an award for the fourth- or fifth-best song in the movie... And only authoritarian personalities narrow consideration of "best" to award-winners.).

There are 24 featured actors in the parody trailer that is the opening credits. This sets the mood for the rest of the movie in which the country & western music scene in Nashville is simultaneously satirized and celebrated. The first time I saw "Nashville" (30 years ago), I thought that the first musical number, the ardent patriotic "200 Years" performed by a truculent, resentful Henry Gibson was also satire. Gibson's Haven Hamilton seems all ego, at one point saying he wants "more Haven Hamilton" in the recording (that is, less of the chorus of four backup singers) and rages at the pianist (the movie's music supervisor, Richard Baskin). In my most recent (third and fourth or fourth and fifth) watching, however, I find the song catchy (indeed, second only to "One, I Love You" of the dozen songs on the soundtrack and the hour of musical performances within the movie).

Then the movie is off to the Nashville Airport where a crowd that includes all of the major characters in the movie (except for Karen Black who appears only on a poster at the airport's record store) converge. The political operative for the Replacement Party's insurgent candidate Hal Philip Walker, John Triplette (a three-faced Michael Murphy), is being met by local operator Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty). "L. A. Joan" (a minimally dressed Shelly Duvall) has arrived to visit her dying aunt and met by her uncle, Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn in a performance that is more heart-breaking with each viewing).

The main event, which has drawn a crowd and live tv coverage, is the return of c&w star Barbara Jean (Barbara Jean) from a Baltimore burn ward. She is frail but gracious. Her husband/manager, Barnett (Allen Garfield) is neither. He seems overprotective to the point of domineering, and rages through most of the movie (but when the chips are down, rises to the occasion).

The other characters are also there and soon involved in a multi-vehicle pile-up on the freeway. There is less overlapping dialogue than in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," but there is a great deal of cutting from one conversation to another both in the airport and in the backed-up traffic sequence. As a freelance documentary-maker whose pretentiousness is rivaled only by her chutzpah Opal (Geraldine Chaplin) crashes the van with the entourage of the black c&w singer Tommy Brown (played by former NFL-halfback Tim Brown). (She had already been ejected by Haven Hamilton from his recording studio and escorted by Haven's son Bud (Dave Peel) to the one where Linea Reese (husband of Delbert, mother to two deaf children) is recording with a black gospel choir; Linea was driving Opal and being interviewed by her before the traffic backup).

Not all 24 featured characters have fully developed stories, but they do have the chance to establish distinct characters. That is, they do not at all blur. Three of them succeed at being intensely dislikable: Keith Carradine as the womanizing singer/songwriter Tom Frank (somewhere beyond egotistical and insensitive), Geraldine Chaplin's obnoxious journalist, and Shelly Duvall's heartless (, witless,) wigstore inventory-carrying love child ("manizing"?) "L.A. Joan."

Others who are not endearing but are not entirely unsympathetic include the characters played by Ned Beatty, Allen Garfield, Michael Murphy, and the in-uniform stalker played by Scott Glenn. The first three of these are doing their jobs, somewhat slimy jobs. (Eventually, the audience learns why the soldier is so attached to Billy Jean... I'm not certain why Haven Hamilton is, though I have an explanation of my own.) Ned Beatty's failure as a father make me (at least) feel sorry for him (and his children and wife), but he is inadequate, not evil.

Then there are the victims, especially the very fragile Barbara Jean played superbly by Ronee Blakeley, and the would-be singer who cannot sing, Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles), whose foolhardy ambitions lead to humiliation.

Some other women get burned by Tom Frank: Lily Tomlin's Linea (whom he relentlessly pursues) and Cristina Raines's Mary (married to the man in a rock trio who is not Tom Frank). The two of them are more resilient, wincing rather than collapsing. Keenan Wynn's Mr. Green does not really wince, nor does he collapse. In a heartbreaking scene in the hospital corridor, he suffers in silence as Scott Glenn gushes about Barbara Jean's release. He finally rebels (and this is the catalyst for the tragic climax of the movie). Karen Black's Connie White has nothing to wince about, and Barbara Baxley's "Lady Pearl" is tougher even than her husband, Haven Hamilton (though she gets morose recalling the assassinated Kennedys).

The performance that most impresses me (I think it always did) is Henry Gibson's Haven Hamilton. He is a calculating manipulator yet also embodies and seems to believe in graciousness. He is a ridiculous very short man in overly spangled white costumes, but also heroic. He is vicious to "Frog" in part because of Frog's long hair and demands that Opal be thrown out of his recording studio, but is protective of guests, takes upon himself being a good-will ambassador for Nashville with visitors, absorbs (but clearly registers) slights, and is heroic when wounded. Just as his opening song "200 Years" is bathetic but sold with more than a modicum of conviction, what he says ("This isn't Dallas, it's Nashville! They can't do this to us here in Nashville! Let's show them what we're made of. Come on everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!") is in some ways ridiculous, but in other ways admirable: not just denial but an attempt to rally his beloved town under attack and in shock. ("It's all wrong, and it's just right" to slightly amend the title of a song not in the movie.)

(I also like that Haven sings in a church choir. The montage of the cast at different churches on Sunday deserves special praise. It is as good as the cutting between Keith Carradine and some of his once and future tricks as he sings "I'm Easy" and Lady Pearl's nightclub.)

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“All of us are deeply involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not."

As for the Replacement Party, there's much in the campaign that sounds good to me (taxing church property other than church buildings, in particular; eliminating the Electoral College), though Christmas does not smell like oranges to me, and I understand the words to the national anthem (though I would not oppose changing it). As for lawyers, a more parsimonious gibe courtesy of pambo: "95% of lawyers give the rest a bad name."

The movie was shot soon after Richard Nixon fled certain impeachment and conviction for some of his lesser crimes. It seems that the nation has become used to being lied to about foreign threats and that the chorus of "You can say that I ain't free, but it don't worry me" has swelled to a majority of voters, to the Orwellianly titled "Patriot Act") (and my own state has elected its second movie star GOP governor).

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The DVD includes an interesting interview of Robert Altman and trailers. The special extra is Altman's commentary track. There, he makes it clear that he gave the characters a lot of room (that is, shot a lot of filmstock) to develop their characters, including the rambling in character by Geraldine Chaplin at two automotive graveyards, Ronee Blakeley breaking down on stage, and Barbara Baxley getting morose about the Kennedys. In the last instance, he recalls shooting a whole reel (20 minutes) of that and then selecting the 2-3 minutes used in the movie. He explains that Joan Tewkesbury's script laid out the characters and that the actors improvised within these characters. (She had written the screenplay for Altman's 1974 version of "Thieve Like Us" that starred Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall, and Louise Fletcher.)

What Altman has to say about the casting is particularly interesting. Initially, the production bought some songs from Ronee Blakeley, who had never acted before. Seeing her perform some of them, he cast her—with very satisfying results. Similarly, Lily Tomlin in a dramatic role (that Louise Fletcher was going to play; she instead took on "Big Nurse" in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and was rewarded with an Oscar. Keith Carradine was already a member of the Altman stock company (and had written the two songs, "I'm Easy" and "It Don't Bother Me." Robert Duvall was supposed to be Haven Hamilton (he eventually got around to a c&w role in "Tender Mercies"). Henry Gibson so inhabits the part, that it's difficult to imagine anyone else in it. Altman says that it would have been a different movie with Duvall rather than Gibson in the role, and that, in general, it's less than this actor would be better or worse than that actor, but that each brings to and produces different things. (I still can't conceive of Dan Blocker in the Hemingway-like role Sterling Hayden played in "The Long Goodbye"!)

Altman deprecates no one, but does not sentimentalize or gush, either. He is ironic about Wells's inability to sing and Barbara Harris's insecurities. I know from the commentary track why he wanted the two monologues from Geraldine Chaplin that I thought should have been cut when I rewatched the movie before listening to the commentary track. I would at least reduce their length—and that of some of the music videos within the movie. And I think the shots of the crowd at the end go on too long. I don't think that the movie needed to last as long as it does (and that less would have been better), but Altman's charm makes me less certain than I was about excising the Chaplin rambles.

Altman also relates that after receiving great cooperation while making the movie, the result was not popular with the music establishment of Nashville of its day (1975), but that it is now revered there. He also says that everywhere he goes there are people who tell him "I was in Nashville" (the unpaid extras at the airport, and the various singing venues, including the big crowd at the Parthenon for the rally John Triplette has spent his time in Nashville organizing).

I also learned that screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury's reconnaisance lasted five days, and that the movie covers five days(' advance planning for the Parthenon appearance of surging third-party presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker, who in some ways prefigured Ross Perot). And that the voices on phones in the movie are hers.

Plot spoiler alert

Altman also relates that when John Lennon was shot, he was asked (by a Washington Post) reporter) if he felt responsible for suggesting the possibility in "Nashville." He parried the question with "Don't you feel responsible for not heeding the warning?" (The climax/ending was not in Tewkesbury's script and some unnamed collaborator quite because of it. This leaves me curious about how the original script ends, since the movie was cut to lead to the ending not in the original script... Also, it could be argued that the ending (after the climactic violence) is a reprise of Connie White taking the place of Barbara Jean after her collapse at the airport: contrary to what Altman says about actors, popular entertainers are commodities who are easily replaced (just change the faces on the album covers and ads...)

End of plot spoiler alert

He does not comment on the widescreen, but what is at the edges (cropped on VHS and televising) speaks for itself. The DVD restores the 2.35:1 ratio. The print and sound of the DVD are excellent, as the masterful film deserves! (There were multiple cameras, and many miked actors.) I think that cinematographer Paul Lohmann (who also shot "California Split" and "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" for Altman) used some of the flash technique that Vilmos Zsigmond had experimented with for The Long Goodbye, which, along with "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" I think are more perfect movies than the somewhat sprawling and overlong (but exuberant!) "Nashville." All three are on my list of ten best American movies of the 1970s.

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The Soundtrack (and a Bumper Crop of Oscar Mistakes)

After United Artists backed out of supporting Altman's movie set inside and around the (then-new) Grand Ole Oprey in Nashville, ABC Entertainment financed it for the sake of a soundtrack. The ABC moguls were not disappointed, because the soundtrack album sold very well, and one song (Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy") picked up an Oscar—the only one for the movie, though Altman, Blakeley, and Tomlin were nominated (losing to Milos Forman for directing "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and Lee Grant as best supporting actress in "Shampoo")

The Nashville soundtrack (not in the database) does not include Lily Tomlin and the gospel choir, or the song by the Mary/Tom/Wade trio.

The songs on it were written by two men and two women, all of whom appear in the movie (three actors, and the musical supervisor Richard Baskin who appears as "Frog" the studio pianist Henry Gibson storms at in the opening sequence, later as a guitarist). The others sing their own songs:

Keith Carradine: I'm easy, It don't worry me (the latter also sung by Barbara Harris and picked up by the gospel choir and the audence for the outdoor concert/rally)

Ronee Blakeley: Dues, Tapedeck in the tractor, My Idaho home, Bluebird (the last of these sung by Tim Brown)

Karen Black: Memphis, Rolling stone

Richard Baskin: For the sake of the children, Keep a'goin', 200 years, One I love you (all performed by Henry Gibson, the last a duet with Ronee Blakeley; Gibson wrote the lyrics for "200 years")

The song that lost the most without the visuals was "Bluebird," which I thought was not bad in the movie. It is not the performance of "I'm easy" but the reactions to it from the four women who think Keith Carradine has dedicated it to them that is compelling in the movie. The brilliant montage must have been what convinced Oscar voters to single it out (along with the penchant of Oscar voters to vote for actors in other categories).

I think that "Dues" is the best song in the movie, and that "For the sake of the children" best manages simultaneously to satirize country/western music and to be a compelling piece of it. "One, I love you" seems to me not to satirize but to embody c&w. "200 years" seems more parody, especially since it is shown being recorded by a steely-eyed Henry Gibson, but it sticks in my mind (unfortunately! Gibson definitely sells it...).

I was underwhelmed by the two Karen Black songs both in the movie and on the soundtrack. In the movie she looks beautiful and glamorous, and I thought that there was too much of her two numbers.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD