NASHVILLE

 

Last year I set a goal to view every film I hadn't previously seen that featured Meryl Streep. One of my favorite movies from that journey was A Prairie Home Companion directed by Robert Altman. I was so enamored with the film that I made it a point to add Nashville to my 2023 must-see list. Nashville was often cited as being one of his best works. Last year when I reviewed Prairie, a friend and fellow film-lover commented, “Altman doesn’t disappoint.” Now that I’ve watched Nashville, I must agree with him.

Nashville was released in 1975 and it is going to be nearly impossible to sum up all the many reasons why this film is spectacular. The story involves the lives of 24 central characters over 5 days in the city of Nashville in the mid-1970s. Amazingly, despite its enormous cast, one knows who every character is and what they’ve possibly been through. They are real, identifiable, and flawed in one way or another. For some, their existence is one of privilege, and for others, it is an existence of yearning. Nashville is a city of elitism for some and a city of opportunity for others and through Altman’s eyes it becomes a focused representation of America in general, with those in the city venturing to live their American dream.

The movie plays out in linear time as it juxtaposes differing experiences on top of each other. The musical performances in a reputable venue against performances in a dive bar; the swanky gatherings against the lonely homelife; the venerable celebrity against the naïve wannabe; the loving relationship against the hollow sexual encounter. The movie deftly fills in all the grays that are typically missing in tales focused on blacks and whites.

Altman uses multiple tracks of sound that continuously play over each other. Multiple conversations are happening at the same time, just as they do in real life, so the dialogue has no hint of being scripted for the viewer’s convenience. This overlapping of tracks starts the moment the film starts (with a hilarious opening credit parody of an old K-Tel record tv-ad) and continues through the film's closing musical performance.

Politics is a thin thread that weaves all the scenes together, yet that thread is always sewn into the background and never pulls attention from the characters. Political candidate Hal Phillip Walker is only heard through a megaphone from a van that travels the streets of Nashville throughout the film. He’s never seen. This film was created during the era of Nixon so the nation’s distrust of politicians is felt, and characters in the film often align with differing views of the period regarding gender norms (oh that long hair on men!), military efforts, and what constitutes patriotism. If that doesn’t sound familiar, let’s also mention that there is a gun shooting at a public venue and citizens are urged to quickly just get over it and get back to the music. Country singing legend Haven Hamilton tells the crowd, “Y'all take it easy now. 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.” Altman’s vision of America, and Americans, was not only representative of its time but prophetic of our own.

The cast is perfect and includes name stars such as Ned Beatty, Lily Tomlin, Keith Carradine, Jeff Goldblum, Karen Black, and Shelley Duvall along with lesser established but equally effective actors including Barbara Baxley, Michael Murphy, Ronee Blakely, Timothy Brown, Allen Garfield, Keenan Wynn, and Gwen Welles. Two standout performances for me personally were Geraldine Chaplin as BBC reporter Opal, and Henry Gibson as the aforementioned Haven Hamilton. Gibson’s portrayal could easily have crossed the line into camp, but he walks that satirical line right to the edge yet never crosses it.

I would address the plot… if Nashville actually had one. It doesn’t. This is an examination of the messiness and the drive of the human experience from a multitude of angles. It compares and contrasts those experiences over a short period and then the film is over. Nothing is resolved, no one is a hero, no one is necessarily better off, and the world continues spinning. Because of that, or despite that, this film now sits near the top of my all-time favorite cinematic experiences.