683 Nashville

[scotty2]

Michael Kerpan--I don't think it is really a matter of disrespect so much as an acknowledgement that the stuff that "makes" it in any milieu is the best of a bad or mediocre lot, and of course even that subset contains a lot of pandering dreck. Same with film itself. But I would also say that documenting the country music scene is the least of Altman's concerns.

[feihong]

feihong -- your reaction to The Company is pretty much the way I feel about Nashville.

I can certainly understand that, but I wonder if there isn't some difference...The Company is a very average-feeling movie, and it isn't especially moving or involving. In terms of the filmmaking brought to bear, nothing in the picture is eye-catching or noteworthy. I don't think you can argue that Nashville is other than a unique and very specially-crafted movie, even if it doesn't get the country music scene exactly right. Nashville resonates with engaging themes and quivers with inspired movie-making elan. And its ambition is tremendous, just in terms of the scope of the film's vision. So I think there's a lot more going on in Nashville. It does bother me a bit that people don't find the music exactly right for the milieu, but I can't help feeling that in spite of this, the picture is very strong...a lot stronger, more original and enterprising than The Company.

[Michael Kerpan]

I would never disagree that there is lots of wonderful stuff going on in Nashville. If only the music had been more authentic, I would have been better able to appreciate this....

[flyonthewall2983]

Not liking country music (at all) is exactly the reason I still haven't seen this movie, despite even taking out the VHS from the library many years ago. I'll at least rent the DVD, tho', and give it a shot.

It's my sole hang-up about this, too. I have some tolerance for the country music of that period, not what Tom Petty calls "bad rock music with a fiddle".

[feihong]

This movie is worth you guys suspending your distaste.

[knives]

Seriously. Aside from Cash who I barely consider country I hate the whole genre, yet the music here is genuinely enjoyable to listen to and the film offers so much more than that.

[Michael Kerpan]

Country music seems to go through phases. I have a love-hate relationship -- based on what sort of phase it happens to be in. Much of what I hear today seems rather insipid.

Right before Nashville (the movie), there was a period where Nashville (the music center) began to do some re-connecting with country music's roots (thanks to Earl Scruggs and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris, among others). This movement never totally took over, and has since receded (but not entirely).

[Michael Kerpan]

Seriously. Aside from Cash who I barely consider country I hate the whole genre...

Seems rather extreme, but this isn't the forum for debating this topic (except to note that whether YOU consider Johnny Cash "country" is pretty beside the point, he was a sterling example of one variety of country music). ;~}

[domino harvey]

Can this circle of the Internet please not devolve into "I like everything but country and rap"

[knives]

Love rap actually.

[Michael Kerpan]

Can this circle of the Internet please not devolve into "I like everything but country and rap"

Mainly (a couple of posts above) I was trying to set the music-historical stage of Nashville music around the time of the film, hope THAT was okay. ;~}

If anyone has an interest in good country music, perhaps a thread in a more appropriate place could be started (discussing _bad_ country music is something I'd have no interest in -- ever).

[Arrow]

Can this circle of the Internet please not devolve into "I like everything but country and rap"

Mainly (a couple of posts above) I was trying to set the music-historical stage of Nashville music around the time of the film, hope THAT was okay. ;~}

If anyone has an interest in good country music, perhaps a thread in a more appropriate place could be started (discussing _bad_ country music is something I'd have no interest in -- ever).

I'm with you on there's good country music, and I know what knives means when he says Cash isn't country. I've heard it described as more folk than anything, but I'm not an authority on the subject. I love Nashville, but I dont care for the music much.

[Michael Kerpan]

Folk music is one of the most important original sources of country music -- but Nashville (the music center) loses sight of this from time to time. Cash was (to a considerable extent) a musical descendant of Merle Travis, who was rooted in folk tradition but (like Cash) became a pillar of country music. Seems sort of odd to say Cash can't be country -- because one hates country music but likes Cash. ;~}

I guess I feel that the _reality_ of Nashville in the mid-70s was probably more interesting than the make-believe, not especially authentic, "mythic" Nashville concocted by Altman (whatever the purely cinematic virtues of Altman's film).

[Cold Bishop]

Someone here did mention not liking Nashville, maybe in the 70s thread, but I agree, I can't conceive of how anyone could. The North by Northwest comparison is a good one

I wouldn't go as far as to say I don't like it, but I certainly don't see the "masterpiece" here everyone else does. Lord knows I've seen it enough time, in enough formats, that if I was going to have a second opinion, I probably already would.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye, on the other hand...

P.S. I'm also not in love with North By Northwest, although I love Hitchcock...

[dustybooks]

I love parts of Nashville (have only seen it twice), more than anything the sheer overwhelming experience of being enveloped in its world, enough that I'm eager to watch it again. I do find certain story threads and characters more interesting than others, but that's natural for this sort of film.

I honestly feel a bit embarrassed to say this but the one thing that doesn't sit well with me is the ending.

SpoilerShow

Everything prior to the last five minutes seems so natural, almost as if the camera is only accidentally capturing it, and then the sudden imposition of a screenwriterly, Manchurian Candidate-ish climax seems overwrought to me.

But again, the movie has grown on me considerably in my memory and I will probably look back on this post in a few years and wonder what I was on about.

The music is uniformly lovely, and I love a lot of country from this period. "Dues" is one of the most beautiful songs I can name, and the performance in the film (was it prerecorded or not?) vastly eclipses the studio version I've heard.

[Feego]

I do believe (though am not entirely sure) that all of the singing in this film was done live and not pre-recorded.

I have always regarded the world of Nashville as a world all its own and not meant to represent the real country music scene in any meaningful way. Much as The Red Shoes happens to be set in the world of ballet but is not about the ballet world at all. It's just never been an issue for me. And personally, I am a fan of much of the music and enjoy the actors' singing. A big part of the appeal for me is the fact that their voices are not polished. It brings a certain raw emotion to the songs that carries its own power.

[essrog]

Just rechecked the specs and noticed two additions to the interviewees on the new doc:

New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with actors Ronee Blakley, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, Allan Nicholls, and Lily Tomlin; screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury; assistant director Alan Rudolph; and Altman’s widow, Kathryn Reed Altman

[FrauBlucher]

Beaver

[FrauBlucher]

How does HTF do a review before Dr. Svet? Sigh.

[LavaLamp]

I'm indifferent to country music, but Nashville is one of my favorite '70's movies. The interweaving stories & characters worked great here. And, the ending was quite unexpected. Altman definitely nailed it with this film. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the BD version.

Shelley Duvall seemed to play variations of the same character in her '70's Altman films, i.e. guy crazy with somewhat unusual fashion sense; her character in Nashville was similar to the ones she played in Three Women & Brewster McCloud.

[Feego]

Shelley Duvall seemed to play variations of the same character in her '70's Altman films, i.e. guy crazy with somewhat unusual fashion sense; her character in Nashville was similar to the ones she played in Three Women & Brewster McCloud.

Do check her out in Thieves Like Us, probably her most strongly defined Altman character of the decade. I also like her very much in the small role as the shy mail-order-bride in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

[FrauBlucher]

Lovely. Blu-ray.com

[colinr0380]

I do have sympathy for Michael's point of view above about the music. In a way this is just as 'authentic' a view of the country music scene as Pret-a-Porter was of the fashion scene (I've often wondered whether Kim Basinger's Southern-accented reporter is the equivalent of Geraldine Chaplin's fish-out-of-water BBC reporter here! But you also have the same 'the show must go on in front of a slightly bemused audience' kind of ending to both films!), seeming to take a more jazz-style free-form approach to the staging of the songs which initially had me a little concerned, but I think the 'spirit', for lack of a better word, of country music is captured well, more than anything to do with an actual milieu or musical scene.

Yet I do like Nashville a lot. Watching it again this evening it feels like the film is constantly setting up conflicts between harmony and dissonance, whether in the music, the cutting back and forth between a couple of different venues within sequences, or even just in the domestic arguments set against a pretence of togetherness. Or the unrequited yearnings expressed by almost every single character at one point or another for an unachievable dream that would make everything better, whether that's falling in love with someone who doesn't love you back, or desperately wishing to become something that you will never be able to be, or to have the Kennedys back in politics again, or even just of wanting to getting a good interview when you're obviously a lousy, tactless, rude reporter (and perhaps not even a reporter at all, just an insane fan wandering around with a tape recorder)! It is perhaps telling that the most contented characters in the film appear to be the deaf children (seemingly being forced to learn a song at one point!) and Jeff Goldblum's biker who is kept mute, all of whom communicate through gestures! Although perhaps it only seems that way because they are the only characters who never seem to have been given the opportunity to express their own painfully unfulfilled dreams by the end of the film!

I guess this all plays into the idea of country music being about taking (and needing!) those terrible times, heartaches and problems and turning them into statements of solidarity and defiance in the face of insurmountable odds, however heartbreakingly impossible and occasionally just crazily deluded and pointless it can seem to sing about them in the face of damage already done. Perhaps it helps people to not feel so alone and to feel, whether correct or not, that there at least once was a halcyon, 'better' time before things all went wrong that they can look back on fondly and still cling to in the rough periods. Even if clinging to the past like that can arguably cause more trouble than just letting go!

[criterion10]

I know a lot of people really like Nashville, but this film didn't quite work for me. Based on the few other films that I've seen of his career (3 Women, The Player, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Images), Robert Altman seems much more interested in character than plot. I find nothing wrong with this, assuming that the characters in the specific film are interesting and well developed.

Part of the problem with Nashville for me is that I never really found the characters all that interesting nor well developed. The film itself is rather disjointed, jumping from character to character. (There are over twenty main characters, and it took me quite a bit of time to get used to who each character was.)

The film is more of a glimpse into the lives of these characters, providing little arc, development, or change within each individual. I suppose this was part of Altman's purpose, to create a sort of cultural document or an artifact instead of a standard, narrative feature film.

But, when one takes notice of the characters that do have some degree of development (i.e. Mr. Green, the man whose wife is in the hospital), it becomes evident how much more of an impact the film could have had if there was some way for the audience to connect with these characters or if there was more of a meaningful story that each character had to tell.

Instead, we get frequent scenes of extended country music (this didn't bother me initially, but it eventually began to wear on me as it became rather excessive towards the end of the film), and other interesting little scenes and transitions, but nothing that holds any real dramatic weight.

Furthermore, considering the excessive amount of characters, some are given more screen time than others, leaving multiple individuals with very little screen time, thus making them rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

There definitely is something unique about Nashville, and I don't want to dismiss it entirely. It certainly is a true American movie, and it has a lot of cultural significance, especially for the time it was made in. Maybe it will work better for me on repeat viewings, but for now, I see it as a disappointment.

*I should add that I love both 3 Women and The Player, and think McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Images are both decent, not great.

[colinr0380]

Have you seen Short Cuts criterion10? Despite the Raymond Carver source material that also seems to iterate on some of the ideas from Nashville too, from an accident that leaves someone in the hospital (Jack Lemmon is in the Keenan Wynn role here) to adulterous relationships.