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61 out of 78 people found the following comment useful :-
Does Christmas smell like oranges to you?, 7 December 2003

Author: Bill Slocum (slokes@optonline.net) from Norwalk, CT USA

The opening shot of "Nashville" shows a van with a loudspeaker offering platitudes from Hal Phillip Walker, Replacement Party candidate for President and the perfect middleman for the movie "Nashville," which like the never-seen candidate offers a series of apparently disconnected vignettes that touch on deeper truths but remain enigmatic and yet, somehow, substantial and truthful.

"Nashville" is the kind of film scholars champion and no one else watches, which is a shame because it has a lot to offer, and not just to pointyheads. I avoided it for years because of Pauline Kael's iconographic reviews in the New Yorker. If she liked it so much, it couldn't be that good. It was a film where Eastern intellectuals took their shots at country yokels like so many fish in a barrel. Boy, was I wrong.

"Nashville" is an empathic, genuine-feeling soap opera set to country & western music, the kind they used to play before Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks revamped Nashville into Hollywood East. The movie takes a while to get started, and viewers are required to stick with a seemingly random group of characters with the most tangential series of relationships to one another. Over time, however, the vignettes gel into a mosaic of related setpieces that seem to move in tandem, until by the end, they gain a sort of terminal velocity that feels almost like destiny.

There are nearly 30 characters at the center of "Nashville." Some are stars, like Ronee Blakley's fragile Barbara Jean and Henry Gibson's Haven Hamilton. Some are wanna-bes, like Gwen Welles' desperate and pathetic Sueleen Gay and Barbara Harris's red-dot-fixated Albuquerque. Some are good-hearted, like Barbara Baxley's Kennedy-loving Lady Pearl and Lily Tomlin's sign-literate Linnea Reese. Then there's folks like Michael Murphy's sleezy politico John Triplette, Geraldine Chaplin's sophistic reporter Opal, and Shelley Duvall's shallow and slutty L.A. Joan, whom one wishes weren't more representative of the human race.

The nice thing about "Nashville," actually the great thing about it, is how we see these people in such depth and richness. Haven Hamilton opens the film as a petty dictator of sorts, running his recording studio like a rhinestone Hitler as his eyes flash and roll for signs of petty trespass, but we grow to like his hokey showmanship and his genuine impulse to entertain and, at the end, see to it Nashville does not disintegrate into another Dallas. He's not a bad guy, he just has bad moments, and virtually the same can be said of nearly everyone in this film.

Is "Nashville" a political film? There's Hal Phillip Walker, and a final act of political assassination, but it seems more cultural. Certainly it's not topical, though a Washington outsider did win the Presidency in 1976. We aren't really encouraged to take Walker too seriously, not with those wild-eyed Walker girls waving placards with their frosted Manson-girl gazes. Is it a satire of Nashville, or Middle America? It's far more brutal when it takes on the smarmy Triplette, or the transatlantic twit Opal, who seem the most contemptuous of Southern values. Talk about not having a clue.

By the second half of the film, we are locked into all the personal dramas and moments of revelation, to the point we feel them more than the characters themselves. Like Linnea's moment of truth at a dive when Keith Carradine's Tom sings "I'm Easy" as a desperate come-on to her, while three other women think wrongly it is being sung to them and react in varying degrees of smugness. Tomlin can't sing gospel, and she's not as funny as she was in "Laugh In," but her reaction to his performance in that scene fully merited her Oscar nomination. Her eyes are Garbo-inert, and her head seems stapled to the wall as she wishes with all her heart this cup will pass her by.

I wouldn't say that's my favorite scene. It keeps changing with every viewing. I really reacted strongly to Barbara Harris's culminating performance of "It Don't Worry Me" after watching the film for the first time just after 9/11, though it does seem a trifle more apathetic than defiant upon reflection. Still, it has incredible power, because it's sarcastic, hopeful, and revelatory all at once. It's also a perfect note with which to end a rare film that manages to skewer and honor its subject simultaneously, yet ultimately manages to find the redeeming goodness in the blackest night.

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47 out of 59 people found the following comment useful :-
An often-misunderstood masterpiece - full of life like no other movie, 21 July 2003
Author: moviefan08 (moviefan08@yahoo.com) from Columbus, Ohio

Much like some of the other comments about "Nashville" that are circulating around IMDB, the reviews I've seen of Robert Altman's 1975 Oscar contender have been completely adulatory or completely dismissive. Contrary to some comments I've read, "Nashville" looks as prescient and magnificent now as it appeared to some critics nearly thirty years ago. Dated? Absolutely not. "Nashville" is a movie about people more than anything else, but a political campaign van that appears throughout the movie shows the unavoidable nature of politics in people's lives in the 70's. Has that changed since then? It's even more true now, with our war in Iraq and all of the conflicting viewpoints that exist. Annoying overlapping dialogue? To dismiss this unique trait of "Nashville" is to hate the trademark of director Robert Altman. Do people wait their turn as if reading from a screenplay in real life? Muddy cinematography? Certainly not - to show a Nashville vibrant with colors that don't really fit (a crime that most visually overachieving movies commit) would distract from Altman's amazing focus on the relationships of the characters that he builds so well. And the characters....the dozens of cast members lend terrific support to a film that moves forward constantly while never seeming to move too fast, leaving time for moments of poignancy and heartbreak, as well as unintentionally hilarious moments (as every good pseudo-documentary film has). Who can forget Lily Tomlin gazing at her deaf children tenderly as their father completely ignores them as they speak? Or the moment Keith Carradine performs his Oscar-winning "I'm Easy" in front of a night club crowd? Really, "Nashville" is filled with great moments ALL the time that make the nearly three-hour film unmissable, but nothing in the world can prepare the patient viewer for the film's breathtaking finale which seems even more moving today in the midst of everything. Forget the "National Anthem" or "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The gospel-esque strains of "It Don't Worry Me" make it the American song for the ages, in an American film that ranks among the best of its kind.

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43 out of 58 people found the following comment useful :-
Altman's Masterpiece: "The Damnedest Thing You Ever Saw", 21 May 2005

Author: gftbiloxi (gftbiloxi@yahoo.com) from Biloxi, Mississippi

Robert Altman is an extremely divisive director in the sense that you either "get it" or you don't--and those who don't despise his work and take considerable pleasure in sneering at NASHVILLE in particular. But there is no way around the fact that it is an important film, a highly influential film, to most Altman fans his finest films, and to most series critics quite possibly the single finest film made during the whole of the 1970s.

According to the movie trailer available on the DVD release, NASHVILLE is "the damnedest thing you ever saw"--and a truer thing was never said, for it is one of those rare film that completely defies description. On one level, the film follows the lives of some twenty characters over the course of several days leading up to a political rally, lives that collide or don't collide, that have moments of success and failure, and which in the process explore the hypocrisy that we try to sweep away under the rug of American culture. If it were merely that, the film would be so much soap-opera, but it goes quite a bit further: it juxtaposes its observations with images of American patriotism and politics at their most vulgar, and in the process it makes an incredibly funny, incredibly sad, and remarkably savage statement on the superficial values that plague our society.

What most viewers find difficult about NASHVILLE--and about many Altman films--is his refusal to direct our attention within any single scene. Conversations and plot directions overlap with each other, and so much goes on in every scene that you are constantly forced to decide what you will pay attention to and what you will ignore. The result is a film that goes in a hundred different directions with a thousand different meanings, and it would be safe to say that every person who sees it will see a different film.

In the end, however, all these roads lead to Rome, or in this case to the Roman coliseum of American politics, where fame is gained or lost in the wake of violence, where the strong consume the weak without any real personal malice, and where the current political star is only as good as press agent's presentation. For those willing and able to dive into the complex web of life it presents, Altman's masterpiece will be an endlessly fascinating mirror in which we see the energy of life itself scattered, gathered, and reflected back to us. A masterpiece that bears repeated viewings much in the same way that a great novel bears repeated readings. A personal favorite and highly, highly recommended.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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33 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
altman's americana, 8 October 2003
Author: bob wisener from United States

Nashville couldn't understand "Nashville," and no wonder. Anyone who watches "Nashville" for insights to country music probably views "The Godfather" for tips about olive oil. Altman's 1975 film uses country music and the people who perform, listen to and produce it as a metaphor about America in the '70s, when, as Warren Beatty said in "A Parallax View," released a year earlier, "everytime you turned around, one of the best people in the country was getting shot." Anyone who has seen the film and visits the Parthenon, where the final scenes are filmed, may feel a sense of unease. Listen closely and you can hear Haven Hamilton pleading to the stunned crowd, "Show them what we're made of! They can't do this to us here! This isn't Dallas; this is Nashville!"

The ending is astonishing, tidying up some plot lines and leaving others open ended. A star is born when the Albuquerque character and a gospel group minus its leader belt out a Nashville standard, "It Don't Worry Me." The Sueleen Gay character, meanwhile, suffers one final indignity; Albuquerque, on the same stage and with the same ambitions, achieves the fame that might have gone to Sueleen, a waitress/stripper/wanna-be recording artist, had Sueleen gotten the microphone first.

We never know what caused the Kenny Frazier character to crack; perhaps like Mark David Chapman (John Lennon) he was obsessed with the Holden Caulfield character in "Catcher in the Rye," although we can feel fairly certain that he did not share John David Hinckley's (President Reagan) obsession with Jodie Foster since "Taxi Driver" would not be released for another year.

Watching "Nashville" for the first time, you may feel protective of Barbara Jean's character for reasons you can't immediately explain but will learn all too well. I feel the same urge to shout at the screen, warning her character of possible danger, that I experienced in "From Here to Eternity," knowing that Pearl Harbor was imminent and would change everything.

Characters transform before our eyes. Del Reese (Ned Beatty), bored with his marriage to a Nashville superstar and as a father to hearing-impaired children, cares enough at the end to lead a wounded Haven Hamilton to safety. Hamilton (masterfully played by Henry Gibson) would stomp anyone in his path to create a hit record but is the first to care for Barbara Jean in her moment of need.

Sure, some of the songs are terrible -- some country music is terrible -- but could anything be more poignant than Barbara Jean's rendition of "My Idaho Home" or Keith Carradine singing "I'm Easy" in a nightclub where four of his conquests look on equally with lust and bewilderment. Country singers, like stock-car drivers, inspire tremendous loyalty and jealousy among their fans, which Altman depicts beautifully when Scott Glenn, a devoted fan of Barbara Jean, leaves the Opry as Connie White appears to sing a tribute to her ailing rival. Hamilton's character is never better than when between songs he asks listeners to send Barbara Jean a card and "tell her that Haven told you to write."

Altman would rate among the greatest directors -- as the American Fellini -- if this were his only effort. Despite its convoluted plot structure, "Nashville" achieves greatness and searches for truth. If the 1970s shaped your life in any respect, this is a movie experience not to be missed.

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22 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
a milestone in my filmgoing experience, 21 August 2004

Author: sryder@judson-il.edu from elgin, illinois

I saw Nashville when it was first shown, billed as Altman's "birthday card" to America on the occasion of the bicentennial. The greatest tribute I can pay is that, despite its frequent shifts of location, many individual scenes and characterizations, as well as the overarching story line, remained vivid in my mind over the years before I was able to purchase the film on video. When I taught Film History at my college I used Nashville as the final examination for the course. After having viewed the film, students were instructed to identify the elements of film technique previously studied(such as overlapping dialogue, jump shots, widescreen, etc) in order to forward the narrative, as they were employed by Altman. In general, they did very well; even those who disliked the film. There are too many admirable performances for me to mention; however, those that remained most vivid in my mind over the years were those of Gwen Welles, Ronee Blakley, Henry Gibson, and Lily Tomlin. One last note of appreciation regards the fact that all the characters were introduced within the first twenty minutes at the airport; their personalities brought out in the highway scene;and their being brought together again, cyclically, during the last twenty minutes at the "Parthenon". It has been several years since I used Nashville for pedagogical purposes. When I purchased the DVD recently I found that, despite my numerous viewings and classroom analysis, the impact was virtually the same as when I first saw it in 1976. For me, it did not "murder to dissect" this personal milestone.

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19 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Unique Masterpiece!, 20 September 2000

Author: jeffy-3 from Springfield, Pa

I loved this movie. Loved it! I just saw this on widescreen DVD and had never seen it before. It's the first movie I have seen in a few years that had me smiling from ear to ear as it ended, not because it was a feel-good movie but because it was so exhilarating to see a work so flawlessly assembled, so marvellously written and acted, and finally one so overflowing with the collective creative energy of the cast and crew. There are more memorable characters and vignettes in this one two hour and 40 minute movie than in all the movies from the movies I have seen from the year 2000. M*A*S*H and The Player are the only other two Altman films I have ever seen, and I hesitate to see anymore as how can any of them be as good as NASHVILLE?

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21 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the great films of our time, 19 August 2004

Author: anhedonia from Planet Earth

I suppose the brilliance of "Nashville" is that almost 30 years after its initial release, Robert Altman's slice of Americana has lost none of its punch. Despite being made in the Watergate and Vietnam era, the film remains relevant as ever.

In fact, one could argue, the film's even more relevant today in this age of celebrity-worship and apathetic, gutless American media who believe missing suburban wives are more pertinent and crucial to this nation's well-being than questioning facts and our leaders' motives for waging a needless, costly war.

The film's about the politics of country music, families, stardom, search for stardom, political manipulation and populist political candidates. The unseen presidential candidate's spiel in "Nashville" could easily have been sound bites from contemporary populists; he could be seen as the cinematic trend-setter for the Ross Perots, Jesse Venturas, Howard Deans and Ralph Naders.

The film is at once a political drama, musical and documentary all effortless woven together by a master storyteller, who truly is an American treasure. In "Nashville," Altman's overlapping dialogue works to perfection as he captures this panoramic view of five days in Nashville through the eyes of two-dozen characters.

With so many characters, it's Altman's genius that he keeps this an engrossing character study. Although he tosses aside all conventions of narrative storytelling, we get to know characters better in "Nashville" than we do in many contemporary dramas with fewer characters. There's Ronee Blakley's country singer; Lily Tomlin's doting housewife and mother; Scott Glenn's caring soldier; Keith Carradine's lecherous pop star; Ned Beatty's disinterested father; Keenan Wynn's loving husband; Michael Murphy's sleazy campaigner; and Gwen Welles' sad wannabe country singer, whose scene at a political fund-raiser is heartbreaking. And Jeff Goldblum's motorcyclist and Geraldine Chaplin's Opal are the threads that weave through all the lives in this marvelous tapestry.

There are plenty of terrific songs in "Nashville" - some might complain too many - but the best are Carradine's Oscar-winning "I'm Easy" and "It Don't Bother Me." They add to the nice sense of cynicism that layers the movie.

Altman's one of the big reasons the 1970s is regarded as the greatest decade of American filmmaking. Look at just a few of his contributions in that decade - "Nashville," "MASH" (1970), "Brewster McCloud" (1970), "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (1971), "Images" (1972) and "The Long Goodbye" (1973). His films also influence other talented filmmakers, including Alan Rudolph (who worked on Altman films) and Paul Thomas Anderson, whose storytelling style - "Boogie Nights" (1997) and "Magnolia" (1999) - clearly is Altman-inspired.

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Could have been four hours long, and I would have enjoyed it even more!, 12 December 2000

Author: troy-32 from Chicago, Illinois

I think that 1975 was the last great year for American movies. Also to be said is that the Academy recognized this greatness. "One Flew Over the Coukoo's Nest", "Jaws" and "Nashville" are all truly wonderful movies and all were nominated for Best Picture. I am actually fairly surprised that "Nashville" did get nominated, it's such an unusual picture. It was as if Robert Altman wiped clean notions of what movies were supposed to be like or what they had become. 159 minutes of characters' living out a weekend during a political rally. Their lives may or may not intertwine and they may be changed in subtle ways or in truly deep ways or not changed at all, if they have a lesser capacity to respond. The film just follows the characters around, a combination documentary/soap opera. Only with none of the idiotic dramatic shock of soaps and none of the lack of humor in a typical documentary. Only Robert Altman would think to take on a story like this, to any other director it would seem incomprehensibly boring and pointless. His trump card in making "Nashville" such an absorbing, enjoyable experience is his combination of distances. He obviously loves his characters for whatever their qualities may be, but he also never intrudes on them. We get to observe them close up and personal, but we're never at such an exacting distance that we can feel like we're supposed to have some kind of moral reaction to what's going on. Every character has some kind of recognizable flaw, and this movie is just such an enjoyable, relaxing experience for me. You never know what's going to happen, it's not plotted out. It's touching, it's sad, there is tension, there is an enormous amount of humor from almost everyone (which is the real clue that Altman and Joan Tewkesbury and others knew exactly what they were doing). "Nashville" is a hugely funny movie with traces of bittersweet throughout.

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19 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Masterpiece, 9 September 2005

Author: pljewkes from Boston, MA

Director Robert Altman has assembled a massive cast of brilliant actors to create this rollicking and rambling masterpiece. While skewering the often intertwined worlds of entertainment and politics, Altman and company pretty much play it straight therefore heightening the satire. The various stories unfold at a deliberate pace - the movie is quite long - allowing all 25+ characters to fully develop. It's a technique Altman would later utilize with his '90s masterwork SHORT CUTS.

The cast is excellent and many have what turned out to be their best ever movie roles. Among the standouts: Ronee Blakely as Barbara Jean, the diva of the country music world. She's all aflutter as she attempts a triumphant return to her fans; Karen Black is her chief rival and has a very funny interaction with Julie Christie, who plays herself; Lily Tomlin is a gospel singer with two deaf children and a disengaged husband; Keith Carridine is one part of a folk trio who beds just about every female in the cast; Barbara Harris plays a struggling singer whose big break comes at a very unexpected moment; Henry Gibson is Haven Hamilton, a ego maniacal music legend; Geraldine Chaplin plays Opal, a BBC reporter doing an expose of Nashville and serves as a decidedly callous Greek chorus. She's uncomfortably intrusive in nearly every scene.

The rest of the large cast includes Altman regulars Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall and Michael Murphy along with Keenan Wynn, Jeff Goldblum, Ned Beatty and Barbara Baxley.

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
**** out of ****, 12 December 2002

Author: kyle_c from United States

Robert Altman's best film is a fascinating look at twenty-four people whose lives all revolve around a political rally in Nashville. Somehow manages, in two and a half hours, to take a detailed look at all of the characters, comment on politics and our obsession with celebrity, and capture the essence of everything that is American. The loose structure of the film makes it difficult for the first third of the movie or so, but once we start to know the characters it becomes emotionally gripping, with some truly moving scenes. Not without its flaws, but a one of a kind film nonetheless.

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