Nashville. (15.)
Directed by Robert Altman.
Starring Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson, Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall and Geraldine Chaplin. In cinemas. Part of an Altman season at the BFI. 160 mins.
Masterpiece is a clumsy, ugly, ungainly word, the use of which is best avoided or at least left to very skilled practitioners. Robert Altman’s Nashville though can most definitely be described as a masterpiece, if only because there is not much else that really fit this sprawling study of 24 lives intersecting, or not intersecting, over the course of 5 days in the country music capital of America. To the uninitiated, embarking on this supposed staggering masterpiece of 70s American cinema for the first time, it may seem like a whole lot of not much of anything. Like a twist in the tale thriller it is only at the end that it all comes together.
Robert Altman was surely the most casual of major film directors and Nashville is the loosest of his films (or rather the loosest of his good films.) The 24 characters range from stars, wannabes, ordinary folk and drifters. A campaign van for a third party Presidential hopeful Hal Phillip Walker, which pops up constantly delivering loudspeaker messages for the unseen candidate, is effectively the 25th character. The film starts at a fair pace, zipping along in a hail of crisscrossed introductions as we drop in on the cast of characters, but then slows.
In the second hour scenes seem to drift along. The cast were allowed, within the framework of the script, to develop their characters and write their own songs and they all come up with wonders. So much so that Altman fully indulges them and often actors are allowed to perform two songs back to back.
If categorised it is usually corralled into the pen marked Satire, but it isn’t funny enough or biting enough to quite fit in there. Though they are wonderfully well drawn, audiences may wonder why they are being shown these lives. Having been prepared for satire they will wonder why none of it is really funny, or why these characters’ stories don’t seem to make any point. The point comes right at the end – Spoilers Obviously - with an assassination attempt that momentarily, but only momentarily, shatters the flow of all their lives. What happens next, as the assembled crowd immediately reassemble and go again, with the old cast being hustled off the stage to be instantly replaced by a new one, is what makes the film remarkable. It is both a chilling and inspiring moment and it gives enormous meaning to everything that has preceded (most clearly why Walker is campaigning for The Replacement Party.) Something intangible, the mysterious workings of society, are momentarily made tangible and it is one of the richest moments in cinema. Nashville is The Great American Novel as a film.
You could argue that Magnolia and Altman’s later Short Cuts did this kind of multi-layered ensemble piece better and I well agree with you. But they don't have the cumulative force of Nashville. You wonder how he did it. I think you have to accept the possibility that luck played a part. Altman was the ultimate hit-and-hope filmmaker. While most filmmakers are tiki-taka controlling he was comfortable to lump long balls forward and see where the knockdowns landed. It is an incredibly brave, fairly reckless way of filmmaking and Nashville is all the more poignant for marking the end of nearly unbroken lucky streak Altman had sailed along on since his breakthrough hit M.A.S.H in 1970. After this his luck almost completely dried up and though he made a few worthwhile pieces during the next thirty years, Short Cuts is the only one on a par with his early 70s work.
Nashville is also effectively the curtain coming down on the unprecedented burst of freedom and creativity that was American cinema in the first half of the 70s. Jaws hit the same year and gave Hollywood the first inclining of a way back to safety and security away from the uncertainty of the counter culture.
Altman reviews:
McCabe and Mrs Miller
That Cold Day in The Park
Images
Come Back to The Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Directed by Robert Altman.
Starring Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson, Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall and Geraldine Chaplin. In cinemas. Part of an Altman season at the BFI. 160 mins.
Masterpiece is a clumsy, ugly, ungainly word, the use of which is best avoided or at least left to very skilled practitioners. Robert Altman’s Nashville though can most definitely be described as a masterpiece, if only because there is not much else that really fit this sprawling study of 24 lives intersecting, or not intersecting, over the course of 5 days in the country music capital of America. To the uninitiated, embarking on this supposed staggering masterpiece of 70s American cinema for the first time, it may seem like a whole lot of not much of anything. Like a twist in the tale thriller it is only at the end that it all comes together.
Robert Altman was surely the most casual of major film directors and Nashville is the loosest of his films (or rather the loosest of his good films.) The 24 characters range from stars, wannabes, ordinary folk and drifters. A campaign van for a third party Presidential hopeful Hal Phillip Walker, which pops up constantly delivering loudspeaker messages for the unseen candidate, is effectively the 25th character. The film starts at a fair pace, zipping along in a hail of crisscrossed introductions as we drop in on the cast of characters, but then slows.
In the second hour scenes seem to drift along. The cast were allowed, within the framework of the script, to develop their characters and write their own songs and they all come up with wonders. So much so that Altman fully indulges them and often actors are allowed to perform two songs back to back.
If categorised it is usually corralled into the pen marked Satire, but it isn’t funny enough or biting enough to quite fit in there. Though they are wonderfully well drawn, audiences may wonder why they are being shown these lives. Having been prepared for satire they will wonder why none of it is really funny, or why these characters’ stories don’t seem to make any point. The point comes right at the end – Spoilers Obviously - with an assassination attempt that momentarily, but only momentarily, shatters the flow of all their lives. What happens next, as the assembled crowd immediately reassemble and go again, with the old cast being hustled off the stage to be instantly replaced by a new one, is what makes the film remarkable. It is both a chilling and inspiring moment and it gives enormous meaning to everything that has preceded (most clearly why Walker is campaigning for The Replacement Party.) Something intangible, the mysterious workings of society, are momentarily made tangible and it is one of the richest moments in cinema. Nashville is The Great American Novel as a film.
You could argue that Magnolia and Altman’s later Short Cuts did this kind of multi-layered ensemble piece better and I well agree with you. But they don't have the cumulative force of Nashville. You wonder how he did it. I think you have to accept the possibility that luck played a part. Altman was the ultimate hit-and-hope filmmaker. While most filmmakers are tiki-taka controlling he was comfortable to lump long balls forward and see where the knockdowns landed. It is an incredibly brave, fairly reckless way of filmmaking and Nashville is all the more poignant for marking the end of nearly unbroken lucky streak Altman had sailed along on since his breakthrough hit M.A.S.H in 1970. After this his luck almost completely dried up and though he made a few worthwhile pieces during the next thirty years, Short Cuts is the only one on a par with his early 70s work.
Nashville is also effectively the curtain coming down on the unprecedented burst of freedom and creativity that was American cinema in the first half of the 70s. Jaws hit the same year and gave Hollywood the first inclining of a way back to safety and security away from the uncertainty of the counter culture.
Altman reviews:
McCabe and Mrs Miller
That Cold Day in The Park
Images
Come Back to The Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
