Review of Nashville (1975) by Bryce I — 25 Feb 2012

Nashville is just one of those films. It's not a film that generates anything new for viewers, and it surely isn't a film that will be getting much appeal in modern society. Yet since most of its key points are taken from other films before it, Nashville succeeds in delivering an original, thought-provoking, and interesting way to comprehend these scenarios. This is a film where every little thing matter. Altman's attention to detail has never been so particulate and precise. There could be 5 different stories going on in the background, and if you know what it is that you're looking for, you can hear every word of each conversation while still following the main plot and the key story being shown. It's a very hectic film, and for a director, its screenplay must have felt like a suicide attempt. Its narrative is the most important thing about the film. That's why it's so interesting, why it's so entertaining, and why it's such a great film to revisit.

Nashville is mostly a character study. A way for Altman to get the most out of Joan Tewkesbury's script is to refrain from a straight forward narrative and work with various themes. And yet they are never over lapped the way one would think. He uses country music as his Greek chorus, and directs the film with a flow of their popularity, their songs of banal populism, and passivity. And yet that isn't even the most interesting part. One of the most interesting traits that Nashville has is the ability to tell several stories at once. Like I have said already, your attention is able to shift fairly easy thanks to its over-lapping dialogue. Your attention may be driven to the bottom corner of the screen to hear what one character in the background might be saying. Whether or not they are important to the film, you can always sense the amount of character development is written for them just by their dialogue. At times, even the smaller characters that have nothing to do with the plot or scenario are the members that stick out the most. Even with a cast of over 2 dozen main characters and protagonists.

So much goes on in the film it's hard to ignore it. It's hectic, and in the end you sense that there was a message but you cannot come away with one. Those are the films I enjoy the most, the ones that give you all this information and pull the carpet out from underneath. But because of the time period that it was created and released, Altman wanted to cause confusion. It was a time when folly politics meant the most to America. At the intersection of the Vietnam War and the scandals of Watergate, all America could hope for was a proper government to help them. That's why Nashville plays such an important part in cinema history. It gave us a clear view of the past, and how everyone felt about the world that lived in. A viewer realizes just how confused the people were in that time period. They were just as confused as the viewer will be after watching this film. That was Altman's true message. And he brought it across the best way he could.