Nashville
d. Robert Altman, 1975
Robert Altman's Nashville is an amazing movie clearly made by a master director. Altman was at the height of his powers here; only 4 years after making McCabe & Mrs. Miller, one of the greatest of all films. The scenes in Nashville are so elaborate yet so effortlessly handled by Altman that I'm tempted to call him the most natural director since Fellini.
The film is a portrayal of a couple of days at Nashville leading up to a presidential primary. There are a lot of undercurrents in the film, but no clear story, which is probably why the movie is so great. It deals with at least 24 people (all of them sharing about the same on-screen time); which range from successful country stars, gospel singers, the presidential candidate, the people organizing a fundraiser for him, and so on. If these people have something in common, it is their collective disappointment with life. But more about that later.
The first thing one notices when watching Nashville is how well Altman is at shooting scenes with many actors at once. Basically every scene in the film is memorable, and it would be hard to point out my favorite (although the ending is profoundly moving). To watch Nashville (or any Altman film for that matter) is to be given scenes with an astonishing amount of depth and excitement. The film's 160 minute running time goes by faster than most recent movies I've seen.
The themes present in Nashville are some that Altman went on to continue exploring in his 1993 film Short Cuts. They deal with the coincedental nature of life, in which the universe will do with you as it sees fit. More important, however, is the assumption that our lives don't follow a straight line from beginning to end. Altman is smart enough to understand that lives are not about stories, but the other way around.
As I stated earlier, most of the characters in Nashville are in some way or another displeased with life. But they are also aware (as I suspect Altman is) that disappointment never killed anybody. One of the last few scenes shows a sudden act of violence at a political rally, and the audience gets over its horror by singing a song titled "It don't worry me." In this film, he tells us that life is messy and we run into each other and that, ultimately, we are all in this together.
