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Nashville (1975) (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-04 16:37:28
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

#59 on the AFI List, Nashville (1975) is a really ambitious film! This one needs to be watched multiple times because there is so much going on, especially with all the overlapping dialogue and music, you miss so much. Even though this is a satirical comedy, I found it to be quite sad. It felt like an open wound watching it, and so I can see how this movie might be more powerful to people of this era, or maybe even Americans (Happy 4th, BTW!)

Let me know your thoughts below! I would love to hear them!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!!

xx

ames

Files

NASH (1975)

Comments

Henry Graham

This for my money is Altman's masterpiece and as I've rewatched it over the years I've come to think that it may be the greatest film about America - how apt that you happened to put this up on July 4th! The 24 characters that Altman and Joan Tewkesbury introduce us to run the gamut of archetypes - they are celebrities, wannabes, politicians, civilians, winners and losers - and what's truly astonishing is how we feel that we get to know these people through the brief moments we spend with them, as Altman jumps across narrative threads and creates a tapestry of complex, eccentric, contradictory humanity. It's the greatest example of how invigorating Altman's loose filmmaking style could be, but what really makes it fly are the sensational actors, who bring so much humour and sadness to their roles, and are so specific in the choices that make these characters come vividly to life, and all of whom wrote and performed their own songs. I especially adore Ronee Blakley, Gwen Welles and Lily Tomlin (her sphinx-like face has never been better used than in the gorgeous "I'm Easy" scene), but honestly they are all so memorable in different ways. Two of the five Best Supporting Actress slots that year went to actresses from Nashville, but it could and probably should have been all five, and even then you'd be snubbing someone deserving. I think it's the greatest true ensemble film I've ever seen. Nashville is a comedy and a musical, but as you noted, it's also a tragedy. The ending is emblematic of the mood of mid-1970s America, as the idealism of the 60s soured into cynicism and disillusionment. There's a fleeting close up of the American flag rippling in the wind while Barbara Jean is singing at the end and right before the horrible climax, and I find that moment so astonishingly powerful. Nashville is a collection of inspired moments that coalesce into an overwhelming portrait of a nation in pain but defiant, still tearfully singing "It don't worry me" while reeling from the horror. The show must go on. I think I'm in the minority in having a strong dislike of M*A*S*H, which I think has dated dreadfully, but Altman is one of those directors who is all over the map and everyone will find different things to love and hate across his incredibly rich and diverse filmography. He was a one-of-a-kind filmmaker.

Clay F

Released in the year before the US bicentennial (I remember the bicentennial being a big deal in the US). This will be my first watch of the movie I think.

Kinokind

I, too, saw this in the theater on first release, with a friend. We were both astonished because we had never seen anything like it before. It was my first Altman film, and I thought it was a work of genius. Of course not all of his films worked out as well, possibly because he was often at the mercy of those improvisations he encouraged. In this case, though, the frickin' actors wrote their own music! It was amazing that they were so effective at parodying the genre they were acting in. I haven't watched it all the way through for years, and I am going to now, but my recollection is that it is a black comedy, with many of the characters either naive or just repellent human beings. This may be Lily Tomlin's best performance, and it's very sad. It is a bit of its time, but that's OK. It don't worry me.

JM63

After sleeping on it, Nashville is already starting to work its magic on me. This film is many things, but one aspect that stands out is that it’s a statement on how the fundamental American ideal of equality has been corrupted during its first 200 years. But while that corruption has taken place in America, it wasn’t corrupted “by America” – instead, I believe it’s due to something more inherent to human nature. So even though Nashville was an excellent AFI pick for the 4th of July, it has a universal message. First, in order to contrast it with America, a little background on the social structure of Europe. Since Roman times, European society was dominated by wealthy landowners. And in the early Middle Ages, knights were viewed as barbaric thugs who behaved more like Mafia enforcers than heroic saviors. Over time, however, the landowning class and their hired muscle merged into an aristocratic warrior elite that professed chivalric ideals but in practice focused on exploiting as many peasants as they could. Peasants were seen as vital to the social order, for obvious reasons, although most existed in a social spectrum between near-slavery and full freedom. But even free commoners were expected to show public and private deference to the nobility – backing up to clear a path for them in the street, bowing and curtsying, addressing them by formal titles, and generally groveling and showing subservience to their betters.