150 Word Review: 'Nashville' (1975)
It don't worry me
There’s something bewitching about director Robert Altman's masterpiece, Nashville. It's a hypnotic quality. This is a political satire and a showbiz drama, but it's also... more? A musical? A nightmare?
To watch Nashville is to step through a portal to a vulnerable moment in American history—a bloody war and a failed presidency hang in the nation's rearview mirror. Ahead: there's hope, but not much. Has anything changed?
The movie twitches with voyeuristic, improvisational energy. Altman invites us to rub shoulders with a community of strivers, big shots, and wannabes, to listen in on their conversations, to spy on their betrayals.
The ensemble wrote and performs sentimental country-folk songs. Mutton-chopped Henry Gibson is the soul of the heartland, a flamboyant redneck crooner. Ronee Blakley is heartbreaking as beloved country star Barbara Jean. Lily Tomlin is quiet and complex, a wife and mother adrift in a town of smiles and secrets.
I love so many of Altman's films - but this is the one I think about every time I turn on the news. Its almost comforting to know that he was able to capture so much of the essential American character in this one movie -- that it basically predicted the next 50 years
I saw it as a kid in the theater and knew I had seen a masterpiece.