The operating principle here seems to be "generosity of spirit", both in theme and form. altman's wide-screen compositions are egalitarian in the way they give your eyes the freedom to roam the frame, with the ostensible "stars" sharing just as much screen space as the dozens of background extras. even when his characters are at their most petulant and pathetic, he treats them with an unreserved gentleness. unlike say, the coen brothers, altman doesn't see their foibles as cause for cynicism; he simply has too much affection for these people. the accumulated weight of all this takes on a remarkable poignancy in the climactic rally, which manages to offer up powerful emotional dividends by simply cross-cutting between reaction shots. the sequence is certainly tragic but altman, recognizing that life is rarely so monolithic in its emotional tenor, also infuses the proceedings with a sly humor that weirdly enough brought to mind the malfunctioning stretcher scene in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA. it's a remarkable tonal tightrope to walk, but altman does it with aplomb (and i haven't even mentioned the sheer wealth of hilarious gags in this thing, from jeff goldblum's aptly named "tricycle man" racing across the periphery of the frame to shelley duvall's character ditching her aunt's funeral to hang out with boys)

I've seen a few Altman films now, the first ones being those ones from the '90s and of which 'Short cuts' will remain a very impressive one. Later on, I noticed how not every film was as good, but mostly there was plenty to enjoy, still. Only more recently have I been looking up his older work, such as 'The long goodbye' (pretty darn good, getting better every time I watch it), 'Images' (disappointing as an effective horror drama, but still not bad), 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' (a little disappointing in some way, but still pretty good, intriguing and one I will definitely will try again) and '3 Women' - an excellent, spellbinding piece of alternative American cinema and a personal Altman favorite at this point.'Nashville', I'm sorry to say, did disappoint me also, this first viewing. A day later, a lot of scenes and characters and the overall atmosphere of the country music does stick with me in a positive sense. I guess this is one I will try again sometime, too, but not for a while.A character like Goldblum's really didn't seem all that necessary to me, while the story, consisting of many pieces of personal lives all over Nashville, combined with a 'real-life voice-over' (the politician speaking) lacked a certain amount of coherence for me, if many parts were cleverly connected. Perhaps I'll get a better sense of things another time around, but a first viewing is always important to me (if I wasn't drunk or stoned or otherwise preoccupied at the time, of course).I'll leave it at a good 7 out of 10, because there was plenty to enjoy, in all departments.

I had seen this film before or maybe even a few times over the years but decided to watch it on DVD again this past weekend. I have been checking out Altman flicks, particularly for the director commentaries that some dvds come with.I was 20 years old in 1975 when the country was on the verge of disco and all that went with that experiment in debauchery, fantasy and excess; the whole Warhol, Bianca, Studio 54 mess, if you will, of which I was right in the middle. A young sailor, I appreciated Cinderella Liberty AND The Last Detail; a Baby Boomer, I appreciated American Graffiti AND the Exorcist. And then there is Nashville. The first thing I noticed is that I had the exact same shirt Haven's son wore, all of his shirts in fact. That right there was enough to depress me. Next, the Nashville airport - been there too and THAT depressed me. I guess you can tell by now that that period does not have really fond memories for me: the wood paneling, the Formica in avocado green, harvest gold, and I can never remember what they called the red one just all seem so cheesy. Maybe it was because in those days Times Square and most big cities were one big X-rated peep-show extravaganza. Like I said I was a sailor then and that's what we did. Anyway, I found most of the characters dull; particularly Jeff Goldblum who even then had that kind of irritating shtick about him; Carradine too (I must have been stoned back then (probably was) but I actually used to like "I'm Easy". Now, I don't think it was so hot at all. Tomlin was okay, although with all the hoopla, you'd think her part would have been more developed. Maybe it was because she had theretofore been on Laugh-In that it was a sensation. Ditto for Henry Gibson who I really thought WAS good. I don't know, maybe it was the film stock but it just all seemed old to me, like Altman's M*A*S*H. By the way, Elliot Gould showing up in a cameo just reminded me why I never cared for his smart ass either. And I honestly felt the same way about Julie Christie i.e. who the hell is SHE? Even though I knew who she was.I guess in closing, I just don't think this movie is a classic for me nor would I place it on any must see list. I'd much rather watch any number of other movies from that year. Cuckoo's nest or something.

Robert Altman's insightful dissection about Nashville, the cradle of American country music, astutely captures the zeitgeist of 1970s and deploys a kaleidoscope of motley characters. A red hot country superstar (Blakley) who is plagued by her feeble health condition and the straining relationship with her agent-husband (Garfield), who has to cater to another country diva (Black) who comes to supplant his ailing wife for a public concert; a pompous and loudmouth BBC journalist (Chaplin) who comes to shoot a documentary about Nashville; an uprising folk trio TOM, MARY & BILL (Carradine, Raines, Nicholls) with their chauffeur (Arkin) while Tom is the sleaze-bag philanderer and the married Mary and Bill undergo some connubial crisis; A housewife and gospel singer (Tomlin) whose husband (Beatty) is an agent who tenaciously introduces a politician lobbyist (Murphy) to the music moguls in order to get some big names to sing publicly for the presidential candidate and his main target is a honorific but over-the-hill country star (Gibson) with an astringent wife (Baxley) and an unworldly son (Peel), and fellow musicians (Brown, for example) as wellThere is also a glut of ordinary people, two young singers-wanna-be, one is a runaway wife (Harris) seeking for an opportunity to sing in front of a large audience, another is a southern beauty (Welles) who optionally chooses to ignore her unmusical voice and insists on carrying her pipe dream at all hazards (a striptease in a local bar is just the beginning for the poor dim gal) albeit the eloquent persuasion from her friend (DoQui); two young lad, one is a reticent pfd. soldier (Scott) who is obsessed with Blakley, the other one is a self-claimed musician (Hayward) totes his guitar box where conceals a dangerous weapon will later trigger the awesome finale; the last pair is a local old man (Wynn) and his vampy niece (Duvall), who flirts with every young man she meets including a weirdo-looking tricycle rider (Goldblum), never care too much about her dying auntie in the hospital.To engineer and channel a huge cast like this is Altman's strongest suit, the assemblage of hustle and bustle inducts audiences into a multivalent prism which bravely refracts an ideological society status, with whimsical banters abound and of course the music renditions. Despite that I have no honky-tonk root and my upbringing is immune to the genre, and from a standpoint of now, its traditional sense of worth oozing from the songs is grating and behind the times, the live-performances never cease to purvey vim and vigor to be appreciated. Notably from Blakley and Black, not to mention Carradine's Oscar enthroned folksy I'M EASY, magnificently stipulates the high bar of music's sex appeal. Performance wise, Oscar-nominated Blakley is also in the top-tier, whose sensitivity is so authentic and whose aftermath could not be more shocking (god bless Loretta Lynn); Tomlin (owns her Oscar nomination simply by her gaze towards Carradine during his solo show), Chaplin (so obnoxious is the character but she is superb in presenting her into a wacky laughing-stock) and Wynn (savings the gratuitous nude scene, she manages to squeeze a veritable sense of mettle out of her levity and shallowness) are all great in their respective terrains; Gibson and Garfield are my picks for male counterpart, but it is indeed a female's spectacle. I cannot say it is my favorite Altman's work (GOSFORD PARK 2001, 9/10 still holds the slot), but no doubt it is a monumental achievement at its time and in Altman's career path, the cogent political messages are being propagated from stem to stern, obviously it has a broader insinuation which even today one can hardly pass over.