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Nashville (1975)
If America’s 250th birthday resembled little more than a stage for propagandistic, self-focused renditions of the current political moment, Robert Altman’s Nashville felt the same damn way 51 years ago.
With the bicentennial hovering in the air, an ensemble of singers, politicians, journalists, fans and weirdos descend on Nashville for a musical campaign rally that preaches populism but ends up a rat race of optics, violence, hedonism and hypocrisy.
Case in point, Altman’s acclaimed musical comedy opens with a conservative country singer (Henry Gibson) recording a patriotic hymn for the bicentennial. “We must be doing something right these last 200 years,” he proudly sing-speaks—only to stop the take in its final seconds because he spots an outsider in the room. What’s more American than that, Altman seems to say.
In turn, that outsider is no less vapid, and Geraldine Chaplin as a clout-chasing BBC journalist spearheads some of the film’s funniest vignettes, including wandering around a Tennessee scrapyard trying to force a profound metaphor for American excess.
“Oh, cars!” she cries into her tape recorder. “Are you trying to convey something!?”
The satire is as roving as it is relentless, but Altman still savors the high notes of the circus.
In earnest scenes in which Ronee Blakley and Keith Carradine sing right to the core of their audience, it’s clear that Altman understands another impulse at the core of American pageantry.
We’ll never stop seeking a balmy truth from entertainment, no matter how many times it lies to us.
Nashville plays Aug. 2 at the Tomorrow Theater.
Also Playing:
Academy: Rio Bravo (1959), SLC Punk! (1998) and Back to the Future (1985), July 29–30. Nacho Libre (2006), The Night of the Hunter (1955) and Blade (1998), July 31–Aug. 6. Cinema 21: The Room (2003), July 31. A Night at the Opera (1935), Aug. 1. Cinemagic: Mandy (2018) and The Substance (2024), July 29 and 30. Starship Troopers (1997) and Mars Attacks! (1996), July 31 and Aug. 3. Tremors (1990), Aug. 1, 2 and 4. Clinton: And Love Vanished (1961), July 29. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Aug. 1. Hollywood: Pusher 3 (2005), July 29. Father of the Bride (1950), Aug. 1 and 2. Virtual Combat (1995), Aug. 4. Moreland: The Land Before Time (1988), July 29. Flow (2024), Aug. 3. Tomorrow: Jaws (1975), July 30. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Aug. 1. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Aug. 1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Aug. 2.
