NASHVILLE A
USA (159 mi) 1975
‘Scope d: Robert Altman
The price of bread may
worry some, but it don’t worry me
Tax relief may never
come, but it don’t worry me
Economy’s depressed
not me,
My spirit’s high as it
can be
And you may say that I
ain’t free, but it don’t worry me
It don’t worry me, it
don’t worry me,
You may say that I
ain’t free, but it don’t worry me
They say this train
don’t give out rides, well it don’t worry me
All the world is
taking sides, but it don’t worry me
In my empire life is
sweet, just ask any bum you meet
And life may be a one
way street, but it don’t worry me
It don’t worry
me, it don’t worry me,
You may say that I
ain’t free, but it don’t worry me
It don’t worry me, it
don’t worry me,
You may say that I
ain’t free, but it don’t worry me.
It don’t worry
me, it don’t worry me,
You may say that I
ain’t free, but it don’t worry me
One thing Altman railed against throughout his lifetime was
phonies, probably because in Hollywood he had to deal with so many of them, where
this theme resurfaces in any number of variations in his movies where a
character is not who or what they appear to be, such as McCabe in McCabe
& Mrs. Miller (1971), or they’re cynically exploiting their false mythology,
such as Buffalo Bill, who sees himself as a bogus entertainer willing to
exploit his famous name for fame and fortune in BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS,
OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976).
But in this film, Altman takes aim at celebrity worship, where you’re
not anybody unless you’re somebody, where the general consensus seems to be, why
should we listen to anyone unless they’re famous? Of course, the problem being, famous people
often find it hard to tell the difference between their own legend and who they
really are, like Ronee Blakely as a down home Loretta Lynn style country singer
Barbara Jean, caught up in her own myth, perpetuated by her self-interested, overcontrolling
husband and manager Barnett (Allen Garfield) who literally pulls the strings
like a puppeteer, where she can’t tell the difference between what’s real, and
what’s not. The cynical message being
broadcast throughout the entire film is an unseen political candidate running
for office on the Replacement Party, where a car drives around town using a
bullhorn to announce his platform is little more than - - not those guys - - railing
against the status quo at every turn while never really revealing what he’s
running for, except an early 17th century concept, sort of Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part Two platform, “The first
thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,”
claiming that’s why government doesn’t work.
Oh, and he wants to change the national anthem. This film is one of the great ensemble
masterpieces, where it has 24 main characters, an hour of musical numbers, and
multiple storylines interwoven into a fractured narrative about life in Music
City, the country music capitol of America, where the underbelly is just as
exposed as a coterie of stars.
NASHVILLE came at an interesting time in history, following
two major scandals, having only recently pulled out of Vietnam, and Watergate
was exposing the imperial secrets of the Presidency, where Nixon had just
resigned (in fact, the scenes in the Grand Ole Opry were shot on the day Nixon
resigned), and furthermore, hardly anyone had heard of an oddly ambitious
Southern governor named Jimmy Carter. Somehow
Altman tapped into a very serious and traumatizing time in America with a
show-stopping piece of Americana that is a blisteringly
hilarious satire, where often you can't tell the difference between
what’s real and what isn’t, including the performers, as it’s all an
illusion. In effect Altman has created a
disaster film about the American Dream that may draw upon Hitchcock’s themes of
fear and complacency in The Birds
(1963), where despite the plethora of musical numbers, safe, family oriented,
and unthreatening by all accounts, the American public is hiding behind a
security net of fantasy escapism, where like Hitchcock, both use surprising,
somewhat apocalyptic acts of nature to strike back at foolish humans who
continue to believe they are exempt from life’s tragedies. Central to this theme is the use of the song
“It Don’t Worry Me,” which brings the final curtain down at the end, which is
essentially a song of openly acknowledged ignorance, “The price of bread may
worry some/It don’t worry me” or “Economy’s depressed, not me,” coming from a
Southern town that doesn’t wish to have anything to do with the rest of the
country’s problems, a blissfull ignorance that actually reflects the same state
of mind as Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies) in Hitchcock’s film, the local expert ornithologist
who swears birds would never attack humans and that people have nothing to
worry about. It’s an interesting
parallel that suggests both directors working at the top of their game tapped
into similar themes a decade apart, where The Birds
release preceded President Kennedy’s assassination by 6 or 7 months, with his
brother Robert, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X all assassinated before the
decade of the 60’s was over, while Altman’s release of this film preceded the
election of President Jimmy Carter just a little over a year later, initially
dismissed as a regional candidate, followed by the energy crisis, record levels
of rising inflation, and the Iranian hostage crisis, America’s first taste of
international terrorism. In both
instances, these prescient films were followed by a lingering social malaise of
untold proportions.
The movie Nashville isn’t trying to be docu-realistic when it comes to
Nashville itself. This is something a lot of actual Nashville residents—in the
music industry especially—didn’t get back in 1975. (My friend Jim Ridley
examined the whole local kerfuffle over Nashville
in this well-researched 1995 Scene article.) It’s something a
lot of big-city music and film critics didn’t get at the time, either. Nashville follows an eclectic, loosely
related mob of superstars, wannabes, fans, and hangers-on over the course of
five days, watching how country-music royalty like Haven Hamilton (played by
Henry Gibson) and cred-seeking young folk-rockers like Tom Frank (Keith
Carradine) enjoy and exploit the privileges of fame. The film builds to a
galvanizing act of violence, which leads to a surprisingly noble reaction from
Haven, and a unifying performance of one of Tom’s songs. Prior to that, though,
Nashville roams freely through a
Southern mini-metropolis that’s much sillier than the real one.
As a result, the movie’s version of
country music, while tuneful, is intentionally cartoonish. Which means that as
part of coastal critics’ apparently eternal need to protect defenseless
middle-Americans from mean-spirited showbiz types like Alexander Payne, the
Coen brothers, and Robert Altman, some tastemakers grumbled about Nashville, claiming Altman was making
fun of hicks and disrespecting a grand tradition of American folk music.
Reviewing the soundtrack, The Village
Voice’s Robert Christgau complained that the actors weren’t even authentic
country singers, writing, “If the music makes the movie, as more than one film
critic has surmised, then the movie is a lie. Another possibility: the critics
are fibbing a little to cover their ignorance.”
That particular take on Nashville is based on the misperception
that Robert Altman set out to make a movie about country music. That was more
the goal of producer Jerry Weintraub, who saw in this project a hit soundtrack
album waiting to happen. Altman, on the other hand, saw an opportunity to make
a grand statement about celebrity, politics, the deep-rooted conservatism of
the South, and a nation on the cusp of its bicentennial. Knowing nothing about
Nashville, he sent screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury on a couple of scouting trips,
which she came back from loaded down with anecdotes about a medium-sized city
with a small-town vibe, where she kept running into the same people whether she
was visiting a recording studio, a racetrack, a church, or a bar.
Because Altman liked to improvise,
with input from his cast (who in Nashville
also wrote some of their own songs), Tewkesbury often doesn’t get enough credit
for her contributions to Nashville.
But she was the one who helped devise a structure with two dozen major
characters wandering into and out of each other’s storylines—even if it’s just
to stand mute in the back of a shot, barely noticeable. And it was Tewkesbury
who established the recurring moral dilemma these characters face, which she
pinpoints on the Criterion Blu-ray when she talks about the scene in Nashville where a terrible singer
(played by Gwen Welles) gets duped into performing a striptease at a political
fundraiser. “I can fix this so I won’t have to take off all my clothes,” says Tewkesbury, describing what every character
in Nashville thinks as they make
compromises with their careers, ideals, and personal relationships.
Make no mistake, though: Nashville is Altman’s movie more than
anyone’s. He had a capable team helping him achieve a revolutionary sound
mix—with every character miked-up and woven into the soundtrack—and helping him
cut hours of material into a fluidly paced film that sometimes ping-pongs
rapidly between scenes, and sometimes stays still to take in a musical
performance. But it’s always Altman pulling the strings, constructing a world
so teeming that it seems to spill off the edges of the screen. (One of the
movie’s best tricks is playing key songs like “It Don’t Worry Me” in the
background well before they’re performed in the film, so they already seem like
massive hits that everyone knows.) Though Altman and Tewkesbury based some of
the major Nashville players on Loretta Lynn, Roy Acuff, Charley Pride, and
others, they weren’t intending to satirize or celebrate country music. The
songs—sometimes funny, sometimes sweet—express the characters’ feelings, and
their view of the world, irrespective of the location.
Altman’s film acknowledges a period of diminished faith in
government while tapping into the populist fervor of country music, actually
equating the two, comparing the hypocrisy of politics with the sleaze and
dishonesty of the entertainment business.
Yet somehow, when looking back over Altman’s career, while no two films
are alike, they all convey similar themes, ideas, story, or style, and point
back at one another, as if part of a continuing conversation. Altman enlarges the world of expanding
characters depicted in California
Split (1974), adding many more characters, each with their own individual
narrative. Much more than his earlier
films, Altman strove for something larger, where the film would become a grand
cultural statement, encompassing many attitudes and points of view, or in
Altman’s words, “a metaphor for America,” while screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury
adds her view, “All you need to do is add yourself as the twenty-fifth
character and know that whatever you think about the film is right, even if you
think the film is wrong.” In this way,
simply by the expanding and open ended film process, yet clearly set in a
specific time and place, Altman intentionally adds the viewer into the
conversation, even after repeated viewings where one’s view may shift or change
through the years. As an experiment of integrating
multiple narratives into a cohesive whole, Altman has refined what he began in Brewster
McCloud (1970), where fragmented pieces of mid 70’s American culture are
reflected in the various characters, where each is vulnerable and hurt in some
way, often seen as flawed and even foolish, but there’s also an underlying
ugliness or moral stain in their own behavior, often conniving, hurting, or bringing
harm to others, yet somehow, rationalized within their own collective
conscience, this is acceptable behavior.
While there are moments of stunning emotional force, they are undercut
by Altman’s direction and his continually shifting editing scheme, such as the
moment Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn) during a routine hospital visit learns that his
beloved wife has died, where his grief is quickly interrupted by a joltingly
intrusive conversation from an upbeat soldier visiting another patient, who offhandedly
remarks “You give my best to your wife” as Mr. Green literally crumbles before
our eyes. But rather than hold the shot
for emotional effect, Altman quickly edits to another scene, keeping the
audience at a distance, where the viewer remains an impartial observer
witnessing various events as they unfold over the course of five days.
Despite the revolving door of quirky characters, in
NASHVILLE they all seem to be on some kind of personal quest or journey, perhaps
to get away from something while pursuing their dreams, like Barbara Harris as
Winifred, seen abandoning her husband early on during a freeway pile-up of
people all driving into the city of Nashville, transforming herself into
Albuquerque, her chosen stage name, as she aspires to become a country western
star, joining the legions of others all following the same yellow brick road to
fame and fortune. Part of the curiosity
comes from characters asking others what they are doing in town, suggesting
people are arriving for some major event, creating a sense of anticipation for
the intersecting paths of a political campaign and a music festival. Part of a running joke throughout is how
quickly people in this town describe themselves as apolitical, disinterested in
politics, or even declaring they don’t vote, confirming a tone of abject
disinterest, yet all display undaunted enthusiasm for gaining a foot in the
music business. Somehow their fates are
intertwined. Political alienation is
symptomatic of deeper, often unexplored issues, yet the political reality is
passivity breeds manipulation, as the space you vacated leaves a spot open for
ill-fated winds of empty rhetoric and hot air to blow while searching for a
foothold in the political landscape. Disinterest
allows the ambitions of others to set the terms of their own politicized
agenda, while you sit by and passively allow them to do it. Similarly, the paying customers of these
musical legends exude their own loss of identity, transferring all the power to
the performer, often fawning over celebrities, where they are easily duped into
becoming ardent believers, like submissive cult followers. These competing interests of music and
politics comprise the moral dilemma of many of the characters, especially the established
musical stars, who don’t wish to be affiliated with any political party, but
aren’t against a little back-roomed arm twisting if they think they can gain an
advantage over their rival competitors. What
brings them together is both sides want attention, popularity, which in their
eyes breeds success, as that is the nature of the business. Again, the viewer remains an impartial
observer sitting outside the events, so may render judgment on the ethical
boundaries crossed in pursuit of both goals, especially how easily people allow
themselves to be duped and fooled. With
so many different characters with personal agendas, what catches the viewer’s
eye may be altogether different in subsequent viewings, which is part of the
hidden beauty of the film, as it evolves as we do.
Shot in only 45 days on a $2 million dollar budget, which
was considered small, where each of the two dozen lead characters drew similar
salaries somewhere between $750 to $1000/week, the film was originally
conceived as a possible TV mini-series, where Altman shot a great deal of
footage, viewing two hours of rushes every day, with the director at one point
considering releasing the film in two parts, Nashville Red and Nashville
Blue, before finally settling on a more conventional format. But the film is anything but conventional,
something like a sprawling epic trainwreck about to happen with plenty of
detours along the way. When the film was
previewed in Boston by Paramount, the audience stood for several minutes both
cheering and booing. Joan Tewkesbury’s
screenplay moves from one giant set piece to the next, a multi-car freeway pileup,
recording sessions, night club performances, The Grand Ole Opry, an amateur
night that becomes a strip show, to a gathering in front of the Parthenon (1,280
× 853 pixels) in Centennial Park.
Altman received a huge boost from the lavish praise received from film
critic Pauline Kael in The New Yorker,
calling it a masterpiece before it was even finished after seeing an early cut
of the movie, describing Altman “as identifiable as a paragraph by Mailer when
he’s really racing. ‘Nashville’ is
simply ‘the ultimate Altman movie’ we’ve been waiting for… It’s a pure
emotional high, and you don’t come down when the picture is over,” actually
comparing Altman’s methods to James Joyce in Ulysses. In The New York Times, Vincent Canby
protested: “If one can review a film on the basis of an approximately
three-hour rough cut, why not review it on the basis of a five-hour rough cut? A ten-hour one? On the basis of a screenplay? The original material if first printed as a
book?” While they used the script
primarily as a guide, as the movie was shot almost entirely in sequence, the
film is largely improvised by the actors, who spent a great amount of their
time in character, each one individually mike’d for sound, where the use of
multiple cameras prevented the actors from knowing precisely when they were on
camera. Each actor was required to write
and perform their own songs for the movie, where Altman’s talent was juggling
all the various storylines of the two dozen characters, creating clarity out of
chaos.
According to Altman:
I felt we were doing something that
had the potential of being terrific. I had complete artistic freedom in this; I
had nobody — nobody — saying you had to do this or do that....We had the
framework, which was the city of Nashville, and I had the music as the through
line. Then, you’ve got to understand that at that time everybody was
politically charged — one way or another. So when they found out we were free
to express these...attitudes, everybody became very creative.
Opening with the blaring noise of an advertisement for the
film itself, where the announcer promises to proceed “without commercial
interruption,” what follows is one continual commercial advertisement from a
political campaign van driving through the streets spouting cliché’d political
banalities that pass for wisdom, where Altman has a habit of celebrating the
same interests and themes that he also subjects to ridicule. A freeway multiple car pile-up leaves traffic
at a standstill as Opal (Geraldine Chaplin), an alleged BBC Reporter, walks
through the carnage of cars spouting platitudes into her pocket tape recorder
about violence in America, as she arrives in town to do a story on Grand Ole
Opry star Haven Hamilton, Henry Gibson from television’s Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1970 – 73), a part originally
intended for Robert Duvall, but his salary demands were too high. Hamilton is recording an ode to our national
heritage, “We must be doin’ somethin’ right to last 200 years,” but he’s
amusingly interrupted by Opal’s invasion of the privacy of his studio, where
she’s quickly escorted out into another studio where Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin)
is cutting a record with a black gospel choir, where Opal rambles on into her
recorder about “darkest Africa with its naked, frenzied bodies.” Across town at the airport, fans are
welcoming back the return of the reigning queen of country music, Barbara Jean
(Ronee Blakely, a backup singer for Hoyt Axton, who met with Loretta Lynn and
Dolly Parton in preparation for the role originally intended for Susan
Anspach), who’s been recovering from an injury and near-nervous breakdown,
where her swoon causes a near panic, expecially from her nervously manipulating
manager and husband Barnett (Allen Garfield).
We follow the continued near misses of a folk trio, Bill and
Mary (Allan Nichols and Cristina Raines) who keep missing Tom (Keith
Carradine), who is sleeping with Mary while secretly attempting to pursue a
solo career. Tom also calls Linnea at
home, hoping for a hotel tryst, where we learn she’s married to Delbert (Ned
Beatty) while raising two deaf children.
Lily Tomlin’s role could based on
actress Louise Fletcher who was the child of deaf parents. Ironically, Louise Fletcher won the Best
Actress Award that same year for her role in a film that won all the major
categories at the Academy Awards, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S BEST(1975). Rising country star Connie White (Karen
Black) takes advantage of Barbara Jean’s absence and fills in for her at the
Grand Ole Opry. While this music world
is bustling with behind-the-scenes activities, with characters continually
crossing paths, political advance man John Triplette (Michael Murphy) meets
with Delbert to line up contacts, celebrities, pocketbooks, and entertainers
for both a fund-raising smoker and an outdoor political rally at the
Parthenon. While there are more stars
and secondary characters galore, with a beautiful interweaving of various
interests and personalities, the three characters that really stand out are Lily
Tomlin, also a regular on Laugh-In
performing in her first film, whose grace and eloquence couldn’t be more
surprising, whether singing in the choir, having a delightful sign language
conversation with her kids, or sitting alone in a club actually listening to a song, turning that into
one of the profound moments of the movie, where she may actually be the heart
and soul of the film. Geraldine
Chaplin’s Opal is appallingly insensitive, yet she gets the majority of the
laughs for her fawning celebrity worship, utter daffiness, and infinite
rudeness, where she’s seen wandering aimlessly through vacant junkyards or a
giant parking lot filled with yellow school busses spouting
stream-of-conscience jibberish wherever she goes, where after stepping all over
everyone to get close to anyone resembling a celebrity, she rejects even
talking to the driver for Bill, Mary, and Tom, claiming, “I make it a policy
never to speak to the servants.”
Finally, this film belongs to Barbara Harris, who makes the most of an
underwritten part, yet she is probably the most hopeful and optimistic
character in a film that is otherwise filled with people who might be described
as unhappy, pathetic, devious, manipulative, miserable, or even delusional,
where she takes the baton at the end and leads the crowd in a surprisingly
soulful rendition of “It Don’t Worry Me,” Barbara Harris
- It Don't Worry Me - YouTube (Film finale, 5:02), becoming a transcendent
moment, where her rousing performance resurrects a shocked and stupefied
audience, becoming the film’s driving force, an emblematic theme song that
could easily become the Replacement Party’s choice for the replacement national
anthem.
After November 22, 1963 [the date
of President Kennedy's assassination] and all the other days of infamy, I
wouldn't have thought it possible that a film could have anything new or very
interesting to say on assassination, but Nashville does, and the film's closing
minutes with Barbara Harris finding herself, to her astonishment, onstage and
singing, It Don't Worry Me are
unforgettable and heartbreaking. Nashville, which seems so unstructured as it
begins, reveals itself in this final sequence to have had a deep and very
profound structure - but one of emotions, not ideas. This is a film about
America. It deals with our myths, our hungers, our ambitions, and our sense of
self. It knows how we talk and how we behave, and it doesn't flatter us but it
does love us.
