June 14, 2002
Nashville
Robert Altman's
1975 movie Nashville is a bona fide
classic, and is one of the greatest ensemble movies of all
time. It makes many favorite lists, including Roger Ebert's and the
National Society of Film Critics' "The A List". It also had a couple
of hit songs on its film track, including two by Keith Carradine,
who wrote and sang I'm Easy and It Don't Worry Me. A
very influential movie, I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to
seeing it again, just to make sure I can follow all the intertwining
story lines.
There really is no one main story in Nashville, just a lot of story lines, where all the major players show up at the climatic ending scene. For those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, I won't spoil the ending, although it really isn't too much of a surprise when you think about it. All kinds of excellent actors play a part in the movie, including Ned Beatty (the sweaty local political operative), Lily Tomlin (Ned Beatty's wife, mother of 2 deaf kids, and a singer of gospel), the aforementioned Keith Caradine (a low-down womanizer), Karen Black (a popular country and western singer), and Henry Gibson (the biggest singer in Nashville). They all have their story to tell and their parts to play in the country music capital of the world. They all end up at the crescendo act in the end.
The DVD is done well, with an excellent transfer and a nice wide screen picture. There's an interview with Altman, that we watched and found pretty interesting, plus a film length commentary, which I haven't done yet, but hope to in a future viewing, as I'm sure he'd have lots of interesting things to say about the story lines. The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1, but the speakers don't really get much of a workout.
One interesting thing to note is that nearly all of the songs were both written and performed by the actors themselves. Altman felt this would get them into the mood for playing C&W singers. This means the songs really don't feel all that authentic, but rather a folksy C&W, like I'm Easy sounds. And it can be hard to follow all the characters (24 in all!), which makes a repeat viewing almost a requirement. But the acting comes across as very authentic, and Nashville seems to be captured perfectly. I'm looking forward to watching this again.
Buy Nashville (Special Edition) at DVDPlanet
Cristina Raines, Barbara Baxley, Lily Tomlin, Jeff Goldblum, Keenan Wynn, Scott Glenn, Keith Carradine, Henry Gibson, Barbara Harris, Ronee Blakely, Shelley Duvall, Geraldine Chaplin, Ned Beatty, Elliott Gould, Julie Christie, Karen Black, Allen Garfield,
A behind-the-curtain epic about the collision of politics, populism and patriotism in the heartland of country music. Posted by jdarnold at June 14, 2002 03:37 PM
