NASHVILLE Retrospective

NASHVILLE, the most enduring and beloved of Altman’s films, is a masterpiece that continues to resonate and endure. #59 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies, the film is a portrait of the complicated lives of several Nashville residents, including a country superstar (Karen Black), a folk singer lothario (Keith Carradine), a reporter (Geraldine Chaplin), a lawyer and political organizer (Ned Beatty) and a gospel vocalist (Lily Tomlin). Shot in a style that collaborator Henry Gibson called “Altmanscope,” the camera constantly pans and zooms to capture the rhetoric, platitudes and folklore employed by American country music and campaign speeches. The film is epic in the way it incorporates 24 different characters and an hour’s worth of musical performances, as the narrative unfolds over five days leading up to a political rally for Replacement Party candidate Hal Phillip Walker. – Gillian Horvat