35 (no make that 36) Years of "Nashville"

As a self-styled film historian and film buff, I tend to know many trivial facts about films, so imagine my surprise and embarrassment when I completed writing this piece and discovered that the premise was all wrong. Let me first explain the raison d'etre of my post.

People often ask me my opinions on the best films ever. I cite many of the usual suspects, such as Citizen Kane (top of the list), It's a Wonderful Life, Chaplin's Modern Times and The Gold Rush, and not too many other surprises. However, when I was asked to name my Top Five, I raised many eyebrows when I included Robert Altman's Nashville.
Yes, that's right, Nashville! Want to make something of it? I think this is a groundbreaking film whose influences have spread far and wide, yet few people acknowledge them. Or, more significant, are not aware of them.
I wrote this thinking that I was honoring the 35th anniversary of the premiere of the film. However, I discovered that it opened on June 11, 1975. So I'm a year late. Still, I'd like to explain why I love this film so much and still consider it one of the best ever.
Let's begin with the setting. Altman was way ahead of the curve in picking the country music capital as the focal point of his film. You would be hard pressed to think of any significant films that were similarly centered. We see people in the recording studios, in clubs, at outdoor performances. It was as though he was clairvoyant in seeing what a cultural force country music would become, and he took us right to its epicenter.
This was no whitewash. An older woman I knew bristled at the portrayal, complaining "That's not what country music is about." Sorry, Ma'am, but these characters are Americans, capable of being as venal, petty, shallow and competitive as the rest of us. If the New York theater could have the vipers of All About Eve and early television could portray the Andy Griffith's ascendant evil in A Face in the Crowd, then country music was entitled to its Nashville.
Altman was also a master at pulling great performances out of a. huge casts and, b. previously unheralded actors. Look at the people in this film! Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Barbara Harris, Ned Beatty, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Keenan Wynn... I could go on. Altman took a popular TV-sketch comedienne named Lily Tomlin (heard of her?) and guided her to an Oscar nomination. Same for Ronee Blakely, who came out of nowhere to channel Loretta Lynn in her fictional character, Barbara Jean. Comic Henry Gibson was known mostly as a member of the cast of Laugh-In, the seminal NBC variety show, but he was brilliant as the duplicitous Haven Hamilton under Altman's direction. A native of Philadelphia, of all places, Gibson was entirely believable as the corn-pone crank and hypocrite. (Altman, et al, even knew to take a little-known bit that Gibson had performed years earlier on The Dick Van Dyke Show and turn it into Hamilton's so-called "signature" song, "Keep A-Goin'.")
Do you like parallel plots, kept straight by canny editing and the power of narrative? Altman pioneered this style in Nashville, and the technique was used brilliantly in much '80s television, notably Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. It is amazing how these nearly 30 characters wander the landscape of this movies, seemingly disconnected in a head-scratching way, and yet they come together in the climactic scene set at Nashville's Parthenon. All the characters fulfill their destinies in this one dramatic moment, whether it was Barbara Jean's tragic end, Haven Hamilton's unmasking of sorts (best use of a toupee ever), but best exemplified by Barbara Harris seizing the occasion to make her long-awaited start turn.
I saw Bridesmaids recently (very funny, entertaining movie, by the way), and I howled at the use of overlapping dialogue in scenes, such as when Kristen Wiig's character stumbles through the plane under the influence of a sedative. But I also remembered that Altman pioneered the use of such speechifying with his multi-track sound on Nashville and his subsequent films.
It is bewildering to me that the film is so widely forgotten today, as it generated much discussion, disdain and appreciation in its day. It was nominated for five Oscars (picture, director, Tomlin and Blakely for supporting actress) but took home just one for Keith Caradine's song, "I'm Easy." It was the New Film Critics' Best Film of the year, as well as winning best director, and the National Board of Review and the National Society of Film Critics also honored it as the best. Yet I hear very few people mention Nashville today, and when I mention it as one of my all-time favorites, the usual responses range from mild surprise to recriminations from someone who tells me that their audience booed the film
If you get a chance, I suggest you revisit this gem. Tell me what you think, even if you don't like it. I won't agree with you, but that's okay; it don't worry me. :-)

PS. For a fine retrospective of this film, I refer you to a piece by Ray Sawhill of Salon.com, titled A Movie Called Nashville.