Buying Nashville

Throwback Sundays this week features director Robert Altman's brilliant multi-character (24 main characters to be exact!) film Nashville, made in 1975. Here is a cool informative and opinionated piece on it from Steven Abrahams - excerpt from the 1975 article about the film, which was at that time, very controversial:

from Jump Cut, no. 9, 1975, pp. 6-7copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1975, 2004

"There is so much “information” about characters and lifestyles in Robert Altman’s new film, NASHVILLE, that the temptation is to accept the film only on its own most apparent terms—as brief descriptive fragments of a larger system which is never made manifest. With most films, that system is largely identifiable with the politics of studio, producer, director, and screenwriter, or some combination thereof. With Altman’s films, however, determining critical perspective is complicated by the fact that his material often remains on the level of its characters. It rarely rises to the level of statement, where ideology is more apparent. Certain earlier Altman films ease this dilemma by functioning as parody (BREWSTER McCLOUD) or as descriptions of marginal subcultures (CALIFORNIA SPLIT). NASHVILLE, though, does not simply parody its subject, and its concerns can hardly be dismissed as marginal. The questions to which the film points—the nature of popular art, the relation of culture to politics, and that of performer to audience—are vital for critics of popular culture. These concerns require that this film be pieced back together so that Altman’s work may be politically evaluated with respect to both form and content. "

Read full piece HERE:

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC09folder/NashvilleAbrahams.html

Here is the trailer: