I've been disappointed by just about every Robert Altman film I ever saw, with the exception of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but I think I should get points for persistence.
Yesterday, I tried again with Nashville.
A number of interlacing vignettes played out until the characters all came together for a violent finale the purpose of which I couldn't grasp.
One theme is the campaign of Hal Phillip Walker, candidate for the Replacement Party. His bespeakered van drives around Nashville questioning and commenting on the status quo in Washington. His campaign weaves in and out of the other story lines, ultimately pulling the plot strings together at the end. I have to admit that if her were real, I'd probably vote for him.
The characters include country stars and wannabes who perform songs the actors themselves wrote, some very good, some not so much, but pretty well reflecting the country style of the time. The movie was made in 1975, and the mega star, Barbara Jean (played by Ronee Blakley) was probably based on Loretta Lynn.
Adding a level of fascination to the movie was the style of the time. The clothing, cars, hairstyles and makeup were great...of course, that's what they were like when the movie was filmed. I guess they looked normal to me in the seventies, but look like caricatures now.
Anyway, my beef with the movie is that none of the vignettes grabbed me. They were listless little plots that I found unfathomable. (Of course, the less fathomable I found them, the less attention I paid...an advantage...or maybe a disadvantage...of having Netflix.) So I didn't care much about the characters: who slept with whom, or whether Barbara Jean's health issues were real or drug related, or even if Lily Tomlin's married character Linnea would be seduced by Tom's persistent attentions.
Bottom line: I couldn't make myself care about any of the characters, or, for that matter, the plot (such as it was). I have no regrets about watching it, though, mainly because it carried me back thirty years, not quite through a time capsule, but for all that, evocative of the time.
[Image via IMP awards]
Comments