The first of Robert Altman’s cast-of-thousands comic dramas – successors include A Wedding, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park – Nashville explores the intersection (and collision) between country music and American politics. But it’s full to bursting with so much more, from subplots involving romantic heartbreak, family dysfunction, and mental illness to critiques of sexual exploitation, celebrity culture, and gun violence. Appropriately, given its setting, Nashville also delivers musically, featuring nearly two dozen character-revealing songs adeptly performed (and sometimes written) by the film’s actors. (Nashville artists, it should be noted, pooh-poohed the music as inauthentic, but the songs beautifully serve the film.) Nashville’s complex soundscape is unified, in a characteristic Altman touch, by a roving van whose loudspeaker insistently broadcasts platitudinous sound bites from independent presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker, an omnipresent yet incorporeal presence who’s often heard and discussed but never seen. Among the many acting standouts: Lily Tomlin (Oscar nominated in her film debut), Ronee Blakley, Gwen Welles (devastating as sadly delusional aspiring singer Sueleen Gay),
Keith Carradine (whose “I’m Easy” won the Oscar for Best Original Song), and Ned Beatty.

“The funniest epic vision of America ever to reach the screen. Robert Altman’s 1975 movie is at once a ‘Grand Hotel’-style narrative, with twenty-four linked characters; a country-and-Western musical; a documentary essay on Nashville and American life; and a meditation on the love affair between performers and audiences.“ —Pauline Kael, New Yorker (Feb 23, 1975)

“This is a film about America. It deals with our myths, our hungers, our ambitions, and our sense of self. It knows how we talk and how we behave, and it doesn’t flatter us but it does love us…. Watching NASHVILLE is as easy as breathing and as hard to stop. Altman is the best natural filmmaker since Fellini.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Jan 1, 1975)

“I hate to go out on a limb after only one viewing, but NASHVILLE strikes me as Altman’s best film, and the most exciting dramatic musical since Blue Angel.” —Andrew Sarris, Village Voice (Jun, 9, 1975)

“Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE is the movie sensation that all other American movies this year will be measured against. It’s a film that a lot of other directors will wish they’d had the brilliance to, make and that dozens of other performers will wish they’d had the great good fortune to be in.” —Vincent Canby, New York Times (Jun 12, 1975)

Note: the 7PM screening will be introduced by Cliff Froehlich. If you wish to attend the screening and lecture please select the 2PM ticket.

This presentation is part of the film & lectures series HOLLYWOOD FILMS OF THE 1970s in partnership with St. Louis Oasis. Every film will be followed by a discussion of 45-60 minutes led by Cliff Froehlich, retired executive director of Cinema St. Louis and former film critic for The Riverfront Times. 

During the period from 1967-80, a remarkable body of work was created in Hollywood. The chaotic state of the studios in the late 1960s opened up room for the film-school generation — young and unabashed movie enthusiasts equally in love with and influenced by the cinemas of classic Hollywood and Europe — and expanded the freedoms of older directors and an underappreciated middle group of filmmakers who began in theater, comedy, television, and criticism. This class will include key works of the period, with screenings held at the Hi-Pointe Theatre at 2 pm on a Wednesday each month.