
Five days in the Nashville country and gospel music scene, filled with stars, wannabe stars, and other hangers-on - individual stories of this small group intertwined - provides a commentary on American society. The stars include: good ol' boy Haven Hamilton, whose patriotic songs leading up to the American bicentennial belie his controlling and ruthless nature; Barbara Jean, the country music darling who is just returning to Nashville and performing following recovery from a... (Full plot summary below)
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Five days in the Nashville country and gospel music scene, filled with stars, wannabe stars, and other hangers-on - individual stories of this small group intertwined - provides a commentary on American society. The stars include: good ol' boy Haven Hamilton, whose patriotic songs leading up to the American bicentennial belie his controlling and ruthless nature; Barbara Jean, the country music darling who is just returning to Nashville and performing following recovery from a fire-related injury which may have taken more of an emotional toll than a physical one; and good looking and charismatic Tom Frank, one-third of the successful group Bill, Mary, and Tom, he who is trying to go solo, which masks his need to not be solo in his personal life as he emotionally abuses woman after woman in love with him, including Mary who is married to Bill. The wannabe stars include: Albuquerque, whose real name is Winifred, who is trying to run away from her husband Star in he not approving of her career choice; and Sueleen Gay, a waitress who will do anything to make it big in music despite being told directly that she has no singing talent. Tying their stories together are: Opal, a supposed reporter for the BBC who is working on a documentary and is searching for whatever angle she can; John Triplette, a Yankee in town to organize political fundraisers, including a country music outdoor concert, for third party (the Replacement Party) presidential candidate, populist Hal Phillip Walker, who has the potential to take just enough votes to affect the election; and Martha, who has renamed herself L.A. Jones, who is in town to visit her hospitalized ailing aunt, but who instead decides to be a groupie to any country music star she can find.
Leave your thoughts about Nashville.
| Chicago ReaderDon DrukerA technical masterpiece replete with self-consciously allegorical overtones rising to a politically simpleminded din. A rare and puzzling movie: beautiful and cruel, passionate but strangely shallow. |
| New York TimesVincent CanbyA couple of sequences in the middle of the movie just mark time, but usually everything works, to make Nashville the most original, provocative high‐spirited film Mr. Altman has yet given. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliThere is so much in this film that it cannot all be absorbed in one viewing. Nashville demands to be seen repeatedly, if only so that the movie-goer can recognize previously missed elements. This repeatability is one of the traits of a masterpiece, and, regardless of the criteria applied, Nashville surely must be considered as a modern classic – a motion picture whose scope and influence extend far beyond what is displayed on screen during its 160-minute running time. |
| Q Network Film DeskJames KendrickPart comedy, part drama, part social commentary, and part musical, it is a film that truly defies categorization or simplistic descriptions. |
| Urban CinefileUrban Cinefile CriticsA must-see, no matter how many times you've seen it. |
| TheFilmFile.comDustin PutmanThis film is like no other I have ever seen for one major reason: it plays exactly, and I mean exactly like real life. |
| New YorkerPauline KaelThe funniest epic vision of America ever to reach the screen. |
| CineVueMatthew AndersonIt is the masterful ways in which Altman weaves doubt, hard truths, and holds up a mirror to the hypocrisies of contemporary America, that elevates his 1975 film to be one of the decade’s greatest cinematic achievements. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertAfter I saw it I felt more alive, I felt I understood more about people, I felt somehow wiser. It's that good a movie. |
| DVDTalk.comStuart GalbraithRobert Altman's Nashville, one of the best films of the 1970s, is a divisive, inarguably indulgent film, but also one uniquely experimental and prophetic. |