NASHVILLE

"'Y'all take it easy now. This isn't Dallas, it's Nashville! They can't do this to us here in Nashville! Let's show them what we're made of. Come on everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!"

NASHVILLE is a Robert Altman film to its bones, a sprawling masterpiece of an epic filled with amazing, true-to-life performances and brimming with life. An enormous cast, including Lily Tomlin, Karen Black, Henry Gibson, Keith Carradine, Scott Glenn, Ronny Blakley, Barbara Baxley, and a very young Jeff Goldblum highlight a massive cast that produces one of the most complex and involving movies of the 70s.

Multiple storylines intertwine during one week around the 4th of July 1975 in Nashville, Tennessee. Dreams are built up over the course of what is hoped to be a rapturous week of patriotism and liveliness. Some of these dreams are realized, some turn into nothing, but all of their fates are determined by the final, resounding scene.

Though the film is more than 150 minutes long, it hums by quickly. The recently deceased Robert Altman was a great filmmaker when it came to juggling multiple story lines and allowing his actors the freedom to decide their own fates. His signature style was to have the camera rolling and let it follow his actors, letting them have complete freedom with their lines and delivery. This style is on vivid, lively display in NASHVILLE, which feels alive. The twenty-four (yes, 24) major roles are all fleshed out and deep, especially Linnea Reese (Tomlin), a mother of two deaf children with a husband never home, who has an affair with a rock star who is using her. Tomlin amazes in the role, hitting so close to home with her realistic depiction of a woman who has lost her love for life, and feels that she now has a chance for excitement and passion through being with a rock god. The tragedy is that after she is with him, nothing has changed.

NASHVILLE is a brilliant film. It is complexly structured and alive, with multiple stories, true-to-life performances from both experienced actors and amateurs, brilliant music (much of it written by the cast themselves) making it bursting at the seams with energy for every minute of its 159-minute running time. Robert Altman has made one of the best movies of the 70s.

A+