watched this yesterday and put off logging it because i haven’t been able to come up with a single thing to say. not in a bad way, oooobviously, but because there’s arguably too much to say. i knew it was a big movie and i knew there were a lot of characters and i knew there was a lot of country and i knew it was very american and i knew it was very 70s and i knew about the jeff goldblum character and i knew i was probably gonna love it. what i didn’t know was how tragic the whole thing would feel by the end. there’s so much love and hate going on at the same time throughout.…

One of the best movies ever made. Among the film's many achievements, the Elliot Gould scene captures the atmosphere of "there's a celebrity in the room" better than anything else I've seen.

Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) is one of the best characters ever - maybe cinema's greatest embodiment of the local celebrity. He's never made it out of Nashville, so to cope, he has become a self-appointed mascot/father for the city. When he sings at the Grand Ole Opry, he's "effortless" in the worst sense - mediocre performances of mediocre songs, so smugly secure in his legendary status that he doesn't feel the need to work. The crowd is polite, but there's no electricity in the room. When a national…

I can't sing. I've tried. I can sometimes get in the vicinity of singing, but it never quite works out. I know this, but it doesn't stop me from trying anyway. I'm not tone deaf, but I'm awful close. I like to sing, though, and so, naturally, Sueleen (what a ridiculous name) is who I fixated on in this film. I had over 20 characters to choose from (I feel like there's a Robert Altman twitter joke that can be made somehow), but Sueleen stood out more than any other. I checked, immediately, to see if her songs made the soundtrack album, and I was a little offended that they didn't. No one in their right mind would listen to…

Almost impossible to completely digest in one viewing, Robert Altman's Nashville is one of the most creative movies I've ever seen. And, one that's still very relevant in today's world.

My favorite aspect of Nashville is the hooky county music written and performed by the actors. You don't see many movies where actors actually write and sing their own tunes. Some of the songs were composed before the movie, but they all go along with the narrative. One of the most powerful moments in the film is during Keith Carradine's I'm Easy. Not one, not two, but three different women from very different backgrounds, all think the song is dedicated to them. Its filmmaking perfection from Mr Altman.

Hal Phillip…

the morning after watching 'nashville' i'm stuck with altman's wide shot of a rapt audience at a glitzy country music venue. the audience is almost entirely white and the performers are either the same, or black. the country stars croon diaristic missives of moral reckoning, emotional resilience—the lyrics evoke the gut-punch, metaphor-free confessionals of today's gen-z pop scions: olivia rodrigo, billie eilish—heiresses to taylor swfit, born in nashville. the audience sits quietly, completely still; altman lingers on its motionlessness before it erupts, over and over, into frenzied applause. the stillness is what sticks; a room full of (white) americans open wide: eager and grateful for the transference made possible only through pop tied up with a regional bow. this audience…