Actors: A Cast of Thousands
Director: Robert Altman
In my now 3 star review of Traffic, I mentioned that I don't care for ensemble films with multiple storylines, and listed all the ones I didn't like. Nashville, a film I originally saw in 2001, was left off the list because I actually liked that movie a great deal. I liked it even better a second time - it is a stunning achievement in film, jammed with memorable images and emotional scenes.
Nashville succeeds where those films fail because its exposition is so artfully done, and its characters are constantly interacting with one another; it ends up that we're actually being told one story. Making a film that manages this is supremely difficult - the fact that director Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury also manage to comment on politics, television, entertainment, love, religion, race, and American culture generally through these interactions makes it a must-see.
Note: There are a lot of scenes where people are merely singing; there's probably a half-hour's worth of music in the film. It still works.
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I've never heard of this movie but it looks awesome. I look forward to seeing it.
ReplyDeletei will warn you that you may not like it, it's very polarizing (a 3.4 rating on netflix is rather low for a film that is now on the AFI top 100). it took me 3 weeks of having the movie at home to gear up to finally watch it, and i already knew it was good.
ReplyDeleteThe AFI Top 100 is boring.
ReplyDeleteI've seen 37/100 of the AFI top 100. Got a few extra ideas for movies to watch but I lot of those movies don't look overly interesting but there must be something about them that is watch-worthy.
ReplyDeleteits just the fact that its supposed to be the greatest 100 films. half of them wouldn't be on my top 500.
ReplyDeletemeh, while things like west side story and snow white aren't going to be gracing my queue anytime soon, i don't see any egregious errors on the AFI list. my point with bringing up the AFI list is that for the most part it chooses 'safe' films to put on there - ones widely recognized by film scholars and film buffs, academy award nominations, and so forth as great films.
ReplyDeletei wouldn't be at all surprised if 3.4 was the lowest Netflix rating for any film currently on the AFI Top 100.
i've never seen this, but i'd like to soon.
ReplyDeletei'm seriously coming around on altman. i really really like mccabe and mrs. miller, supposedly his anti-western, and the long goodbye, supposedly his anti-noir. calling them anti- turns me pretty far against them, but they're both entertaining interesting stuff.
(despite the fact that the long goodbye had such a horrible, mistaken, botched ending)
yeah, altman has never been a favorite of mine, but i think i'm going to have to add one of these to my queue very soon. i think MASH is terribly overrated (kind of like the graduate), and short cuts didn't really work for me. altman kind of reminds me of woody allen - both have worked in so many different styles and made so many movies that some of them are bound to suck, but some of them are also bound to hit the mark, like this one.
ReplyDeleteglad to see you commenting again, thought i'd lost you.