More images linked below. All comments and captures by Whitecaps:
Been listening almost entirely to traditional and alt country music for several weeks now and I’ve been checking out a few films with older country music. So, one of the obvious films to check out was Robert Altman’s Nashville. I had seen it about 30 years ago, but got lost trying to keep track of all the characters.
Seeing it again, it wasn’t hard. The music is mostly very good except for the songs that were intentionally bad. To my surprise, except for the one well known country standard, none of the songs were country standards but were written by the actors in the film (although Keith Carradine and Ronee Blakley have music backgrounds as well.)
The film is interesting with comments on phoniness and nastyness mixed with compassion and caring. Keith Carradine sings the wonderful song ‘I’m Easy’ about how he’ll put up with a woman stringing him along just to be with her while his character Tom is such a cheat that he sleeps with several women over the course of the films’ five days including his bandmate who is married to the third bandmate (while announcing that he’s going solo) and calls a girlfriend in New York asking her to come to Nashville, while Lily Tomlin is still leaving his hotel room. However, is he really that mean, or is he just afraid to be alone?
On that though, I’ve never seen this before, and I’m not sure it’s something I want to see, but I’m pretty sure this is Lily Tomlin in a semi see through blouse.
In regards to the film again, the one thing that more or less ruins the film for me is Geraldine Chaplin who plays a apparent reporter who is so stupid that she is unbelievably obnoxious, beyond Jar Jar Binks level obnoxious. The film was long enough at 2 hours and 40 minutes that the character could have been easily removed.
When I saw the film, I thought she was supposed to represent what Robert Altman thought of as the stupidity of reporters, but I thought she had far too many scenes that went on for far too long for it to be that. Then, I read when she said in the film that she worked for the British Broadcasting Company, rather than the British Broadcasting Corporation, that it was meant to show that she was not actually a reporter.
One other person said she was meant to tie together most of the characters in the movie in some narrative, but I didn’t think she did that.
I think she was supposed to be nothing more than comedic relief, but, to me anyway, she was just far too grating.
Take her scenes out of the movie, and I’d give it a 9/10 with an extra point for the music, but with her in it, I can only give it a 5/10 at most.
