To continue celebrating Robert Atman’s centennial anniversary, I have decided to finally take care of a longtime cinematic blind spot: his seminal 1975 opus Nashville. Released during the heyday of New Hollywood, the film tracks the lives of twenty-four main characters — singers, dreamers, and others — as they navigate their lives in the titular city within five days as the presidential campaign of a populist candidate is set to mount a political rally cum concert.
For my first encounter with this film, I decided to watch this film twice within a three-day period. And how powerful the experience is...
As a non-American watching the film, it feels like a richly textured and bitingly humorous encapsulation of America in all of its facets. The interconnectedness of politics and culture is brought to life by the several collisions (literally and figuratively) that take place in the film. There is also an evident discipline that Altman displays as he traverses the multiple narrative strands that it weaves in forming a dynamic tapestry of conflicts and emotions.
Moments are given the space to breathe while its dialogue is rich in characterization. As it is being pieced together, every evolution (or the lack thereof) is further highlighted with a keenly observant eye in human behavior. The accumulation of these details come together in a masterful final stretch where the film makes its most pointed take on the state of American society.
How Altman and writer Joan Tewkesbury highlight the themes of electoral politics and celebrity as a state of existence is highly fascinating. This bleeds into how he films the characters in the film. Even with the vast expanse of its cast, there is a clarity on the individual journeys of these characters that makes the film’s sprawling runtime warranted.
And since we at The Film Experience love actresses and lists, I will take this moment to also recognize the nine women who are part of this film’s excellent ensemble. The order will be based not only by my personal preference with the performance itself, but also in conjunction to how Altman saw these performers in his larger canvas.
Without further ado, here is my personal ranking:
9. Cristina Raines as Mary
My appreciation for this performance grew the most on my rewatch. It’s the one that invites the audience to look close. Underneath the icy demeanor is an aching wave of discontent. Its manifestation swings from rage to ennui, but even if she rarely benefits from shots that solely focus on her, Raines’ defiance (perhaps acting as a coping mechanism) is lacerating. But look at her in bed with Keith Carradine post-coitus or her silent spectatorship in his rendition of “I’m Easy” and you see malaise overcoming her. There are layers to this performance that are waiting to be decoded.
8. Shelley Duvall as Martha/L.A. Joan
Altman has made it known that using Duvall as a visual gag was the main draw in casting her in this role. Give it to Duvall and the result is an expert elevation of this character. What you get is a resourceful formation of a character through her visual presence, physicality, and seamless timing. Her nonchalant navigation of her character’s obsession with celebrity (particularly with men) and seeming aimlessness, highlighted by Altman’s long shots that further highlight Duvall’s physique. There is an assured feeling that Duvall is in on the joke without reducing her character to one.
7. Karen Black as Connie White
Entering more than an hour into the film, Black immediately sells the celebrity status of her character. Witness her interaction with an avid fan (Barbara Harris) and you’ll see how she captures that polite engagement most celebrities have. Onstage, Altman shoots Black with a long lens that is placed somewhere in the crowd, giving us a visual representation of how the audience sees her. Without knowing more from her, Black plants more clues about this character. Look at her brushing off an offered gift as a hint of her awkward dynamic with Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley). Left me wanting for more.
6. Barbara Baxley as Lady Pearl
Mostly shown in wide shots together with other characters, Baxley otherwise brandishes effort dominance onscreen, even more so than her celebrity husband (Henry Gibson). This is even obvious by how imposing she is even when in a relaxed stance, showing how easy it is for her to assert her presence within a space with other people. And yet, the strength of her character is countered by an injured past. Her lamentation about her crushed hopes with Kennedy’s assassination — a smart setup for the film’s finale — is a facet of the character that Baxley lands with visceral hurt.
5. Geraldine Chaplin as Opal
Given the role of the quasi-audience surrogate, Chaplin’s British outsider is a showcase of tricky tonal negotiation. Her being the character that connects with most of the other characters brings about a challenge of defining her relationship with them. The thing is, Opal is inept in fully engaging with the others and Chaplin, emanating innate intelligence, evokes insensitivity that is in jarring disconnect with the others. She is also tasked to be alone for stretches, most in wide shots, to show her being ill-fitted in the world of Nashville. There is a delight in seeing her just not see any of the characters eye-to-eye.
4. Gwen Welles as Sueleen Gay
Introduced as a punchline with her off-key singing, Welles illustrates a character’s journey that is drastic and yet stubbornly remains with her convictions (or folly, depending on how you see it). Her determination as an aspiring singer is effectively funny, with Welles in ironic glee while performing to her listener’s baffled dismay. And yet, a crushing scene of burlesque subverts our response to her singing. In turn, it becomes a moment of rude awakening, brutal even. And yet, her response to the aftermath draws an unsettling picture of how far she’ll go to achieve her dreams.
3. Barbara Harris as Albuquerque
The film’s secret weapon. In her arc, Harris is given a character that moves in her own orbit, charges her own path, and has interactions with other characters that are even more tangential than what is already seen in other characters. But Harris’ evocation of Albuquerque’s single-minded resolve is tinged with expert comedic timing that make her journey as an aspiring singer compelling and running in spiritual parallel with Welles’. That she doesn’t get a chance to display her talents until the tumultuous finale ends a dynamic character arc on a deliciously high point.
2. Lily Tomlin as Linnea Reese
In her feature film debut, Tomlin portrays a complex character unlike any other character in the film. She is a lively choir singer, a loving mother of two deaf children, and a woman on the verge of having an affair with another singer (Keith Carradine). Tomlin defines these dimensions with deeply felt gravitas, taking us into the inner life of Linnea even with the limited time she has given the film’s structure. But also, she is effortlessly funny, whether in telling an anecdote or doing the smallest side-eye with an uninvited presence. But the centerpiece of this performance is a moment of quietness while listening to Carradine’s “I’m Easy”. While the film also takes time to see the other women in the crowd, Altman zeroes in on Tomlin with a heart-wrenching long shot that slowly zooms in as she watches him. She's captivating.
1. Ronee Blakley as Barbara Jean
My favorite performance — male or female — has got to be Blakley’s country superstar Barbara Jean. With a larger-than-life entrance (crowds are literally waiting for her to alight an airplane), she makes her mark as a presence with built-in star presence. But even then, she already suggests fragility and tension with her celebrity. She doesn’t seem to be fully comfortable with fame and she prefers to cling onto intimate interactions, but her desire for actual connection becomes evident in her breakdown (and its aftermath). Altman shoots her with clarity — zoomed in long lenses for her public performances, medium wide shots in her private moments — to let us see her beyond the noise but also maintain a strategic distance from her. A breakdown that happens in the middle of a public appearance becomes a heartbreaking car crash in slow motion. A breathtaking performance in its vastness and specificity.
Who gives your favorite performance by an actress in Nashville? What are some of your favorite moments from the film?
Robert Altman Centennial Tribute: