ALTMAN: a look at Nashville (1975)

Nashville--- 24 characters, 8 subplots, one movie.

and what did that ACTUALLY feel like?

500 characters, 50 subplots, and one big mess of a film.

But maybe that's just the beauty of it. While watching Nashville in class, I was confused and lost and didn't really want to continue watching. BUT, looking back on it now, the whole concept of having that many characters, and that many subplots, all somewhat intertwining, is something very different, something that hadn't really been done before in mainstream film making. The use of overlapping dialogue and improvisational acting are two aspects of the film that make it unique as well (especially the humorously horrible songs written by the actor and actresses themselves).

I think it is also very noteworthy to realize how extremely difficult it would be to take eight complex stories with 24 different characters and make them all come together to construct two 'extremist' statements about not only the country-music industry, but also one about american politics post-Nixon. You'd think we'd all realize how genius this director is, but just as you might expect, we passed this film off as a jumble of whacky country characters. Altman deserves great recognition for this film, and from reading reviews I think he has gotten that, but it will probably take time for the younger audience to grasp the magnitude of this masterpiece.