Masters Of Cinema Blu-ray Review – Nashville (1975)
Nashville remains one of the key American films of the 1970s with Robert Altman at the pinnacle of his greatness. Altman is often forgotten, not unlike Hal Ashby in the pantheon of great 70s American filmmakers and his body of work in that time speaks for itself: M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 3 Women and my personal favourite The Long Goodbye. This may have to do with the fact that after the 70s he shunned Hollywood and went into the independent realm until his death in 2006. Despite his leftist political leanings, he also came from the generation before Scorsese, Coppola, Bogdanovich and had his start in TV like John Frankenheimer or Sidney Lumet.
The film is set over the space of 5 days which leads up to a political rally for Replacement party candidate Hal Phillip (who is never seen in the film). The film follows the hopes and dreams of over 20 characters in Nashville and it roams around through the over lapping stories which became one of Robert Altman’s trademarks from this film onwards, along with his trademark overlapping dialogue. It’s all set against the backdrop of the music scene in Nashville; all the songs in the film are written and performed by the actors which gives it a level of authenticity not usually common.
The film came about in a bizarre way; Altman was offered a deal to make a film about the music scene in Nashville. The script he was presented with was terrible so he sent out the writer Joan Tewkesbury (who he collaborated with before) to get a feel of the place and she wrote this deeply satirical take on Nashville and America on a whole.
Altman’s films are some of the few American films of any time that perfectly capture the zeitgeist of its time – whether it’s the Korean War setting for Vietnam in M*A*S*H or the satirical take on Hollywood in The Player. Nashville perfectly captures the feeling of America in a post-60s and Watergate landscape. Many of the characters change completely from how we are first introduced to them; they may seem like good people but at the end they may end being totally savage. We only see small snapshots of these people’s lives but what more could a film be but merely snapshots of life.
Eureka in their masters of cinema range have released Nashville in its long overdue UK home video debut on a dual format package of 1 Blu-Ray disc and 2-dvds. I also can’t find a record of even a VHS ever being issued in the UK so the release is even more long overdue. I hope Masters of Cinema can do something similar to John Frankenheimer’s psychedelic masterpiece Seconds down the line.
The Blu-Ray transfer seemingly comes from the same masters used for Criterion’s recent Blu-Ray and it looks absolutely fantastic and the sound is much improved which can be a problem with Altman’s films, for example, McCabe & Mrs. Miller which would benefit from being restored. The disc is packed with interviews with Robert Altman (some appear on the Criterion and some don’t), a great interview with the screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury and a commentary Altman recorded for the old paramount Region 1.
[rating=5]
Ian Schultz
Genre:
Music, Drama
Distributor:
Eureka! Video, Masters Of Cinema
BD Release Date:
16th June 2014 (UK)
Rating: 15
Running Time:
160 Minutes
Director:
Robert Altman
Cast:
Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall
Buy: Nashville (Masters of Cinema) (Dual Format Edition) [Blu-ray + DVD] [1975]
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