Nashville (1975)

A weekend in the lives of a myriad of characters living in the "Athens of the South" Nashville, Tennessee. The film loosely centers around a BBC film maker making a documentary about the country music industry. The film leads up to a political rally put on by an independent candidate for president when all the characters converge and witness...Hilarity ensuing.

Trivia: Each actor was required to write and perform their own songs for the movie. The film won an Oscar for best original song "I'm Easy" written by Keith Carradine. All songs were recorded live rather than being prerecorded in a studio. The film was very much improvised by the actors, who used the screenplay only as a guide. They spent a great amount of their time in character, and the movie was shot almost entirely in sequence. The role of Linnea Reese was created for and by Louise Fletcher who herself was the daughter of two deaf parents and knew sign language. The role was eventually played by Lily Tomlin. Tomlin concluded that things worked out in the end because Tomlin was offered Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and turned it down, so in a sense they simply traded roles.

This is third Robert Altman movie I have ever seen. The others were M*A*S*H (1970) , magnificent, and, umm...Popeye (1980), not quite so magnificent. This is closer to MASH. It doesn't have the humor of MASH but it does have the frenetic chaos that is the Altman style. It really makes you concentrate and listen to the dialog for fear of missing something. Lily Tomlin was great as the choir leader. And then there was Henry Gibson, most notably from Laugh-in, as an aging singer, who reminded me of Little Jimmy Dickens. You can also see a very young Scott Glenn as Pfc Glenn Kelly, and Jeff Glodblum as Tricycle Man.

Note: This is your last chance to try to guess what "A" movie I will be watching for my Alphabet Project. I will post the movie tomorrow during my lunch.