View image John Fitzgerald Kennedy's early cameo appearance in "Nashville," at Lady Pearl's Old Time Picking Parlor.
Please consider this my initial contribution to Andy Horbal's Film Criticism Blog-a-Thon -- happening all weekend at No More Marriages!
View image Inside Pearl's Parlor: Red, white and bluegrass. Kenny Fraiser (David Hayward) enters from behind the flag at center.
How can two critics see (or remember) the same movie, and have such contradictory interpretations of how it works and what it means? And what better case-in-point than Robert Altman's 1975 "Nashville" -- now being remembered in the wake of Altman's death last week, and seen through the prism of Emilio Estevez's recent release about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, "Bobby"?
View image Lady Pearl: "The only time I ever went hog wild, 'round the bend, was for the Kennedy boys. But they were different."
From two reviews of "Bobby":
Watching the movie, I kept thinking of "Nashville." And not just because Robert Altman's 1975 masterpiece remains the most politically and psychologically astute big-ensemble/where-America's-at movie ever made (it's got a presidential campaign and ends with a beloved public figure gunned down, too). There's a minor character in it, played by Barbara Baxley, who's a Kennedy-loving Yankee married to a country music star. In one boozy monologue, she expresses all that was both hopeful and delusional about what the dead Kennedys represented for progressive citizens. I've never forgotten that speech, while the more simplistic and diffuse "Bobby" is already starting to fade from memory.
-- Bob Strauss, LA Daily News
Despite its reputation as an exuberant classic, "Nashville" knows zip and cares even less about country music or the city of Nashville (where it was shot) -- which doesn't prevent it from heaping scorn on both. It even ridicules a dowager who tearfully reminisces about John and Bobby Kennedy, and it shamelessly encourages viewers to share its contempt for the rubes. The relentless cynicism that Nashville brandishes as proof of its hipness ultimately gives way to glib, high-flown rhetoric in the climactic repeated shots of an American flag filling the screen while a nihilistic pseudocountry anthem, "It Don't Worry Me," builds to a crescendo, asserting the concert audience's unembarrassed cluelessness.
-- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
First, I want to point out the obvious: Bob Strauss is right even when he's wrong (I don't think Baxley's character is minor or a Yankee) and Jonathan Rosenbaum is wrong even when he's right (Altman admitted he wasn't interested in making a movie about the real Nashville or country music; after all, he let the actors write their own songs). Rosenbaum's preoccupation with his own perception of "hipness" (which he deems extremely uncool) appears to have obscured his view (or his memory) of what's happening on the screen in Altman's movie. As I said in a comment over at The House Next Door, using "Bobby" to bash "Nashville" makes as much sense as using "Neil Simon's California Suite" to bash "Short Cuts" -- or "The Towering Inferno" to belittle "Playtime." Yes, there are superficial similarities (as Bob points out), but in terms of ambition, complexity, vitality and sheer movieness, there's no comparison.
From the moment it was released, people lined up to exalt or disparage "Nashville" -- and that's understandable. (See the Village Voice reprint of a 1975 conversation between Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris here. Southerner Haskell's opening statement contradicts Rosenbaum's almost point for point.) But I've always thought the "hipness" charge, as a critical gambit, was more of a projection on the part of the slinger than an appropriate slur against the movie itself. "Nashville" is too complex and multi-layered to be dismissed as an attempt to be "hip." Indeed, its most brutal portrayal is of Tom (Keith Carradine), the archetypal callow, blonde LA hipster-folkie poseur who scorns everyone he sees -- except Linnea (Lily Tomlin), who's got his number. Tom exudes misanthropic youthful arrogance from the get-go, sneering at Pfc. Glenn Kelly (Scott Glenn) at the airport with a trite "counter-cultural" put-down: "How ya doin, sarge? Ya kill anybody this week?" I hope Rosenbaum (a critic I very much like, by the way) doesn't honestly believe the movie -- or the audience -- is so insensible as to uncritically embrace Tom.
(At the Nashville 25th Reunion, Carradine talked about how uncomfortable he was playing such an asshole, and how Altman thought it was funny to keep pushing Carradine, making the character even more of a scumbag, amused that the nice kid from "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "Thieves Like Us" was going to have to act like a real prick this time around.)
To self-critical liberals like Altman, America is a progressive ideal we have yet to live up to, a potential we've striving to reach; to reactionaries, it's a fallen paradise, an illusory Eden into which we hope to retreat, even though it never actually existed. One looks forward, the other back to the future (a signature Reagan-era phenomenon), and these clashing American themes are announced in the ultra-patriotic Bicentennial anthem that begins the movie, sung by rhinestone-spangled Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson): "We must be doin' somethin' right to last 200 years!" And yet, just when you think you've got this overbearing little tyrant pegged, there's the chorus: "We're all a part of history/Why, Old Glory waves to show/How far we've come along till now/How far we've got to go." It's never quite as black-and-white -- make that red-or-blue -- as you expect. That Panavision flag that waves at the end of the film, the portentous ripple that blows across it (signifying "trouble in the USA" in the words of the ominous pre-Parthenon concert song: "Wonder what this year will bring") -- these are not trite images that can be reduced to snide rube-baiting.
"Nashville" is a joyous movie about a senseless (and, it seemed, endlessly repeating) tragedy. It's hard to pluck out the Kennedy threads in the movie because the myriad contextual references (to Dallas, Catholicism, race relations, feminism, the South and the Southern Strategy, the shadow of Nixon, politics as showbiz, showbiz as politics, both as marketing tools...) are so finely woven into the fabric of the film. That's essential to the greatness of "Nashville": Just about any theme or moment can be examined in isolation, but to pull at one strand is to discoverf how tightly it's intertwined with everything else in the picture.
First, let's recall that Joe McGinnis's eye-opening landmark book about presidential marketing, "The Selling of the President 1968," was published during Nixon's first term, and that "Nashville" was born out of Altman's devastation over Nixon's landslide victory four years later. The movie was made around the time of Nixon's downfall (there's one passing reference to Watergate, but no mention of his resignation or of President Ford), and targeted for release in the summer of 1975, on the cusp of the biggest marketing bonanza this country had ever seen: The American Bicentennial. A couple ironies to consider: People who saw the famous Nixon-Kennedy debate on television tended to feel Kennedy won, while those who listened on the radio leaned toward Nixon; and the presidential candidate in "Nashville" never appears onscreen.
So, here's a movie about the packaging of candidates and celebrities, and the maintenance of public images (as penetrating today as it was then), in which the American flag is flown for branding purposes -- from the opening TV commercial (an ad for the very movie we're about to see), to the emergence of presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker's starred-and-striped Walker-Talker-Sleeper van, to the final shots of the enormous American flag hanging from a replica of the Greek Parthenon (that hasn't lasted even 200 years!). Anyone who witnessed the boom in American flag displays after 9/11, and how quickly the phenomenon degenerated from sincere expressions of individual patriotism, grief and sympathy into cynical bullying and manipulation, ought to catch the nuances associated with the use of the red, white and blue here.
"Nashville" a portrait of a country naively wrapping itself in the flag and retreating into "It Don't Worry Me" apathy (or "stay the course" -- Nixon's Vietnam phrase) of the very stripe that got Nixon re-elected -- and Reagan and Shrub. But the patriotic symbols the movie parades before us are never as simplistic or superficial as they seem at first glance. Walker's platform (the Replacement Party) is chock-full of libertarian and reactionary platitudes, but it's not entirely b.s., either. Like so many things in the movie, it makes you laugh, and then you swallow hard. The laugh is for real, but it's only the starting point for a thoughtful consideration the movie, which aims to mix up emotional responses so that you may find yourself laughing and crying (or laughing and sighing) at the same time.
Candidate Walker confronts the theme of audience/voter apathy at the very start, addressing Americans' claims that they're not interested or don't want to get mixed up in politics or that they can't do anything about it anyway: "Let me point out two things: Number one, all of us are deeply involved in politics whether we like it or not, and whether we know it or not. And number two: You can do something about it." Then comes the punch-line: "When it costs more to buy an automobile than it cost Columbus to make his first trip to America -- that's politics!"
"Nashville" depicts a South that is still a part of the Confederacy (anybody want to contest that perception?), and where civic and pride still trumps national identity ("This isn't Dallas -- it's Nashville!" proclaims Haven. "They can't do this to us here in Nashville!"). And so, when a poster of JFK appears on the wall of the Old Time Picking Parlor -- a bluegrass joint right next to Walker headquarters, it seems incongruous at first. Outside, young Walker campaign workers are plastering parked cars with flyers. Inside, some patrons wave Confederate flags, while Lady Pearl (Baxley), Haven's wife/manager and the owner of the place, welcomes guests.
There's a running gag in the movie about the hierarchy of celebrity -- which "star" is flattered and recognized and who is not -- and when Pearl announces "We've got some stars in the house tonight!" she begins by introducing Tommy Brown (former NFL running back Timothy Brown), a country singer based loosely on Charley Pride, who in 1967 had become the first black artist to play the Grand Ole Opry since 1925. As with any concert bill, the biggest names are saved for last, but Pearl never gets that far. When Tommy, who's seated with Haven, the shiniest star in the house, rises to acknowledge the applause, a drunken Wade (Robert Doqui, the only other black major character among the 24 "stars" in the picture) heckles him from the back of the room: "Tommy Brown's the whitest nigger in town!... He oughta drink some of that milk -- it fits his personality!" Haven abruptly announces that it's late and apologizes abjectly ("This is not typical of Lady Pearl's Parlor. It's not typical of Nashville, you understand, and I hope you'll tell the other ones") while Tommy is hustled out of the room as if by the Secret Service, followed by Wade's continued catcalls: "Hey, he's leavin' -- the Oreo Cookie is leavin'!"
Racial tension crackles through the movie, if only because the "stars" are so unaccustomed to a black man's presence among them, and so eager to show they are not "prejudiced," that they insist on mentioning his race (and/or his Mandingo "beauty" -- talk about jungle fever!) in every encounter. (This may also be their subtle, if subconscious, way of reminding him of his place as an honored guest, but not one of the "family.") A lot is going on here -- but this scene at the Pickin' Parlor, is more of a dig at liberal political correctness, not a poke at rubes. Even the Confederate flag-wavers don't appear to be rubes; they look more like clueless tourists.
Sure, we're inclined to put some stock in Wade's intoxicated characterization of Tommy -- or maybe he's having a delerious Mel Gibson/Michael Richards moment -- but we don't excuse his rudeness in the presence of a star. Two stars. And because he's a star, Tommy is a clear target for bigotry and charges of Uncle Tomism -- even while his status puts him in the old OJ category of Royalty Beyond Race. (This is the first public "assassination" in the picture -- and it directly involves the movie's eventual assassin.) Tommy is a black man who has become a star, but had to sacrifice part of his identity as a black American in the process. Whether he feels that way about himself we don't know; but we do know he feels it from some members of the audience. Tommy Brown is not a caricature, and it should go without saying that, even in this scene alone, the approach to racial themes in "Nashville" is more nuanced, sophisticated and raw than all the post-Rodney King rhetoric delivered in the Ambassador kitchen by Laurence Fishburne in "Bobby."
At the picnic at Haven's "Bergmanesque" country place, Pearl gives her first, brief speech about the Kennedys while straightening out a problem with Hal Phillip Walker's political operative, John Triplette (Michael Murphy). She plays the "bad cop," handling the situation politely but firmly, and thus allowing Haven to remain the untarnished star, charming and playful.
"Mr.... Triplette," she says in a let's-get-down-to-business tone. "Now, I'm real sorry ol' Delbert went and told you Haven would appear at the political rally. He knows better than that. Well, we never let Haven Hamilton take sides, politically."
Haven interjects: "You understand, we give contributions to everybody. And they are not puny contributions."
Pearl slips into a bit of a reverie: "Only time I ever went hog wild, 'round the bend, was for the Kennedy boys." Then she snaps back. "But they were different."
"Oh yes Ma'am, they were," Triplette says with evident sincerity.
"That's a fact," Pearl declares. End of subject. This isn't like anything Triplette, the smooth operator who considers everyone in Nashville a redneck, has yet encountered during his visit -- somebody with a history of political passion and conviction. That makes Pearl a formidable obstacle for him, but he appears mildly startled into respecting her in this moment, even as he's calculating his next move.
The final Kennedy-"dowager" scene takes place at a club featuring legendary fiddler Vassar Clements (yes, the real Vassar Clements), where Pearl is seated out of the limelight -- possibly sulking over Haven's decision to continue entertaining the notion of appearing at the Walker rally. She's at the back, stuck with Opal from the BBC (Geraldine Chaplin), while Haven, Triplette and Connie White (Karen Black), fresh from the Grand Ole Opry show, are talking business and politics. Early in the film, Triplette explains that the reason he's looking for country stars to appear at the Walker rally is because he understands people "down here" are suspicious of movie stars because they think they're "eccentric, crazy, Communists -- a lot of them are. So, when Sue the publicist (screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury) brings by Julie Christie for introductions (as she did earlier with Elliott Gould), it's no surprise that the country stars don't quite know who the movie star is, prompting one of Haven's great fawning non sequiturs: "I was talking about the Christy Minstrels just this morning and now we have Julie Christie here. So good to see you!" (One gets the impression Haven likes to space out with a joint occasionally -- not unlike Altman himself.)
In the rear of the room, Opal spots Pearl's Kennedy campaign button, which she at first mistakes for a Hal Phillip Walker one. With her typical simplistic overstatement, Opal exclaims: "How strange. I thought that everybody in the South didn't go for Kennedy." (I love the construction of that sentence.)
That all it takes to get the slightly tipsy Lady Pearl going: "That's John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Well, he took the whole south -- except for Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky... And there's a reason he didn't take Tennessee. But he got 481,453 votes... [starting to cry] and the asshole got 556,577 votes...."
"Now, the problem we got here is anti-Catholicism," Pearl continues, her tongue drunkenly tripping over that last term. "These dumbheads around here, they're all [choking back more tears] ... Baptists and whatever, I don't know. E-e-even to teach 'em to make change over the bar, you gotta crack their skulls. Let alone teach 'em to vote for the Catholic... just because he happens to be a better man."
Opal by now realizes she's hit a nerve, as Pearl spills her personal JFK assassination memories: "And all I remember the next few days were us just looking at that TV set and seeing it all on. Seeing that great big fat-bellied sheriff saying, 'Ruby, you sonofabitch.' And Oswald. And her... [lips trembling, voice cracking] in her little pink suit."
"And then comes Bobby," Pearl continues with great sentiment. "Oh, I worked for him. I worked here and I worked all over the country.... Oh, he was a beautiful man. He was not much like... uh, John, you know. He was more... puny-like. But all the time I was working for him I was just so scared. Inside, you know. Just scared."
So, is Pearl's outpouring simply a game of Ridicule-the-Dowager, as Rosenbaum characterizes it? Or, more ambivalently, as Strauss describes her monologue, an expression of "all that was both hopeful and delusional about what the dead Kennedys represented for progressive citizens"? There's so much truth (and oblique character revelation) in this rambling speech (broken into three sections and at least partially improvised by Baxley): the bitterness at people who aren't smart enough to vote the way you do (does that strike a chord with any blue- or red-staters today?); her still-vivid recollection of the exact number of votes cast in the 1960 election, fifteen years earlier; the poignant images of the fat-bellied sheriff and Jackie's "little pink suit" in the universally shared JFK TV-coverage memories; the tendency of people in barrooms to get sentimental over the lost ideals of their youth; the comically futile failure of language in her attempts to compare the stature of the two brothers (the deified elder is "John Fitzgerald Kennedy"; the younger is "Bobby" -- more "puny-like," on a more human-scale, but his death is just as heartbreaking); the acknowledgment of the worst (mostly unspoken) fears so many Americans harbored when RFK ran for president...
The next day, in a magnificent but brief montage of church services, we see Lady Pearl, looking bereft and maybe a bit hung over, at a solemn Catholic mass. Also present are Star (Bert Remsen), Wade, and the magnificently tuneless Sueleen Gay (the late Gwen Welles) in the choir. Pearl sits alone, with a doily on her head. Meanwhile, Haven, his business manager Delbert (Ned Beatty) and Del's deaf kids attend a muscular Protestant service of some kind (with Haven performing in the chorale), while Tommy and his family witness a baptism in a black gospel church where Del's wife Linnea the gospel singer (Lily Tomlin) is the only white person in the choir. Meanwhile, Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakeley) renders heartfelt hymns from a wheelchair at the hospital chapel (eyes closed, always retreating into her own private world when she sings), while Pfc. Glenn Kelly (Scott Glenn) and Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn) trade Barbara Jean anecdotes in awestruck whispers.
Most of these families don't pray together -- but "Nashville" suggests a kind of community and spiritual kinship among the characters at each service. We eavesdrop on characters in situations where they're in their element and where they're fish out of water. But now that we know Lady Pearl is Catholic (was she raised as one, or did she convert after one of the Kennedy assassinations?), the JFK poster at her Parlor fits into place, and the memory of it underscores her isolation as she sits by herself in the pew. (Lest we forget: A whole generation of Catholic households in the 1960s and '70s created virtual shrines to the American martyrs -- Jack and Bobby, sometimes with Dr. King -- in the living room or the parlor or the dining room.)
Perhaps Lady Pearl doesn't spend as much time on the screen as some of the other 23 main characters in "Nashville," but I've never forgotten her -- or felt contempt for her, either. As is the case with so many of my favorite moments in movies, she had me laughing and crying simultaneously. Bless her for it.
I guess it's inevitable for any Blog-a-Thon to have some overlap, but I still find it fascinating to see you taking on the "hipness" charge at the same time I posted my contribution on the same subject. Looks like the Hypothesis of Collective Inspiration is rearing its long-eared head again ;-)
"I've always thought the "hipness" charge, as a critical gambit, was more of a projection on the part of the slinger than an appropriate slur against the movie itself."
You have no idea how much I agree with this.
Bravo, Jim, for an excellent defense of one of the greatest films. While I've not seen Bobby yet, Rosenbaum's review is not one of his finest moments (and he's one of my favorites too!).
For my money, the moment from Nashville that has stuck with me most is the moment when Green learns that his wife has passed away while Barbara Jean is being escorted from the hospital. An ecstatic Glenn Kelly stops to tell Green exactly why it is he had been devoted to Barbara Jean, relating a story about his mother's affection for her. All the while, the look on Green's face keeps deteriorating farther into despair and hopelessness. Probably the most affecting movie scene I've ever seen.
Again, great writing, and thanks!
Jim,
I think Rosenbaum gets it exactly right. I just find it inconceivable that anyone can think of Nashville as a "joyous" film. I can see how someone could like it, maybe embracing its misanthropy and cynicism; hell, I like Fassbinder, But calling it "joyous" - it's like you saw a whole different movie. I find it unbearably smug and condescending. But one odd thing is, I feel much the same way (though not quite as extreme) about Miller's Crossing, another movie I know you like very much. In fact, the Coen Bros. have the same tendency as Altman (as bad Altman, rather) to create a group of characters for the sole purpose of making fun of them. Altman's condescension is more diffuse; the Coens tend to focus their wrath on any character who commits the unforgivable of sin of having a strongly held conviction of any kind.
There are so many wonderful characters in "Nashville", but whenever I think about the film, my mind returns to the character of Haven Hamilton, who seems to me to best embody the spirit of the film.
When we first see him, we might be put off by his tacky patriotism or the way he is somewhat snarky toward his underlings. But whether or not Altman agrees with the lyrics to Haven's songs, there is no doubt that Haven himself genuinely believes in what he is singing. That's what makes "Keep 'a Goin'" so surprisingly inspiring, regardless of the fact that it's a pretty laughable song.
Haven's complexity goes beyond his songs. Yes, the Southern hospitality that he demonstrates at his party is a bit over-the-top, but again...it's genuine, a true expression of Haven's desire to make everyone feel welcome in the city of Nashville (I've always viewed Haven's party as a commentary on the way America embraces immigrants...with slight trepidation but also with friendliness and hospitality). And of course, Haven shows his true character in the climactic crisis, when he rises to the occasion and calms the crowd.
This is the essence of Altman's humanism...even when he is portraying characters we know he would philosophically disagree with (i.e. Haven), he gives them complexity and depth, rather than settling for caricatures. Occasionally in his career, there has been an element of smugness to Altman's career (I get that strong sense from "Short Cuts", so I can understand where Rosenbaum is coming from), but I have never felt it from "Nashville", which, along with Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia", is one of the great multi-character masterpieces of the 20th century.
Patrick: "Nashville" brims with moments like that one, moments that elicit multiple emotional responses at once. The easy (and false) way to read that scene would be to judge Pfc. Kelly as insensitive or shallow -- but his enthusiasm is as genuine and appropriate as Mr. Green's grief. They share the same frame space, but each is living in a private world, and Kelly doesn't know what's just happened to Esther Green. He's preoccupied with his own excitement because of what Barbara Jean means to him personally. It's the kind of moment that takes place between acquaintances and strangers in public places all the time -- and, usually, we're not even aware of it.
Christopher: I know a lot of people see "Nashville" as cynical and contemptuous (and don't see the joy and exuberance that are ALSO expressed in the movie), but that's kind of what this post is about -- opposing critical views of the same film. I hope I've demonstrated what I think Rosenbaum is missing in the film. Elsewhere, I compared "Nashville" to Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" -- a movie I always remember as overflowing with humor and joy (I swear, every time I see it I almost forget it's heading for tragedy), while others see it only as cynical or disturbing or inflammatory. I'm fully aware of the charges of condescension and cynicism leveled at filmmakers like Altman, the Coens, Errol Morris, Christopher Guest -- but I think that's only superficial, and that there's much more going on beneath the surface. Still, many people are turned off by what they perceive as these filmmakers' "attitude." (A friend of mine once said he wasn't about to go to a Coen brothers' movie just so they could laugh at him; I told him that if he located the real humor, he'd find himself laughing WITH the movie. The only filmmaker I can think of off-hand who just seems to despise everything and everyone in his films is Alan Parker.)
But we all have our own reactions: "Babel" and "Crash" left me cold, while others were moved to tears. A critic's function is to examine his/her own response to the film and cite direct evidence to explain it.
Alex: Haven is full of surprises, right up to the very end. There's not a character in the film who does not have some ugly or annoying side, and some redeeming or sympathetic side -- even Tom (when he sings his confessional, "I'm Easy"). I think my greatest affection (for reasons too complex to go into here), though, is for Delbert Reese and Sueleen Gay.
There are moments/images I perceive as smug and lazy in almost all of Altman's movies (a pan to a cereal box in "Short Cuts" really bugs me), but for me that doesn't begin to negate everything else that's going on...
Peet: That's terrific! I'm so glad you addressed the "hipness" fabrication. You are right on! As I mentioned above, the charge has been aimed at Altman, the Coens, Guest, Erroll Morris, and so on. I remember somebody attacking Morris because the naked mole rat scholar in "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" wore what the critic deemed a ridiculous bow tie. Morris responded that he didn't tell the guy to wear that tie. The guy LIKED the goofy tie (yes, he knew it was goofy and eccentric when he put it on) and CHOSE to wear it in the movie. So, who's worrying about being "hip" while being smug and condescending here?
Jim,
I've only seen "Nashville" all the way through once, but I've watched the final "It Don't Worry Me" scene about a dozen times (I also love Barbara Jean singing "Dues"). I think Rosenbaum is only seeing one half of the equation. Yes, on one hand, the audience (and Barbara Harris' character) are all but dancing on Barbara Jean's grave by singing this song, and appear to be the stereotypical, blindly optimistic American yokels. I can understand how you can come to the conclusion that these people are as clueless as Rosenbaum says.
On the other hand, the song (for me, anyway) is also touching. For one, it's set in motion by Haven, who as you pointed out, is a more ambiguous character than you might think at first. He says something to the effect of, "Somebody needs to sing." It's a heartfelt, if misguided, attempt to try to soldier on in the face of tragedy. Barbara Harris' white character leads the singing, but she is backed up by a black choir that eventually is just as enthusiastic as she is -- located as they are underneath the huge American flag, it makes for a pretty potent image of what can be great about this country.
Whenever I watch the scene I marvel at the balance of antipathy and sympathy Altman seems to have for the characters and for the country.
What's so disappointing about both your discussion of Jonathan Rosenbaum and "hipness" and Peet's discussion of Armond White at the "hipsters" is that both of these men are intelligent and perceptive film critics capable of extraordinary insight about film.
Now, I'm not familiar with Mr. Rosenbaum's previous treatments of Nashville (I'm assuming he's written about the film before at much greater length), but the problem with his discussion of the film here is that he doesn't substantiate his opinions--as you've very capably demonstrated here, these scenes are not necessarily cynical.
I've grown wary of critics who accuse filmmakers of indifference or, more especially, "meanness" towards their characters. This comes up quite a bit in discussions of the films of Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre). Unfortunately, some critics tend to take it for granted that a film that is indifferent or mean towards its characters is inherently flawed, inferior. But I think that a film can be indifferent and/or mean to its characters and still be very good (I still contend that neither Fitzcarraldo nor Lost In Translation, to cite two quite different examples, is entirely sympathetic towards its characters, and that this enhances both films), and likewise that a film can be fond of its characters and still be quite bad.
Thanks again for participating, Jim!
Tim: You're right -- there's so much going on in that final scene that my heart and head practically burst whenever I see it. Yes, Haven is grandstanding a bit -- but he's also doing the right thing. (And he's been shot! He's bleeding real blood, to echo his earlier comments about Barbra Jean "crying real tears.") He's doing crowd control -- and he just happens to hand the mic to the one person we least expect to take the stage (played by one of the few real singers in the cast). Albuquerque (Barbara Harris) and Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakely) give the most moving musical performances in the film. But for me, this whole final movement of "Nashville" (no dialogue, just the ritual singalong) is about everyone else: Who leaves with whom, who's left alone... Poor Sueleen, deprived of her chance to sing at the Parthenon with Barbara Jean, is devastated -- but what would have happened if she'd actually performed?
Andy: Yes, Jonathan Rosenbaum is a wonderful critic (and I referred to "Playtime" specifically because he introduced it, and helped me see how to watch it, the first time I ever saw it). A lot of us do this from time to time -- make a passing reference to some other film we love or hate in the course of discussing a particular movie. But his damning of "Nashville" was so sweeping (and his slight of Lady Pearl so wrong-headed) that I wanted to go into detail -- particularly because I then found Bob Strauss's polar-opposite response to help set up the parameters of the discussion!
Excellent piece, Jim. Rosenbaum is completely off in his critique.
Since we're on the subject of filmmakers who specialize in making fun of their characters, what about Alexander Payne? I hated his first three films: CITIZEN RUTH, ELECTION and ABOUT SCHMIDT. He must be softening somewhat of late, though, because SIDEWAYS is the first of his movies I've liked. (He hasn't softened entirely, though. I'm thinking of the scene when Paul Giamatti goes to buy the Barely Legal magazine, and you think he's momentarily down on himself after his encounter with Virginia Madsen. Then you hear him tell the clerk: "No, the new issue.")
Jim, what about the Alan Parker film SHOOT THE MOON? It's certainly one of the most devastating portraits I've ever seen of a marriage gone sour, but never once while watching it did I think Parker "despised everything and everyone" onscreen. (On the other hand, that IS only Alan Parker film I've ever liked.)
Jim, I’d never use California Suite to bash Short Cuts when the movie itself will do just fine! (It’s the Altman movie which I think least deserves its often sky-high praise. We’ll have to talk about this one sometime!)
But as for Nashville, I can’t tell you how happy I was reading this piece. It’s really a joyful occasion for me (almost as joyful as Nashville!) to read such an impassioned, clear-headed piece of writing on this great movie, written by someone who loves and breathes it frame by frame.
For a director at whom the charge of misanthropy was so often leveled, as I think back over the Altman filmography it’s not an easy thing for me to come up with examples that I think come anywhere near close to fulfilling this proclamation. Perhaps Frank Burns, whose sexual/religious hypocrisy made him prime bait for the conform-to-our-sense-of-nonconformity bullying of Hawkeye and Trapper John. Perhaps Paul Dooley’s nouveau riche trucker tycoon, the father of the bride, in A Wedding. And I’d probably volunteer almost the entire cast of Short Cuts as candidates for the director’s sour disdain, and in this case I’d argue that they largely deserved it (though Altman’s perspective is, I think, central to the shrill mean-spiritedness of most of what goes on in that movie).
Otherwise, Altman’s career is jam-packed with portraits of people that might seem to invite snickering or parody or condescension but that transcend such easy pigeonholing through the sheer interest the director takes in them as people. Nashville is guided by the hand of a man keen on observing human behavior with the kind of joy (there’s that word again) for the unpredictable shadings that real characters, and not caricatures, can bring to the party. As a result, many surprises, both painful and exhilarating, unfold, and many of those who may in one instant look like buffoons or two-dimensional stereotypes soon reveal layers beneath the initial impressions. I particularly love your take on Haven Hamilton and the way he seems to encapsulate the twin ideals of Nashville’s complex look at America:
“To self-critical liberals like Altman, America is a progressive ideal we have yet to live up to, a potential we've striving to reach; to reactionaries, it's a fallen paradise, an illusory Eden into which we hope to retreat, even though it never actually existed. One looks forward, the other back to the future (a signature Reagan-era phenomenon), and these clashing American themes are announced in the ultra-patriotic Bicentennial anthem that begins the movie, sung by rhinestone-spangled Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson): "We must be doin' somethin' right to last 200 years!" And yet, just when you think you've got this overbearing little tyrant pegged, there's the chorus: "We're all a part of history/Why, Old Glory waves to show/How far we've come along till now/How far we've got to go." It's never quite as black-and-white -- make that red-or-blue -- as you expect. That Panavision flag that waves at the end of the film, the portentous ripple that blows across it (signifying "trouble in the USA" in the words of the ominous pre-Parthenon concert song: "Wonder what this year will bring") -- these are not trite images that can be reduced to snide rube-baiting.�
Yet I’m happiest, Jim, with your detailed look at Lady Pearl, who has always been one of the 24 stars I’ve enjoyed the most—perhaps because she reminds me of a couple of my aunts, but also because she is given such sympathy, and her emotions seem to bubble up out of nowhere from underneath that somewhat harsh, yet accomodating exterior she displays to the world. That Kennedy recollection in Lady Pearl’s Parlor, and then the memories of how many votes the asshole got—Barbara Baxley’s vivid characterization rings with such pain, such haunted visions of how this country could have been. It’s shocking to me that a great critic of such even temperament as Rosenbaum would have so much rancor, and be so misguided, about what Baxley does on screen. That said, I must mention the other near inexplicably hilarious moment involving Baxley—when she and Haven get into the argument during the traffic jam about the misremembered song—“Wanda, Wanda—“ “No, it’s Wanda wander!�—which leads to her little explosion of anger. These actors are so incredibly alive and relaxed and capable of communicating such wealth of detail about their lives together even in a chaotic set piece such as this—take this one moment, create strands that connect it to 24 other characters and the ambivalent viewpoint leveled at the Hal Philip Walker campaign and the vibrant, discordant wonder of life in a country that, at 200 years old, was still feeling the birth pangs of self-definition, and that’s Nashville.
In the days since we lost Robert Altman, I’d been feeling that revisiting Nashville would be too painful. Your grand piece, which captures so much of what is exciting and heartfelt and moving and wrenching about the movie (How the hell could anyone think Keenan Wynn was being made fun of when Scott Glenn runs into him in the hospital just after Wynn has received news of his wife’s death?), has done what I’d assumed was, if not impossible, then at least unlikely right now— I’m recharged with the desire to see Nashville again, as a reminder not only of what Altman, the late, great director, was able to do, but in the desire to see what his teeming, brilliant movie can still show me, one who has seen it at least 15 times, what brand-new reflection of life can be arrived at by following the movie down one of the many new paths it offers that I’ve still yet to follow.
Thanks so much, Dennis: It does my heart good to read somebody wandering around (not unlike "Wanda" -- or whatever the name of that song is) in "Nashville" the way I love to. (That Lady Pearl moment you describe was my initial reaction to reading Rosenbaum's swipe at the movie. I wanted to snap: "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE -- IT WAS A HIT!!!" But I felt that would have been an inadequate and inappropriate critical response.
As for "Short Cuts" -- I have some ambivalence about that movie, too (I recently mentioned a pan/zoom to a cereal box that really bugs me) -- but I have to say it captured my own experience of LA in the late '80s/early '90s (from the malathion spraying to the earthquakes) like nothing else. My real point, of course, was that it makes no sense to use Neil Simon or Irwin Allen to beat up on any serious movie.
"What difference does it make?! It was a hit!" I was so tired last night when I wrote this comment that I sat there for what seemed like several hours (but was surely only one or two) trying to jog loose what it was that Lady Pearl yells at the end of that scene. Thanks for providing the elusive information-- I vowed to go back to the DVD tonight and find it for myself, but don't think that I won't go back and watch the movie anyway just because you've helped me out here.
It's a funny thing about Short Cuts-- I'd never felt the urge to revisit it after seeing it when it opened in 1993, even though I owned the Criterion laserdisc. (I did partake of the documentary "Trust, Luck and Ketchup" and the audio interview with Pauline Kael that were both featured on the disc, however). But last year I did the English subtitles for the Criterion DVD, which turned out to be my first exposure to the movie in over 12 years or so, I guess, and there was something about watching it in that minute detail that really exposed the movie's weaknesses to me. The subtitling job occurred amidst a run of Altman films that I'd worked on, including Secret Honor, Tanner '88 and the titles in that "Robert Altman Collection" that Fox put out last year, but none of these movies, not even Quintet (I already knew I didn't much care for that one, and I'd say my feeling about it even slightly improved), suffered so much from close examination as did Short Cuts. I vowed that I would get that Criterion disc someday, however, and give it another go by just pressing "play" and not looking at it frame-by-frame. I just hope it doesn't take me another 12 years to do it.
(By the way, I also did the CC and subtitles on the Nashville DVD, and I remember the titles were actually mentioned by Premiere magazine when the disc came out in 2000 as a reason to buy it! I did the entire movie over the course of two days and nights, with no sleep, and my four-month-old newborn daughter often sleeping in a crib at my side. Ah, more Altman memories...)
Can't understand why the public isn't more skeptical of candidates as legislators or Presidents.
The number of times it has been fooled by false exteriors are far too many to qualify as voting expertise.
It shows that a million people can be wrong after all. Political advertising that cultivates voter scrutiny is the best form of political activism. Why should voters pay for mediocre elected officials they are dependent upon for Constitutional protection, and political legitimacy by electing legislative whores?