Life is a Highway

Life is a Highway
Source: GeoCaching.com

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Robert Altman: Nashville (1975)

Source:FURY- Karen Black, singing in Nashville 1975. 
Source:The Daily Post

“Ce film raconte le destin de 24 personnages, issus de milieu musicaux ou politiques, qui vont se croiser dans la ville du disque et de la country, Nashville, Tennessee, au cours de cinq jours d’été au cœur des années 70.”

From FURY

“Five days in the Nashville country and gospel music scene, filled with stars, wannabe stars, and other hangers-on – individual stories of this small group intertwined – provides a commentary on American society. The stars include: good ol’ boy Haven Hamilton, whose patriotic songs leading up to the American bicentennial belie his controlling and ruthless nature; Barbara Jean, the country music darling who is just returning to Nashville and performing following recovery from a fire-related injury which may have taken more of an emotional toll than a physical one; and good looking and charismatic Tom Frank, one-third of the successful group Bill, Mary, and Tom, he who is trying to go solo, which masks his need to not be solo in his personal life as he emotionally abuses woman after woman in love with him, including Mary who is married to Bill. The wannabe stars include: Albuquerque, whose real name is Winifred, who is trying to run away from her husband Star in he not approving of her … Written by Huggo” 

Source:IMDB- poster for Nashville (1975)

From IMDB 

The 1970s, really as a whole was one of the most divisive times for American politics. It was when whoever was left that actually trusted the U.S. Government to do the right thing and even tell them the truth, had ended.

You had the Vietnam War in the mid and late 1960s with President Lyndon Johnson. You had President Richard Nixon, who was stuck between wanting to get America the hell out of Vietnam and yet not actually be seen as losing the war. Sort of like a person stuck between wanting to kill someone and marrying them.

And then you had Watergate, with that, plus the other scandals of the Nixon White House, led the House of Representatives to vote for impeachment of President Nixon.

Without Vietnam and Watergate, Jimmy Carter remains a peanut brain, I mean peanut farmer from Georgia, who probably runs for and wins reelection as Governor of Georgia. America, especially after President Gerry Ford, who just happened to be President Nixon’s Vice President and personal friend, pardons Richard Nixon for his involvement in the Watergate coverup and all other crimes that President Nixon was involved in as President of the United States.

Congressional Democrats, in 1974, don’t win landslides in the House and Senate, because suddenly it just occurs to Americans that Republicans are devils and Democrats are saints. Democrats, won the 1974 Congressional mid-terms, because they weren’t Republicans.

There was this feeling in the America in the mid-1970s, especially as President Nixon resigns and gets the bailout of a lifetime and is pardoned by his Vice President, that the country was way off. Way off like a 747 yet without radar flying in the clouds in the Caribbean, with both pilots and the navigator, high, drunk and blind, all at the same time. And that it was time for America to get back on course and try something else. Try something that wasn’t a Democrat, or a Republican. Or at the very least not a Washington Democrat, or Republican. And I believe Nashville reflects those feelings of the country. 

As far as this movie, it looks to me anyway like a two-hour forty-minute country music concert. Which would have been fine with me, if I were a country music fan. And it didn’t snow in Minnesota in January. Good luck seeing either. With some politics mixed in from time to time.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments that are relevant to the post and not personal are welcome at The DailyPost. But links spam and personal attacks aren't and will be deleted and never make it to the blog. Something to think about before trying to comment on The Daily Post.