This weeks’ film was Robert Altman’s masterpiece Nashville, which we have previously discussed here. This semester we’re honing in on specific moments from our films-of-the-week, and there are two particular sequences from Nashville that have always impressed us mightily—each an exquisite manifestation of the distinct and intoxicating possibilities of cinematic storytelling.
The first is an effortless, bravura illustration of how much information about character can be shared in just a few fleeting, well-chosen images. In under four minutes – a virtual clinic in filmmaking that never feels like showing off – Altman visits four church services: catholic, protestant, baptist, and hospital clinic, each accompanied by setting-appropriate songs of prayer. By showing who attends which service (and with whom—two couples attend different churches), and the way that each engages their chosen surroundings, speaks volumes about a dozen characters (as does the fact that every Nashville local goes to church on Sunday, no matter what, whereas none of the outsiders do).
Lady Pearl (Barbara Baxley) attends Mass
Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty) in church with his sons . . .
. . . While Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin) sings with the Baptists
Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley) shares a prayer at a modest hospital service
The second scene is heartbreaking, and illustrates how powerfully the movies can appear to express real, profound emotions. It goes like this. Mary (Cristina Raines), of the singing trio Bill, Mary, and Tom, is having an affair with Tom (Keith Carradine), unbeknownst to her husband, Bill (the group has issues). Mary is in love, and thinks, or at least hopes, that Tom loves her. But Tom mostly loves Tom, and pursues women with a Beatty-like dedication, bedding four over the course of the film while occasionally checking in with his girlfriend long distance. This brewing crisis comes to a head in a small venue, when Opal (Geraldine Chaplin) splashes herself down at a table with Bill and Mary and gracelessly announces that she and Tom have slept together.
Bill is not surprised. But Mary is devastated. It is a shattering blow, the weight of which she must, of course, keep to herself. And so Mary turns towards us (towards the camera, that is) and covers her mouth. The movie audience sees, or essentially senses, her grief and utter despair—but no one at the table does. (We have a friend who turned her head during this scene, because she did not want her companion to see her cry.) And then, as Mary is still processing this news, the trio are observed in the crowd and called on stage to sing. They perform “since you’re gone my heart is broken,” which Tom and Bill sing the way they have performed the number a hundred times. Mary sings the song at Tom, and suddenly the lyrics seem to be pouring out her heart (“he’s all I ever wanted/why did he run from me”)—not that Tom notices. Suddenly the song seems real, the way that Stevie Nicks used to hate the way Lindsey Buckingham would stare at her during “Go Your Own Way” (as Nicks describes it—“a nice way of saying something . . . not very nice”).
The sequence is – for us at least – emotionally overwhelming. At the same time, it’s “just a movie” as they say. But what does that mean, exactly? Many film movements (the French New Wave and the New Hollywood, for two examples) were in search of a certain type of truth, expressed through fiction. Altman’s approach to this, most notably in Nashville, was to encourage the players to develop their characters; during the production actors often fought with him over things they thought their alter-egos would or would not do—and they often won. Key scenes with Lily Tomlin and Ronee Blakley, for example, were re-envisioned at their insistence. And the general consensus is that Barbara Baxley’s monologue on the Kennedys (cut down from a reportedly spellbinding twenty minutes) was all Baxley, and straight from her heart. And Cristina Raines and Keith Carradine were a couple for most of the 1970s. Which may or may not matter. We’ll always have Nashville.
Mary (Cristina Raines), loves Tom (Keith Carradine)
Opal (Geraldine Chaplin) is indiscreet
Mary, alone in public
Old songs take on new meanings