Nashville (1975)-Mitchell

Director Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975) is a buffet of Americana, a long smorgasbord of American variety. The film, in its 160 minute running time, tells the narratives of 24 characters including: from country music superstars, a BBC reporter, an apolitical folk-rock music trio, a man working on a political campaign, to a gospel singer and devoted mother/wife who is has an affair with a member of the apolitical folk-rock trio. That is just a sample. Yet, this film with its variety is a catalog of American Culture. There is a scene of a traffic jam in which these (and the other) characters, as they leave the airport heading towards Nashville, converge. Throughout the film, there is an ominous (albeit, gentlemanly and southern)  voice coming from the speakers of a “campaign van” belonging to the campaign of Reform Party candidate, Hal Phillip Walker. Throughout the film, the campaign pervades the scenes, either through the campaign slogans coming from the van or the dealings of John Triplette, who works for the campaign. In looking not only at Altman’s motifs as an auteur (overlapping dialogue) but also historical implications, Altman using the campaign to show how political messages (finely crafted) have become part of the social consciousness of the time.

 In working with Altman’s films as historical documents, we must take an interdisciplinary approach. Altman’s films may exude a reflection of the ideology of that moment in history, but Altman is first and foremost an auteur, or author of his film.  Kenneth Hey discusses the challenges of working with films (in general) as historical documents. He says,

 First, as an historical document, film has contextual connections with the contemporary world. The people who make a film bring to the project their own interests and attitudes, and these various perspectives, when added to the collaborative process forge a product which resonates in some way with society.  Second, as a work of art, film requires textual analysis similar to drama, photography, painting, and music. But as an aesthetic object which combines different artistic media into a single experience, film requires an analytical method which considers all contributing disciplines. Finally, as an art historical object, film stands at the intersection of ongoing traditions in the medium’s own history and of theoretical interests alive at the time the film is made. To single out one feature of the film is […] is to sacrifice the film for something less.[1]

Therefore, in looking at Altman’s film’s we must look at his motifs (aesthetics), the context of society at the time, Altman’s own perspective as an auteur , and mash them all up together. Nashville is a film with so much complexity that it would be difficult to write anything about it without leaving out major themes, characters, or artistic choices.  However, in focusing in one convergence of aesthetics (overlapping dialogue) and historical implications (the campaign of Hal Phillip Walker) we can see at least an instance in which Altman is attempting to show how political messages, slogan, and spin have become a daily part of our communal and social consciousness.

Altman, as an auteur, is known for his use of overlapping dialogue, in which conversations occur simultaneously. Altman’s camera moves from conversation to conversation, putting one into the forefront of the screen and using the others as background (or, perhaps white) noise. The campaign van of Walker slinks through Nashville, the scenes, and the characters lives, proclaiming slogans that call for changing the national anthem “back to something people could understand” or to do away with the electoral college or “funny notions that have developed in American Poltics.  These slogans are in the background, they are they soundtrack (interesting for a film that takes place around country music). If we take the overlapping dialogue as analogous to social consciousness then the background (the Hal Phillip Walker Campaign Slogans) would therefore be the subconscious.

To put the film in an historical context, the film was produced in 1975. Dating from  1960 to the year the film was produced, American society had dealt with (or been dealt blows by):  The Kennedy assassination(1963), the televised assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald (1963), the Warren Commision (1964), the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr (1968), the assassination of Robert Kennedy (1968)  the Vietnam War (1959-1975), the Cold War (1945),  and Watergate (Nixon resigned in 1974). Throughout all these traumas Americans became skeptical of the White House. The White House in those 15 years was shaky and untrustworthy, a place where deceit was the foundation of the building. Washington had to consistently defend itself and try to control the message and the spin. To imagine the amount of time politicians had to appear on television or issue statements dealing with the massive turmoil, fear, and distrust (political slogans such as the infamous Lyndon Johnson ad against Barry Goldwater which included the slogan, “”Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”)

If we take Altman’s use of overlapping dialogue as analogous to social consciousness (the many conversations society is having at the same time) then we can see that the background noise is political slogans, telling us that we should think and believe a politician. Political slogans are Societies subconscious.  There are a million conversations going on within the American Consciousness and yet pervading all of them as slogans, ads, and attacks from Washington, attempting to spin our thoughts. What is interesting about the Hal Phillip Walker campaign is that his slogans are berating the US government, an institution which he wants to lead. It is as though he is not trying to inform the people of problems, but simply trying to get elected. 

Ultimately, Nashville is a film that has so much variety and difference between the themes and characters and issues that it is a smorgasbord of American Culture, which may actually be an accurate representation of America. The problem, Altman may be suggesting, is that despite the variety of events and lives (a Country Music Festival, Marriage Problems, and Traffic Jams), politics and particular politicians trying to get elected, is what is American Democracy is  truly about.

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[1] Kenneth R Hey “Ambivalence as a Theme in On the Waterfront (1954): An Interdisciplinary Approach to Film Study” PP 159