Nashville - Enzian Theater

One of the most distinctive voices in American cinema, Robert Altman (1925–2006) defied Hollywood conventions with a maverick spirit, crafting films known for their overlapping dialogue and large ensemble casts, and often using wide master shots to stage deeply intimate sagas. At 45, when he made his first successful studio film, Altman was far too old to be a ’60s counterculture icon, yet he stands as perhaps the most anti-establishment director of that era. From the satirical bite of M*A*S*H (1970) to the sprawling, multi-layered narratives of Nashville (1975) and Short Cuts (1993), Altman’s resume is a masterwork of subversion—spanning revisionist Westerns (McCabe & Mrs. Miller), film noir (The Long Goodbye), psychoanalytical family drama (3 Women), American politics (Tanner ’88), and later skewering Hollywood’s vapidity with his Oscar®-nominated 1992 film The Player.

As we celebrate 7-time Academy Award nominee Robert Altman’s 100th birthday, we honor a filmmaker who turned chaos into art and left an indelible mark on cinema as a medium of wickedly boundless possibilities.

Nashville:

50^th Anniversary!

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards® and winner of Best Original Song (“I’m Easy”) maverick director Robert Altman’s ambitious, sprawling ensemble drama that paints a vibrant, satirical portrait of American life, fame, and politics through the intersecting lives of 24 characters over five days in the country music capital of the world. With a staggering 7 Golden Globe nominations just for acting, Altman’s assembled troupe includes iconic performances from the likes of Keith Carradine, Karen Black, Shelley Duvall, Ned Beatty, Geraldine Chaplin, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris and Michael Murphy.

A biting satire of both music and politics, Nashville is considered one of Altman’s greatest masterpieces and a defining film of the 1970s, lauded for its layered storytelling, themes of ambition, identity, disillusionment, and the spectacle of American culture which converge in a final act that has to be seen to be believed.

1975, 160 minutes, USA, Directed by Robert Altman, Rated R

“Robert Altman tore up the filmmaking rulebook in the mid-'70s with this satire on the American country and western scene, for which the cast composed their own songs. It juggles the fortunes of two dozen characters and presciently explores how politics has become another form of showbusiness.”
– TOTAL FILM
“One of the greatest American films of the ’70s, Nashville remains Altman’s crowning achievement.”
– Michael Sauter, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“It's a dazzling, emblematic portrait of America in 1975, both trapped in amber yet still vitally alive.”
– Philip French, THE GUARDIAN
“Nashville is still the movie that best embodies everything that was so freeing and generous and deceptively casual about Altman’s art, and it’s the film that best represents him as a uniquely American artist.”
– Chuck Bowen, SLANT MAGAZINE
“It is the masterful ways in which Altman weaves doubt, hard truths, and holds up a mirror to the hypocrisies of contemporary America, that elevates his 1975 film to be one of the decade’s greatest cinematic achievements.”
– Matthew Anderson, CINEVUE