MOVIE REVIEW: NASHVILLE (1975)

Produced/Directed by Robert Altman

Scenario by Joan Tewkesbury

Starring

Henry Gibson as Napoleonic Country Singer

Ronee Blakely as the Queen on the Scene

Karen Black as the Super Star

Keith Carradine as Callous Folkie Guy

Lily Tomlin as Gospel Singer

Ned Beatty as Political Fixer

Geraldine Chaplin as Radio Documentarian

Gwen Welles as Singer Who Cannot Sing

Robert DoQui as Diner Manager/Caterer

Scott Glenn as Soldier

Jeff Goldblum as Easy Riding Magician

. . .

". . . you may say 

that I ain't free, 

but it don't worry me . . ."

. . .

Review by William D.Tucker.

We begin in a recording studio. A megalomaniacal country western singer does take after take of an obsessively dopey paean to the Protestant Work Ethic and Manifest Destiny-"We must be doin' something right to last two hundred years!" The singer is a sparkly knockoff Roy Acuff with a Napoleon Complex. Sure he's got seniority on the scene, but he's starting to show his age, and his dictatorial perfectionism wouldn't be acceptable from an up-and-comer. He's a jerk. Later, we see him try to rally a crowd from the depths of shock and tragedy, and maybe we hate him a little less.

We cut to another part of the studio machine to see a white lady rather laughably attempting to lead a chorus of Black gospel singers. Later, we find out that this white lady is a pretty nice person stuck in a loveless marriage to a philandering political fixer. She loves her children sincerely, and we perhaps sympathize when she eventually cheats on hubby with a callous young folkie in a squalid hotel room.

But what about that political fixer's side of things? He's not a violent man. Not overtly so. He makes a solid living. He has no capacity for emotional connection to his wife and kids. But he's not a wifebeater, he doesn't hit his kids. He basically knows his wife is about to fuck around on him. He knows he's Absent Dad, Staying Out Too Late With The Boys Dad, and so a neglected wife must have her needs satisfied some other way. We probably even pity him during a scene where he wakes up late Sunday morning, all hungover, pathetically hard-boiling a couple of eggs, or trying to, anyways. This was once a part of American Masculinity: a Man Does Not Cook But He Can Sorta Boil Water If He Must. Later, we perhaps feel far less sympathy for this man when we bear witness to an abject strip show he stages to hustle political contributions out of a gathering of Tennessee businessmen and land owners. 

About that strip show: it's all about getting money for the campaign of a populist third party candidate-"The Replacement Party"-who has fielded an army of cute ladies in American flag themed outfits who do flyering and person-to-person advocacy. There's also a loudspeaker truck that plays an interminable and hilarious pre-recorded speech outlining a litany of proposals and grievances, many of which make a little too much sense: healthcare for all; tax the rich; and, my personal favorite, scrapping the National Anthem for a song you can actually both comprehend and sing. Fuckin' A. Surely, the Replacement Party has zero chance. But it was nice to dream for awhile. One all-too-revealing scene: the flag ladies swarm a pair of dudes who have just gotten into a car crash. Crisis creates opportunity for those paying attention. As for the rest of us, well-

This fender bender is but a vague echo of a truly spectacular freeway pile-up that instantly becomes a professional networking event. Shit has broken down systemically, so cover your ass, cover your balls, and start hustling for Number One, motherfucker! That's one of them-thar American Ways, isn't it? Yep. 

The Queen on the Scene is a delicate singer-songwriter who passes out during what may or may not be a staged bout of the vapors to drum up sympathy from the press. Later, we discover she feels imprisoned within her persona as a dainty Southern Belle. We bear witness to a free concert that transforms into a grotesque open mic free association as words pour out of her in a not-so-staged psychological meltdown. Someone in the audience unfortunately perceives this as an expression of a desire to no longer exist. 

The Queen on the Scene's Number One Fan is a soldier who wanders listlessly from place to place, seemingly too shy to ask for an autograph directly.

An easy riding magician says nothing, but lets his tricks speak for him. 

A lady from the BBC-a radio documentarian-wanders throughout all things, trying her hand at a kind of Imperial Gonzo Journalism. Much like both the Crown and Hunter S. Thompson, the results are hilarious, horrifying, and self-negating in the long run. She has no idea that she has no idea about America in 1974 or thereabouts. But this is fine. Because neither do most Americans have any idea that we have no idea about our own shit. Media has its own ends, and we are all just so many means. It evens out.

We see a woman who cannot sing a note singing into a mirror. It's the dream, goddamnit, that drives people. Fuck Reality.

The woman who cannot sing works as a waitress in a diner managed by a man who moonlights as a caterer for fancy events. He's Black and a working class outsider who badly wants to fit into the community. Yet, he calls out an African-American country performer as an "Oreo"-Black on the outside, white on the inside. He's super pissed-off that people take him for granted because he works hard and doesn't kiss ass. He even tries to tell his valued employee that she cannot sing, that she's wasting her life chasing a futile dream. He's being his most authentic self and is still miserable.

The one authentically untroubled person is a sexy blonde lady who can fuckin' sing. She's the Super Star. You better believe everyone hates her ass.

The camera passes over this parade of people and car wrecks with a canabinoid inflected detachment. You could call it "Shit, happens, my dude" the Movie. 

Nashville. It's a movie about Nashville, the city where they make all that shitkicker music. We see the music as a product. We see the music as it is marketed to a consumer public. We see the music as a dream to be attained, and as a cat o' nine tails with which to flog oneself. We see it as a vessel for ideology. We see it as a target for obsessives of varying degrees of obnoxiousness and/or dangerousness. We see it as a lifestyle. We see it as labor. We see it as management. We see it as hierarchy. We see it as jealousy. We see it as ego. We see it as a way to get laid. We see it as a ginormously sick fuckin' joke. We see it as a way to generate dumptrucks full of cash. We see it as an art, as a craft, as a passion, as a calling. We also see it from the perspectives of those with zero musical talent or skill. We get an eyeful of Nashville and its musical output in the film Nashville. 

It's all staged with a mixture of rigorous planning and hair-raising improvisation. Shot on location in the for-real city of Nashville for real. Nashville could probably not be made ever again in this manner unless someone had a billion dollars to buy off everyone and buy up everything. And even if you did it could scarcely be about goofy-ass shitkicker music. It would all be carefully managed and curated and up-to-the-minute Bro Country bullshit. I'm not saying that things were better in the past, but there were certain creative visions that could only be achieved at specific moments of time, and then those moments vanish forever. It's neither good or bad, really, it's just the way of things. New circumstances obtain, and new visions become doable. On things go until they stop or crash or die or what have you. 

Nashville follows lots of people doing lots of things. There's no protagonist. I submit to you that there are only antagonists in this film. It's kind of astonishing to behold. There are characters that are completely unnecessary by the standards of Screenplay 101 bullshit. It sorta fits into the whole Three Act Thing, if you really need it to, but doesn't feel it. Nashville features observational scenes that play very naturally, very off-the-cuff, with people talking in a leisurely manner while the world trundles on all around them. And then you have sharpened sequences of dangerous satire wherein various kinds of hypocrisy and confusion are mercilessly gutted for all to see. Some of the musical performances are extremely earnest and full of longing. Some of the songs are brutally satirical. One sequence veers from comedy to sadism and resolutely does not veer back to any comfort zone. Nashville left me paraphrasing a line from Aliens: "Get to a safe distance, and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. " Nashville humanizes Nashville . . . yet still has no pity for it in the end. Nor should it. 

And yes, Nashville isn't just about Nashville. It's about the USofA. It's about having zero faith in either political party. It's about the hangover from Vietnam, from Nixon, from the murders of JFK and RFK, from the wave of white supremacist murders of civil rights leaders. Nashville is trying to musically narcotize We the People with cornpone depictions of patriotism, traditional marriage, and Protestant Work Ethic exhortations to blame your own self if you can't get ahead in life. The pretentious creators of this narcotic music lead broken, fucked-up lives full of infidelity, addiction, bitterness, and loathing just like the rest of us, but We the People-We the Spectators-put 'em up on stage and demand that they be something more, something less. More, in that they live up to the ideals of unlimited capitalist success forever. Less, in that they live up to the ideals of unlimited capitalist success forever. No one lives up to Jack Shit in Nashville, tho', as, in the end, we are smacked across the face with a brutally stark climax. 

MOVIE NOVELIZATION REVIEW: THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR (1975)

 Novelization by Bill S. Ballinger.

From a screenplay by Robert Clouse.

Published by Warner Books in November of 1975.

. . . 

"There are times when a man must look at another and trust him with his life, or something even more valuable. He cannot ask that man whether he is a good man . . . or if he is going to betray him. He has to look at him and decide."

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

In a nameless city-well, it probably used to be New York, so it's not a 'nameless' city, it actually/probably lost the name it had for so long-

In a city that lost its name due to all the cataclysms-nuclear war, famine, economic collapse, petroleum exhaustion, civil wars in every bedroom and on every block-humans have sealed off different groupings of what used to be apartment and office buildings and set up communes where people have rooftop urban agriculture and rainwater catchers so they can continue to eat and drink. One might assume they're also still using whatever's left of the aquifers, but it's best not to think about that. People horde canned goods, but those are going away, along with all the other delights and conveniences of the mass produced highly disposable societies of yore. The narrative is vague, but we are well past the 1980s. No more cars are being manufactured. Later for nation states-the logic of nationalism was so self-consuming. Later for religion-no great loss. Money don't mean shit-the logic of capitalism was so self-consuming. No electricity, no air conditioning-no Pac-Man, no Space Invaders, no Death Race 2000, no Missile Command-well, shit and fuck! Outside the communes are the 'Street People,' roving gangs of bandits'n'cannibals that allow the commune dwellers to feel superior to the unhoused and, also, terrified of same. I got the impression that some Street People groups were better organized than others, but this was not fully elaborated in the text. We are observing the action from the perspective of a commune known as the Barony.

Wouldn't you know it-the Barony is led by a man called . . . the Baron. The Baron isn't actual nobility, nor do the people of the commune actually believe in ranks or titles or noble this'that'or'the'other. They believe in jobs to be done, and Leader is a job which must be filled. The Baron was just a name picked on a whim to denote the job/role of a leader, and it somehow stuck. The Barony, by a similar process, became the name which these particular commune dwellers adopted to distinguish their turf from everybody else's turf. Nor does the Baron himself think he's anything special. He's old, but I got the impression he's been the Baron for a long time partly against his will and partly by his own choice, so we are not necessarily dealing with a cut-and-dried case of gerontocracy here. 

The Baron's gig isn't so bad, really. He gets his own office. He's got lots of books and maps to pour over. He fantasizes about leaving the city-just like many New Yorkers of yore did-and he's got a private stash of delicious cigars. Perhaps, once he's smoked his way through all those stogies, his mouth and teeth will fall off, and he can die of dehydration-or starvation if he can still take fluids.The downside is that the Baron has to make a lot of tough decisions: crime, punishment, security, street combat. If someone steals or kills or rapes within the Barony, the Baron is the guy who has to make the decision to exile that person into the urban wasteland with a vest of jingle bells to draw a cannibal mob of Street People. If the Barony's running low on supplies, the Baron's the one to lead foraging  expeditions out into the creepy ruins of the blighted city. If there's a war with a gang of Street People or a hostile commune, the Baron is dutybound to lead the charge. But, if all is calm, the Baron can sit in his office, puffing a cigar, and re-reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(where did it all go wrong?) or Day of Trinity(who thought nukes were a good idea?) or Thirteen Days(how do you slick your way out of a doomsday standoff?) or Earth Abides(oh, that's what they thought would happen)  or The Story of O(just some leisure reading) or whatever. Better than Wal-Mart or McDonald's. 

The Barony has a scientific greenthumb named Cal who has bred a strain of famine-resistant seeds. The Baron sees these seeds as a potential way out of extinction, but he has no faith in the ability of the people of the Barony or the larger city to put these seeds to good use. The Baron knows the cruelty and vindictiveness of his people all-too-well even when measured against the bloodthirsty Street People. The commune dwellers are just a little more comfortable and self-absorbed than their unhoused fellow humans is all. But what can the Baron do? He has been put into his job/role not to demonstrate moral leadership or elevate people's ethics or sense of social justice but merely to maintain status quo. The Baron knows not how to speak to the hearts of his people. 

There's a kinda-sorta no man's land outside of the communes that serves as a public square to facilitate barter and other forms of exchange. A muscular man appears here, all alone, standing shirtless, eyes closed, presenting himself to the highest bidder. This is Carson, the titular Ultimate Warrior, who is very good at killing people with his hands, his feet, and his big-ass knife. Carson makes such a ritual display to signify both his strength and his mercenary status, though it was not clear to me why a gang of cannibals would be put off from converting his impressive physique to nutritional purposes. The point is that Carson is a wandering badass motherfucker-like Shane, like Yojimbo, like the Man With No Name-and he's going to provide the action sequences for the next seventy or so pages. The Ultimate Warrior is a Wild West melodrama in post-apocalyptic drag. 

The Baron hires on Carson. The Baron had hired a mercenary previously, and there's a great speech describing the tragedy of such a life: accumulated wounds leading to escalating disability ending in suicide. Carson knows all of this already, and either doesn't care or sees no other way to live in a post-civilizational world. I interpreted Carson as a guy who preferred to die on his feet, but the narrative makes it clear that such a desire might be nothing more than a macho fantasy in a life that wears you down with a million cuts. All the same, Carson has plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his killing prowess against Street People and a particularly nasty bunch of goons led by a dude named Carrot, who turns out to be Carson's nemesis. The action stuff is somewhat perfunctory, and lacks the gruesome panache of later post-apocalyptic fantasias such as The Road Warrior, Fist of the North Star, and Fury Road, but it does lead to an acceptable payoff. The Ultimate Warrior doesn't completely back down from its bleak premises even as it indulges in one-against-all battle fantasies.

The Baron has a secret mission in mind for Carson, one based on the hardy seeds cultivated by Cal. The Baron is also looking to get his pregnant daughter, Melinda, to safer climes. But in a key moment, the Baron tells Carson to choose the seeds over Melinda if he can't save both. I appreciated the bleakness and cynicism of these machinations. But from another perspective the Baron is extending his sense of care beyond his own comfort and position since this secret mission will fatefully put him at odds with his own people. The Baron trusts a stranger over his 'family,' in a sense, and I find this fascinating to think about. It's like the Baron is developing a more global outlook even if it's too little or too late. 

A last minute twist suggests that maybe one of the core malfunctions of this world is breakdown of communications. Everybody's retreated into communes and gangs and aggression and paranoia-not wholly without reason-but the appearance of some friendly strangers suggests that the city isn't so dead after all. This is right at the end, so it must be significant, right?

The Ultimate Warrior is no masterpiece. It's movie tie-in product. You get about one hundred thirty pages of entertainment. I read it in one go on a Sunday night. The cover features a cheesy drawing of Yul Brynner as Carson and Max von Sydow as the Baron. Don't ask me about the actual movie, I've never seen it. If I was living in a post-apocalyptic world, this book would be the only option for enjoying this story. I could've even smoked a gross cigar like some asshole while reading it, but I didn't. I had some strong black coffee and that was good enough for me.