ALTMAN POLL

You'll probably find me arguing this above: I don't experience the film that way at all. Yes, there's some condescension here and there, but from my vantage point, Altman loves the characters, and that's why it's a great film. I'd call something like Bob Roberts a better example of the reputation that has attached to Nashville (from people who don't like it).

I wouldn't actually say there's a lot of humour in Nashville, but any scene involving Geraldine Chaplin falls flat. A lot of the jokes in the dialogue are corny people saying corny things. That may be real but not necessarily funny, but as I say, I don't judge it primarily as a comedy (or a musical).

I have warmed up to the Chaplin stuff in Nashville in that I think it's totally fair to say that much of the rest of the world depicts that area with more than just a little condescension.

Which is fine. It's obv he doesn't understand country.

If you think that, no problem. What I've never understood is thinking that while saying you love the film. How could anyone love a condescending film?

Disagree about Chaplin. Besides getting maybe the film's single funniest line (I'm listening to you, but look what's over there...), I find much of her gibberish priceless.

And disagree about the soundtrack to the degree that I wouldn't assume Altman claims that these country songs have anything to do with Hank Williams or the Carter Family or lots of country music, any more than the people who made Spinal Tap would claim that their movie is a comment on Bob Dylan or the Beatles or all rock music. Does Spinal Tap have anything to say about some rock music? Yes, it does.

How could anyone love a condescending film?

The same way I can love didactic films; it's getting used to their ethos and tone of voice.

I'd have to think about it, but I think we part ways there; I put condescension right next to sarcasm in the toxic department.

For clarification, what's an example of a didactic film? Makes me think of Kael on Siegfried Kracauer. Something like Godard's Letter to Jane?

To be clear, I think that Chaplin's character's condescension is absolutely a fair characterization of that role in the film. I don't think it's condescension on Altman's part. Nashville is basically unimpeachable AFAIC.

And disagree about the soundtrack to the degree that I wouldn't assume Altman claims that these country songs have anything to do with Hank Williams or the Carter Family or lots of country music, any more than the people who made Spinal Tap would claim that their movie is a comment on Bob Dylan or the Beatles or all rock music. Does Spinal Tap have anything to say about some rock music? Yes, it does.

― clemenza, Friday, May 21, 2021 3:13 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Spinal Tap is absolutely condescending to hair metal dudes though, it's just also affectionate and funny and come on it's hair metal we're talking about, and I don't really feel like Spinal Tap is trying to make a POINT about anything other than maybe ego and lack of self-awareness. Whereas Nashville felt like it might as well have been titled Nashville is Fake, because that's about all I felt like the film had to say. And that's just not that interesting a point to make.

It's utterly insane to me that someone would think Spinal Tap is more affectionate toward its characters than Nashville but shrug.gif

it's just also affectionate and funny

I agree with that--courtesy of the performers; not Rob Reiner, I don't think--and that's what makes Spinal Tap great; if were it were flat-out ridicule, it'd be a bad TV sketch.

I just don't see the line that you do where Spinal Tap is this but Nashville is that.

I don't remember much from Prairie Home Companion, beyond that I liked it and thought it was a nice way to sign off. Isn't there fake country music in that? Is the hostility and condescension people attribute to Nashville still there? I don't remember anything like that.

Personally, I thought of one thing that undermines my claim that I could never love anything condescending: Tina Fey's Sarah Palin. Pretty sure that emerged from a place of deep contempt, but I can never watch that creation and not be filled with joy. So maybe I'm wrong, or maybe my contempt lines up perfectly with Fey's in that instance, or maybe Fey was able to connect with something about Palin at some deeper level that allowed her to mask the contempt.

IIRC, the Country songs in PHC were provided by Keillor himself, and they were meant to be funny.

One of the key things to remember about the Nashville songs that many of them predate the movie: Ronee Blakley recycled stuff from her debut album; Karen Black had been recording demos in private for years; Carradine wrote "I'm Easy" for Shelley Plimpton when they were both in HAIR; and Henry Gibson had been doing "Keep-A-Goin'" as a poem going back to the mid-'60s at least.

So it wasn't like 'let's get some jokey songs because Country sucks'.

On that last point, though, was how the Nashville establishment took the songs and the film.

Good point. Blakley and Gibson I knew about, didn't know about Black and Carradine.

Also remembered--I think I have this right--Robert Duvall was originally supposed to play Haven Hamilton.

Duvall was indeed the original choice.

Clem, you really need to check Jan Stuart's The Nashville Chronicles. It's a fantastic deep-dive book from the early '00s written with cooperation from Altman and most of then still-surviving cast members.

Posted this over on the Karen Black thread, but an album of her music is coming: https://shop.mexicansummer.com/product/karen-black-dreaming-of-you

Had to make a quick trip downstairs to confirm, but I've read the Stuart book--that and Harlan Lebo's Godfather book were the first making-of books I read.

I think I gleaned the Duvall casting from a Playboy interview Altman did just before Buffalo Bill came out; he said they broke over money.

team clemenza/eric: afaict nashville isn't contemptuous of anyone except geraldine chaplin (idiot) and michael murphy (liar). first runners-up are shelley duvall (selfish), who has flown in from california; and, admittedly, ned beatty (doesn't appreciate kids or being married to 70s lily tomlin).

what i get from it isn't "nashville is fake" but (cornily enough) "where do we go from here". now that the answer is known it has become a grimmer movie, but not a cruel one.

Duvall is, for me, the least successful, most dated character in the film: she isn't given a single moment that shades her vacuity.

Murphy is a political flunky right out of The Candidate, but I find his dumbstruck attraction to Christina Raines sweet. I don't feel Altman has contempt for Beatty at all. Chaplin, I guess you either hate her or find her amusingly spacey and pretentious.

"team clemenza/eric"--someone just died several thousand deaths.

Same top 4, albeit in different order: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jun/17/robert-altmans-20-best-films-ranked

That list is borderline insane. The top four is clearly inarguable but...Popeye at seven?! The Company near the bottom!? And The Player not much higher than that?!? GTFO

Yeah but Popeye is great.

Def need to see Kansas City now

yeah popeye wld be top 10 for me

(tbf i am borderline insane)

extremely weird to do a top 20 list for a guy who directed 35-ish movies. Why not just rank them all as in the clickbait trend these days?

Anyway, this is my confession that I spent the whole time getting increasingly mad that they had ranked Dr. T and the Women so high before realizing it wasn't even on the list at all. Also, Popeye rules.

there are several great Altman films, and a lot of good ones, but I thought Popeye was mediocre.

I haven't seen a lot of what might be regarded as second-string Altman. There's something laborious about watching his movies that means that if they are not actively enjoyable, it's hard for me to step back and take the good with the bad.
The odd exception for me is Quintet, usually seen as the bottom-of-the-barrel, which I actually found quite watchable. Literally watchable, because the sets, costumes and cinematography outclass the script so completely.

Best film not on that Guardian list is Buffalo Bill and the Indians, it is an semi-interesting semi-failure.

it was a very odd film but I enjoyed it

I hated Popeye and never looked at it a second time; thought Buffalo Bill was pretty good, better than some of the films on that list.

extremely weird to do a top 20 list for a guy who directed 35-ish movies. Why not just rank them all as in the clickbait trend these days?

they do these top 20 lists every week, this one is presumably to tie in with the Altman season at the BFI

I saw Popeye at the cinema when I was about 7 and can barely remember anything about it other than it seemed visually quite unusual to me at the time and for some reason I have a much clearer memory of seeing trashy but extremely fun sci-fi b-movies of that era like The Black Hole and Battle Beyond The Stars.

I was probably the same age when I saw Popeye and my main memory of it was my dad complaining about it as we were leaving the theater.

Bad news for fans with multi-region players:

Some followers of the INDICATOR label may be aware that, some years back, we teased Robert Altman’s CALIFORNIA SPLIT for a future release. Sadly, and despite a great deal of time and effort, legal complications have proven too much of a hurdle and we can now confirm that this release will not be happening. We are, of course, as upset with this news as you are, but hope to make up for it with many exciting releases of other great films to come.

For all its raging misogyny, MASH still holds up well.

XP Some good chat about that with a poster who works with the label over at criterionforum (starts at post #32)

https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=752664#p752645

TL;DR version is it came down to budgetary reasons that weren't obvious when Indicator initially licensed the title, and they can't fulfill now.

A friend was telling me about Ann Prentiss from California Split (and Paula's younger sister--you'd swear they were identical twins). God, what a story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Prentiss

Prentiss was convicted in a California court of a 1996 assault against her father, and a subsequent threat against members of her family. The district attorney claimed that Prentiss, while incarcerated on the assault charge, had attempted to hire another inmate to kill three people, including her father and actor-director Richard Benjamin, her brother-in-law. On July 23, 1997, the court sentenced her to 19 years in prison.

She was still there when she died in 2010.

For some reason the second sentence of that wikipedia article is: "Her father was of Sicilian descent." hmmm.

It was between the sisters, Aimless. He had nothing to do with it.

Whoa, that story's a trip. We watched The Out of Towners over the holidays and were like 'why is Paula Prentiss in this tiny little walk-on role?' which is when we learned of the wholly separate existence of Ann Prentiss.

They have the same voice too, which is freaky

Very much so. I saw the Out of Towners a few times as a kid--no recollection of her in that (she plays a stewardess).

Bad news for fans with multi-region players:

Some followers of the INDICATOR label may be aware that, some years back, we teased Robert Altman’s CALIFORNIA SPLIT for a future release. Sadly, and despite a great deal of time and effort, legal complications have proven too much of a hurdle and we can now confirm that this release will not be happening. We are, of course, as upset with this news as you are, but hope to make up for it with many exciting releases of other great films to come.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Thursday, 17 February 2022 14:59 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just noticed last night that Amazon Prime (in the UK) have California Split in the correct aspect ratio and with all music cues intact, no cuts. It's leaving in 30 days. Even by Altman's standards, it's a wonderfully woozy film - sometimes the camera seems to just drift away from the action and there are whole scenes where the main actors are shot virtually out of frame. Laughed at the Aaron Spelling producer credit - he must have been DELIGHTED when he saw the finished film.