- Title: USA: 25TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING OF ROBERT ALTMAN'S FILM "NASHVILLE"
- Date: 10th July 2000
- Summary: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) THE FILM'S CO-STAR, HENRY GIBSON, TALKING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FILM, SAYING "Because it broke so many rules, because it was cinematically incorrect, because it caught the pulse of the nation -- we were filming that during those devastating last forty-five days of the
- Embargoed: 25th July 2000 13:00
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- Location: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
- Country: United Kingdom
- Reuters ID: LVA2IHM2JIKNW117SQFFOLMJAZD6
- Story Text: To commemorate the 25th anniversary of "Nashville,"
and its release on dvd, a new print of the epochal Robert Altman film was recently screened in Beverly Hills, allowing for the cast and crew to reflect on its making.
A new print of "Nashville," Robert Altman's 1975 epic that brings together a country music festival and a presidential candidate rally, was screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently in Beverly Hills.
Altman was present to participate in a cast-and-crew reunion following the screening.
Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Directing, "Nashville" stars David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Timothy Brown, Keith Carradine, Lily Tomlin, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Barbara Harris and Shelley Duvall. Both Blakley and Tomlin were nominated for their supporting roles. Carradine took home an Oscar statuette, not for his portrayal of Tom Frank, but for writing the music and lyrics for the original song, "I'm Easy."
"Nashville" portrays a microcosm of American society, as seen through the eyes of disparate characters and story lines.
For many, "Nashville" mirrored the times in which it was set, something the film's Allen Garfield praises Altman for. "I think it had to do with the man's uncanny vision of what he felt was healthy and sick in America. It went far beyond the music landscape, even though Nashville and the music -- country and western scene may have been a vivid metaphor for it, but it went into what was happening in the country at that time," Garfield told Reuters.
For his part, Altman humbly responds: "You know, there are warning signs about everything and they're picked up intuitively, long before they happen. I don't think there's any magic about that -- we dealt with what we felt was occurring at the time, not what would occur, but what was occurring,"
Weaving his players through the course of five days, Altman brings country singers, political aides, Nashville residents and visitors together for the local country music show and an election campaign. Tomlin stars as unhappy housewife, while Geraldine Chaplin is Opal, A British journalist filming a documentary on Nashville. Ronee Blakly plays a contry artist on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The film also featured guest appearances from Elliot Gould and Julie Christie. A young Jeff Goldblum co-stars as a spaced out scooter-riding drifter."I loved being part of it, and now I know of course that it was innovative and interesting and something that I would have loved seeing at the time had I not been involved in it -- would have been very excited about, Goldblum told Reuters prior to the film's screening. So, imagining that I was actually there, I'm awful happy."
The screenplay was written by Joan Tewkesbury.
Altman's first commercial and critical triumph came with 1970's "M*A*S*H,"for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. The two other films for which Altman has been nominated are "The Player" (1992) and "Short Cuts" (1993), Born in 1925, Altman made industrial films in his hometown of Kansas City after serving as a bomber pilot in WWII. His first feature, "The Delinquents," was made in 1957 but for ten years following it, Altman worked mostly in television, directing episodes of series including "Bonanza"
and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." He returned to feature films in 1968 with "Countdown," and "M*A*S*H" followed two years later. The success of that film brought numerous offers from studios for big-budget productions, but Altman instead directed "Brewster McCloud," a modest allegorical fantasy.
Since then, Altman's fierce individualism has resulted in his frequently working outside the Hollywood establishment. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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