Inside Llewyn Davis

“I’m not the one you want, babe

I’m not the one you need

You say you’re lookin’ for someone

Never weak but always strong

To protect you an’ defend you

Whether you are right or wrong

But it ain’t me, babe

No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe

It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe”

-   “It Ain’t Me, Babe” by Bob Dylan

Every time I watch Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), I’m reminded of the Bob Dylan song, “It Ain’t Me, Babe” and how the lyrics pertain to the film’s titular character. Set in 1961, it is the Coen brothers’ bittersweet love letter to folk music. Even though the film takes place before Dylan’s career took off, his shadow looms large because we know, in hindsight, how much he will influence the New York City Greenwich Village scene and beyond. Instead of focusing on that, the Coens decide to chronicle a week’s worth of misadventures from Llewyn’s life and how he manages to self-sabotage every potential shot at success. Partly inspired by folk singer Dave Von Ronk, Llewyn is brilliantly portrayed by Oscar Isaac who depicts his character as equal parts gifted musician and misanthrope.

The film opens with Llewyn’s moving cover of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” in a small nightclub in the Village. Isaac is actually playing and singing live, delivering a soulful rendition of this song. It sets a definite tone and mood, complete with the stylized cinematography that resembles a slightly faded photograph. Llewyn’s life is a mess. His musical partner committed suicide and he’s attempting a solo career with little success. His debut record isn’t selling very well and his manager (Jerry Grayson) has no idea how to promote it or him, for that matter. Personally, he lives a transient lifestyle, crashing on the couches of various friends and ex-girlfriends, chief among them is Jean Berkey (Carey Mulligan).

It’s not that Llewyn doesn’t know what makes a hit record. He recognizes what songs people like as evident in the one that fellow folk singer Troy Nelson (Stark Sands) performs with Jean and her husband Jim (Justin Timberlake) that the audience spontaneously sings a-long to. Llewyn stubbornly picks songs to play that are powerful but not very catchy. When he does get a shot on cashing in on a potential hit record, he forgoes royalties for money up front because he is in desperate need of it. The scene depicting the recording of said song is hilarious as Isaac and Justin Timberlake work out the arrangement while Adam Driver, in a memorable cameo, warms up in the background with all sorts of odd sounds. Then, they record the song and you can tell that it is going to be a hit. Arriving in Chicago partway through the film, Llewyn seeks out legendary nightclub owner Bud Grossman (F.Murray Abraham) and plays him a song full of feeling and emotion but it’s not much of a toe-tapper or, as Bud tells him afterwards, “I don’t see a lot of money here.”

Along the way Llewyn acquires a traveling companion – a cat that he accidentally let out at a place he was staying. The musician loses the feline a couple of times but they always seem to find each other. Inside Llewyn Davis segues into a proper road movie when Llewyn shares a car ride to Chicago with an obnoxious jazz musician (Coen regular John Goodman) and nearly mute beat poet (Garrett Hedlund). We feel Llewyn’s pain as he spends hours enduring the jazzman’s insults and the driver’s monosyllabic responses (rivaling Peter Storemare’s equally silent type in Fargo). Their journey feels like an eternity until the poet tells a cryptic story and then recites one of his poems.

Oscar Isaac is a revelation in this film, digging deep to find a way to make an unlikeable character like Llewyn watchable. The actor uncovers Llewyn’s feelings in a heartfelt scene when he visits his father who is sick. He plays a song for him that he used to like. Early on, his sister (Jeanine Serralles) hints at a contentious relationship between father and son and through song the latter tries to reconnect with the former. The stern-faced patriarch says nothing but he seems to find some kind of peace from Llewyn’s performance. It is a touching moment until the Coens punctuate it with a bit of a cruel poop joke.

Llewyn’s music comes out of a great pain that is conveyed through the emotion in his singing and playing. Clearly, he has not gotten over his partner’s death and it colors his entire worldview. As a result, he doesn’t let anyone get too close lest he loses them, too. Isaac refuses to shy away from Llewyn’s less sympathetic aspects. When he’s on stage, however, he’s capable of such warmth and emotion as evident in the absolutely moving final musical number, a powerful rendition of “Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song).”

Cast against type, Carey Mulligan portrays Jean as an acerbic woman that clearly resents Llewyn over the failure of their past relationship. She often spews venom at his direction, still bitter over how things went between them. Jean knows that she can’t depend on him and even though he still has feelings for her knows, deep down, that it will never work out between them because he’s emotionally unavailable. Mulligan does an excellent job playing Llewyn’s angry foil while also hinting at possible unresolved feelings towards him.

Around 2005 or 2006, Joel Coen thought of a possible scenario for a film: what if a folk singer was beaten up outside a Greenwich Village nightclub in 1961? It stayed with him for years and with his brother Ethan they decided to come up with a film that would explain this incident. The Coens liked the early 1960s era of folk music and were drawn to Dave Van Ronk’s posthumous memoir The Mayor of MacDougal Street because it was a “document of its time,” and really gave “a sense of what it was like to be a working musician at that time,” said Ethan in an interview. They decided to option the book with the notion of using aspects of the musician’s life in their film. Van Ronk moved to Greenwich Village as a teenager and spent the next five decades there recording several albums that mixed blues, jazz and sea chanteys. He championed Bob Dylan early on as well as aspiring songwriters like Joni Mitchell.

Similarities to Van Ronk included having Llewyn sing three Van Ronk-associated songs, the faux cover of Llewyn’s solo album is a direct nod to Van Ronk’s 1963 LP Inside Dave Van Ronk. Both Llewyn and Van Ronk spent time in the merchant marines, went to Chicago to audition for the famous Gate of Horn club only to be rejected, and decided not to join a Peter, Paul and Mary-type folk group. That being said, those close to Van Ronk were quick to point out that, personality-wise, Llewyn doesn’t resemble him at all – people slept on his couch not the other way around and he was more philanthropic whereas Llewyn is misanthropic.

The Coens researched the time period by watching various documentaries, variety shows from the era, and read Dylan’s memoir where he talks about the New York music scene when he arrived. Early on, while writing the screenplay, the Coens wanted to reveal at the end that most of the film had been a flashback leading up to the beginning again and then they had to figure out what happened in-between. They also involved legendary music producer T. Bone Burnett, bouncing ideas off of him.

He not only assembled a powerhouse group of musicians to record the soundtrack (that included the likes of Marcus Mumford and the Punch Brothers) but also worked with the cast in recreating the music of the period. The Coens auditioned several famous musicians who were able to nail performing a song, “then we’d ask them to do a scene, and then you’d go, ‘Um, yeah, this isn’t going to work.’ You can get almost anybody who’s got a modicum of talent through a scene, or two, or three, but you can’t do that for an entire movie,” said Joel.

Casting director Ellen Chenoweth suggested Oscar Isaac because he was an actor who could play and sing. She showed the Coens an audition tape and they were impressed enough that they passed it on to Burnett who told them to cast the actor as Llewyn. Burnett was impressed with Isaac’s skills: “I haven’t worked with an actor who could play and sing this style of music this well. You can’t do it with bluster, you have to do it with the rawest honesty you can.” All the songs were done live, from start to finish, sometimes 30 takes of one song. Isaac didn’t mind as he loved the music and had been playing the songs 100 times a day in preparation.

In terms of the film’s look, the Coens used the album cover for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan as a reference point. They told cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel they wanted “a slushy New York,” he remembered, “We had to feel the winter and that dirty feeling when the snow starts to melt.” He and the Coens decided to shot on film stock because it “seemed appropriate for the period because of the grain structure of the film stock.” Principal photography took place in various locations in and around New York City over six weeks.

Much like the Coens’ A Serious Man (2009), Inside Llewyn Davis is about a protagonist at the mercy of an uncaring world but he’s also in control of certain aspects of his life, always making the wrong decision as if he is out punish himself by taking a harder route. An argument could be made that Llewyn doesn’t want to sell-out and he even accuses Jean of being a careerist at one point, but I think he’s simply punishing himself for being unable to prevent his partner from committing suicide.

“Go lightly from the ledge, babe

Go lightly on the ground

I’m not the one you want, babe

I will only let you down

You say you’re lookin’ for someone

Who will promise never to part

Someone to close his eyes for you

Someone to close his heart

Someone who will die for you an’ more

But it ain’t me, babe”

Despite all the poor decisions and setbacks, Llewyn soldiers on with a determination that is admirable or foolhardy. At the rate he’s going he will always be a struggling musician and mainstream success will elude him. As if to reinforce the point, the film ends with Llewyn leaving a nightclub he frequents just as a young Bob Dylan takes the stage and begins to play. He has grown tired of the daily grind of a struggling musician and the Coens refuse to romanticize it. Instead, they opt for their usual objective viewpoint that presents a world and the characters that inhabit it without judgment. As a result, they are sometimes mistakenly accused of not caring about their characters, which is not true. A lot of work went into constructing the world of Inside Llewyn Davis and the creation of a complex character as Llewyn. They are helped considerably by Davis’ wonderful performance. For every Bob Dylan that makes it big there are all kinds of Llewyn Davises that do not for various reasons. Their stories are just as interesting and worth telling as Llewyn’s.

SOURCES

B, Benjamin. “Folk Implosion.” American Cinematographer. January 2014.

Browne, David. “Meet the Folks Singer Who Inspired Inside Llewyn Davis.” Rolling Stone. December 2, 2013.

Cieply, Michael. “MacDougal Street Homesick Blues.” The New York Times. January 27, 2013.

Hiatt, Brian. “The Coen Brothers’ Classic Folk Tale: Behind Inside Llewyn Davis.” Rolling Stone. November 21, 2013.

Inside Llewyn Davis Production Notes. 2013.

Nicholson, Amy. “Interview: Oscar Isaac of Inside Llewyn Davis.” Village Voice. December 4, 2013.

Rohter, Larry. “For a Village Troubadour, a Late Encore.” The New York Times. December 5, 2013.

Ryzik, Melena. “30 Takes of One Song? No Sweat for Llewyn’s Star.” The New York Times. December 6, 2013.

Popeye

Popeye (1980) is the film you get when the powers that be entrust a big budget, high-profile project to an idiosyncratic maverick like Robert Altman who proceeds to take the studio’s money and produces a fascinating cinematic oddity. Never one to play it safe, he enlisted fellow iconoclastic artists like musician Harry Nilsson to compose the score, acclaimed playwright Jules Feiffer to write the screenplay and cast comedian Robin Williams, in only his second film role and first starring one, as the titular character. Looking back at it now, it’s amazing that the film ever got made in the first place (it almost didn’t). It is also a powerful reminder of just how safe and formulaic these kinds of films have become over the years (one only has to look as far as Michael Bay’s Transformers movies). And this is due in large part to publicized commercial failures like Popeye, Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977), and Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart (1982), which resulted in Hollywood freezing out these darlings of 1970s American cinema in favor of successful producers like Joel Silver, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer who helped usher in a flashy style over substance that reflected the materialistic decade of the 1980s.

The film starts off on a dramatic note as we see Popeye (Robin Williams) arrive at the seaside town of Sweethaven on a rowboat during a dark and stormy night. As the opening credits end, night gives way to day and we are introduced to the town and its denizens. This also allows us a chance to marvel at the impressive production design as the entire shanty town of Sweethaven was built from scratch. It looks like a fully-functional, lived-in place much like the grungy, frontier town in Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971).

As soon as Popeye sets foot on the docks he’s greeted by the local taxman (Donald Moffat) and hit with a ridiculous number of taxes (docking tax, new-in-town tax, leaving-your-junk-around-the-warf tax, and so on). It also gives us the first indication of Robin Williams’ take on Popeye, which is muttering to others and mostly to himself. In this respect, his portrayal of the iconic sailor is reminiscent of Elliott Gould’s version of Philip Marlowe in Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973). Popeye is on a journey to find his estranged father who left him when he was a baby. In a nice touch, he keeps an empty frame next to his bed with the words, “Me Poppa” scrawled where a picture should be.

The director applies his trademark layered audio tracks with a nicely orchestrated dinner sequence at the Oyl boarding house where Popeye. Olive (Shelley Duvall) and her family talk about Bluto (Paul L. Smith), her fiancé and a large man who resides on a ship known as the Vile Body. He enforces the various town ordinances, in particular, the 9 p.m. curfew where all the town lights must be out. Popeye gets ready to eat only to realize by the end of the scene that dinner is over and everyone has left the table. He mutters bemusedly to no one in particular, “Never good to be too full, I guess.”

The film’s first action sequence takes place at a local diner when six ruffians (including a young Dennis Franz) make fun of Popeye’s pappy and provoke him into showcasing his formidable brawling skills. Altman employs gifted physical performers to give the fight a stylized look as innocent bystanders do all kinds of pratfalls trying to avoid getting pulled into the fracas. It is refreshing to see a pre-CGI comic book adaptation eschew expensive special effects in favor of the natural physical prowess of an actor. For someone not known for action/adventure, the action sequences, especially Popeye’s fight with a giant octopus, are inventively staged by Altman. He favors long shots so that you can see all the action and, in the case of the climactic battle between Bluto and Popeye, the actors do most of their own stunts.

Popeye was Williams’ first starring role in a film and he certainly picked an ambitious one, playing an iconic character first popularized in comic strip form in the 1930s. It was the Fleischer brothers cartoons from that era that most people remember and was the criteria which many critics used to criticize his performance. This is quite unfair as Altman and Feiffer were trying to evoke the Popeye of E.C. Segar’s original comic strip. The actor does his best to ground the character while adding an air of whimsy to most of the things he says. Popeye is content to take things in stride, but isn’t afraid to stand up for himself. Williams, ever the expressive performer, is ideally cast as Popeye. The comedian grimaces and mutters his way through the film in a way that must’ve freaked out the studio who fretted so much about whether audiences would understand anything he said or not, forcing him to re-record Popeye’s dialogue

If there was any actress that was born to play Olive Oyl it would be Shelley Duvall. With her tall, slender frame and large expressive eyes, she does a fantastic job of embodying the high-strung Olive. There’s an adorable dorkiness to Duvall’s take on the character that is quite endearing. It also helps that she has good chemistry with Williams. They have a nice scene together when Popeye and Olive argue over how best to parent Swee’Pea (Wesley Ivan Hurt), a baby they found abandoned in a basket the night before. There’s another scene with the kid where Popeye and Olive serenade each other under the guise of singing the baby to sleep that is charming in its sincerity. The highlight of their sweet romance (and of Duvall’s performance) is when Olive serenades Popeye by singing “He Needs Me,” which is one of the loveliest, most fanciful love songs. Duvall pulls it off as Olive pines for Popeye by singing and dancing her way into his heart. The song would be resurrected years later by Altman devotee Paul Thomas Anderson in his own quirky romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love (2002).

Far from the cinematic trainwreck that critics of the time pronounced it to be, Popeye is an engaging, fun fairy tale of a film that doesn’t have a cynical or crass bone in its body. This sincerity extends to Harry Nilsson’s delightful songs full of innocence and romance that probably flew over a lot of kids’ heads at the time. I know it did with me and it took years for me to appreciate the artistry that went into them. The decision to include numerous musical numbers and have the actors sing was certainly a ballsy one and adds to the stylized feel of the entire film. Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall were not accomplished singers and so having them to try carry a tune wasn’t always pleasing to the ear, but in the case of “He Needs Me” there is a sweet simplicity that works. There is an unpolished yearning in Duvall’s voice that you wouldn’t get in the same way with a professional singer.

  

After seeing the Broadway musical adaptation of Annie in 1977, Hollywood producer Robert Evans was so taken with it that he pursued the film rights. However, he was outbid for them. He still had his heart set on adapting a comic strip as a movie musical. As luck would have it a Paramount Studio executive reminded him that they had the rights to Popeye. Evans decided he would produce it. He was good friends with actor Dustin Hoffman and contacted him about playing the titular character.

Executive producer Richard Sylbert suggested Evans contact screenwriter Jules Feiffer (Little Murders) to write the screenplay. He jumped at the opportunity because the writer hadn’t had a script produced into a film since the early 1970s and idolized the work of E.C. Segar who created Popeye. Feiffer agreed to do it if he could replicate the tone of the comic strip and not the animated Fleischer brothers short films from the late ‘30s and early 1940s. Evans agreed, but under the condition that the film appeal to both adults and kids. Feiffer started by reading a book about Segar’s career. He found himself drawn to how civil Popeye was “about the awfulness of everybody,” and “a genuine charm … a civility towards his view of the universe.” Feiffer decided to have the romance between Popeye and Olive Oyl as the heart of the film while also having the sailor search for his estranged father.

It was soon announced that Lily Tomlin would play Olive Oyl and Hal Ashby was hired to direct. To prepare for the role, Hoffman took tap-dancing lessons and worked with a choreographer. During the rewriting process, Feiffer and Hoffman began to drift apart for reasons that are still unclear. Feiffer said, “It ended up just very unfriendly, and I still don’t remember finding out a damn thing about what he felt about the movie.” Incredibly, Evans sided with Feiffer and not his good friend Hoffman who subsequently left the project. With the lack of a bankable movie star, the project fell apart with studio executives losing interest and Ashby and Tomlin moving on to other films.

Evans stuck with the project and claimed that the material was so strong anyone could play Popeye even up and coming comedian Robin Williams who was enjoying success on the Mork and Mindy television show. Paramount executives loved the idea of Williams as Popeye and the project picked up momentum with Gilda Radner being considered for Olive Oyl thanks to the success of Saturday Night Live. Evans still needed a director. Arthur Penn and Mike Nichols were considered, but Robert Altman received a copy of the script. He was interested, but only if he would have creative control. Evans met with Altman and was impressed with his take on the material. He offered the director the job much to the chagrin of the studio who wanted to go with a more commercially viable director. At the time, Altman was coming off successive box office failures. However, Evans stood by Altman with Williams supporting him as well. The studio relented and Evans said, “It’s got to be exciting to make it. I’d rather take a chance on falling on my ass but possibly hitting magic than just make something that’s predictable.”

While Evans went off to Texas, overseeing preparations for Urban Cowboy (1980), Altman began populating the cast and crew with his regulars, including the likes of Paul Dooley and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, which didn’t sit well with studio executives that needed convincing. Most interestingly, Altman hired singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson to compose the score despite others warning him against it. Williams supported the decision early on and after meeting the man, Altman was convinced.

Feiffer had his reservations about Altman because he knew of the director’s reputation for straying from the script and encouraging improvisation from his actors. His initial meetings with the director did little to reassure him. Feiffer also didn’t like the lyrics Nilsson wrote for many of the songs as he felt they conflicted with his script. Altman wasn’t convinced that he would be able to work with Evans or Feiffer who didn’t think he could work with Altman or Nilsson. Altman and Feiffer got along during meetings about the script, but once filming began the latter was unhappy with Williams’ improvisations. He complained to Altman who in turn complained about Feiffer to Evans. Altman told Feiffer to speak with Williams privately and that smoothed things over.

Altman loved shooting on location and away from the intrusive presence of the studio. To this end, he picked the island of Malta for the film. The remote location had its setback, however, as the production was plagued by bad weather, special effects problems, and accidents and injuries during filming which resulted in the production going $20+ million over budget. The production ran into difficulties with the creation of Popeye’s iconic muscular forearms which didn’t look right. Williams remembered that they were like “wearing two long gloves that you use to clean the toilet.” After a few tests proved that they didn’t work, the makeup person was fired and an Italian makeup crew was brought in and they did a much better job. Meanwhile, Altman had to film around Williams for almost four weeks while the arms were redesigned.

Due to the isolated location and shooting frequently at night, a lot of alcohol and drugs were consumed by the cast and crew. Altman’s wife, Kathryn remembers, “Everybody was very loaded. A lot of tantrums and fights and tantrums.” Williams concurred: “When we were on Malta, we were on everything but skates. And then they sent the skates in and it got interesting. The open bar at dailies? I think anything, everything was going on.” In addition to the pressures of starring in his first lead role on a big studio film, Williams and wife were not getting along and got into shouting matches after a day of filming had ended.

A six-track studio was built on the island for Nilsson and his musicians. He wrote at least three songs for the film there. Partway through principal photography, Altman did not know the final sequence of songs in the film and this upset the mercurial Nilsson resulting in him leaving the island in a rage. Arranger and conductor Van Dyke Parks took over and completed the score. Most of the tracks that had been laid down were not rerecorded with more polish and Altman liked their raw quality.

Despite all the tension and mishaps during principal photography, Altman cultivated a real sense of community, encouraging the cast and crew to bring family and friends to the location. Movies were flown in for weekend double features. Talent shows were organized and everyone got together to watch dailies. There were also many after hours parties hosted by Altman and his wife.

Far from box office bomb, Popeye made a profit, but the not the kind of numbers the studio was hoping for and this resulted in the film being forever tagged as a commercial flop. Not surprisingly, Popeye received mixed reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “Popeye then, is lots of fun. It suggests that it is possible to take the broad strokes of a comic strip and turn them into sophisticated entertainment.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “You keep expecting the film to erupt with the kind of boisterousness that is only possible in a musical. It never does. The dances, like the music, are tentative and restrained.” Pauline Kael felt that the film didn’t “come together, though, and much of it is cluttered, squawky, and eerily unfunny … But there are lovely moments – especially when Olive is loping along or singing.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, “This is high-risk chemistry, and the results are bizarre … Popeye’s air of alienated whimsy makes for an odd ‘family movie’ indeed.”

At the time, there was a trend to resurrect iconic characters from a bygone era thanks to the success of Superman: The Movie (1978), which begat high-profile commercial and critical failures like Flash Gordon (1980), The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981), Bo Derek’s Tarzan the Ape Man (1981). Unfortunately, Popeye gets lumped in there as well. It was Altman’s swan song with Hollywood and its highly publicized failure effectively relegated him to outsider status for the rest of the ‘80s until his triumphant return with The Player (1992).

SOURCES

McGilligan, Patrick. Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff. St. Martin’s Press. 1989.

Zuckoff, Mitchell. Robert Altman: An Oral Biography. Alfred A. Knopf. 2009.

Blu-Ray Review of the Week: Nashville: Criterion Collection

At the time, Nashville (1975) was Robert Altman’s magnum opus, a sprawling tale featuring 24 characters over five days. Not only does he manage to juggle all of these storylines, but is able to seamlessly interconnect them in major or minor ways. The end result was an unflinching look at America through Altman’s eyes – a kaleidoscope approach that he helped pioneer and that flew in the face of conventional Hollywood filmmaking, but could only have been pushed through the system during the 1970s.

Altman’s playful, freewheeling style is evident right from the get-go as the cast is introduced via a faux television ad for a greatest hits record collection. Then, he proceeds to immerse us in the lives of several characters, presenting them in a non-judgmental way as if he was anthropologist of American culture. Nashville is a cross-section examination of the city’s country music scene, from its royalty, like elder statesman Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) and Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley), to its aspiring up-and-comers, like Sueleen Gay. We also meet various sycophants that orbit these people, as well as musicians, like Tom Frank (Keith Carradine), that exist on the fringes.

The ubiquitous van blasting presidential hopeful Hal Phillip Walker’s political beliefs and Jeff Goldblum’s amateur magician riding around on a chopper provides the connecting tissue that binds all of these characters. As he’s so good at doing, Altman captures key private and public moments of these characters, which provides crucial insights in scene-sized chunks that require the viewer to pay close attention because there are so many people to keep track of. Many of these characters are so fascinating in their own right that they could easily star in their own film and, at times, it feels like certain scenes could be jumping off points for potential spin-off films.

It goes without saying that the cast is uniformly excellent with the likes of Keith Carradine playing a selfish folk singer, Lily Tomlin as a middle-class housewife with two deaf children, and Ronee Blakley as a famous country singer standing out in particular. Also of note are Jeff Goldblum and Shelley Duvall making quite an impression in minor roles as eccentric oddballs. It doesn’t hurt that these actors get to work from Joan Tewkesbury’s brilliant screenplay and are directed by actor-friendly Altman.

To the uninitiated, his mosaic approach may seem scattered and unfocused, but he’s juxtaposing intimate moments with big splashy scenes to provide fascinating slices of life. You don’t have to appreciate country music to enjoy Nashville. You just need to be drawn to interesting characters and human behavior of which this film has in abundance. Altman had a great run during the ‘70s and this definitely one of his best films from this period if not his entire career.

Special Features:

This new Blu-Ray transfer of Nashville looks fantastic. The folks at Criterion should be commended for the excellent work on this print, which has incredible detail while still retaining its filmic look.

Ported over from the Paramount DVD is an audio commentary by director Robert Altman. He points out that the cast wrote most of the songs for their respective characters. All of the songs were done in-house and when Nashville came out, local musicians hated them. He mentions the numerous collaborators he worked with in front of and behind the camera and explains what they contributed to the film. Altman talks about his approach to filmmaking on this engaging and informative track.

Also included is a fantastic theatrical trailer.

“The Making of Nashville” features various cast and crew members recounting their roles in this film and what they think of it now. They talk about getting involved in the project and their impressions of Altman. The likes of Keith Carradine, Lily Tomlin and Michael Murphy (among several others) tell fantastic filming anecdotes and address Altman’s famous habit of encouraging improvisation among the cast.

“Robert Altman’s Interviews” include one from 1975 when Nashville was released and he talks about the film’s origins and how hard it was to get made. There’s another from 2000 where he talks about various cast members and their characters. The third one is from 2002 and Altman points out how Nashville was the first big film where he had complete creative control.

There is “Behind the Scenes” footage of the opening traffic jam scene and the final one. It’s pretty grainy and has no sound, but does provide a glimpse into Altman’s working methods.

Finally, there is “Keith Carradine Demo.” Altman recorded three songs that the actor created fro the film in his office and you can listen to each one.