Nashville (1975)

"It's Nashville. Sing!"

Someone should have mentioned to me that at least half of those 159 minutes will be taken up by singing, I'd have watched the whole movie at once. But it's probably my fault because it's Nashville and it's 1970-s.

I like movies like this: the ones that are not character-driven but those that are tied together by something bigger than just people. Places, events, domes (that's an allusion to Under The Dome, currently on CBS, and I have missed the last episode and haven't read review, so I'm in denial that it's all gonna be alright and there aren't gonna be a lot of cliches, but I'm getting off the topic). I prefer a cacophony of voices over one or two deciding what I ought to think about the world and how I'm supposed to view it. I like different opinions because it reveals life from all kinds of points of view and you are the only one who gets to figure out which one is right.

I also strongly believe that if a writer manages to pen something like this they're genius. Because the story comes not from one character but from all of them, pouring out of them and transforming everything around. I guess I'm essentially talking about freedom of speech. Well.

I chose this photo to represent the movie because this blondie up there, in her short skirt and ripped tights is what Nashville is. She's like the city that watches from behind the curtain at everything that's going on and chooses just the right moment to act. They're Nashville, they're singing. No matter what those newcomers, strangers, wannabes, managers, producers, BBC journalists try to do, they're still the same, they're still the one.

When the audience boos at Barbara Jean, when they make Sueleen Gay do the striptease, when the BBC chick misses her story getting lost in the crowd of people, when a guy from another city kills Barbara, and the politics mixed into all of this, it is the power of the city.

Everyone who comes to Nashville is there to please it, so that the city will make them famous or rich. But the essence of the city always stays the same, and no one can change it. Stars come and go, people, too, but Nashville is here to stay.

But while watching I kept thinking: are they all just nuts or are we just too boring?