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Do audiences ever ask for a History Lesson? Robert Altman gives them a smart, if diffuse, image of America as a showbiz invention, commercialized and packaged. Paul Newman is the prepackaged white hero surrounded by a jolly circus; Buffalo Bill’s trick seems to be to get his colleagues, the dispossessed minorities and especially the vanquished Native Americans to cooperate with his self-aggrandizing fantasy. One of Altman’s better scattershot ensembles sketches an amusingly hollow Buffalo Bill in Paul Newman, but the director’s style keeps emotional involvement at arm’s length… make that telephoto lens’ length.

Buffalo Bill and the Indians

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 124, 105 min. / Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson / Street Date December 14, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Burt Lancaster, Kevin McCarthy, Harvey Keitel, Will Sampson, Allan F. Nicholls, Geraldine Chaplin, John Considine,...

The New York Times was first to report that celebratory plans have been set for the groundbreaking musical Hair's 50th Anniversary which will take place on January 21, 2017 at La MaMa. The event will include original cast members Natalie Mosco Allan Nicholls the Rev. Marjorie Lipari and Dale Soules,Andre De Shields, the show's creatorsGalt MacDermot and James Rado and more.

The New York Times was first to report that celebratory plans have been set for the groundbreaking musical Hair's 50th Anniversary which will take place on January 21, 2017 at La MaMa. The event will include original cast members Natalie Mosco Allan Nicholls the Rev. Marjorie Lipari and Dale Soules,Andre De Shields, the show's creatorsGalt MacDermot and James Rado and more.

“Y’all take it easy now. This isn’t Dallas, it’s Nashville! They can’t do this to us here in Nashville! Let’s show them what we’re made of. Come on everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!”

Nashville screens one time only Thursday, September 24th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar Blvd, St. Louis) at 7pm

In a decade of great films, Nashville is one of the greatest. I saw Nashville during its initial theatrical release and have seen it several times since but it has not played on the big screen (at least in St. Louis) in a long time. In 1974 director Robert Altman was directing films for United Artists and wanted them to produce his film Thieves Like Us. They agreed if he would agree to direct a story about country music that they had a script for. He rejected the script and said he would offer them...

Director: Robert Altman Writers: Arthur Kopit (play Indians), Alan Rudolph (screenplay), Robert Altman (screenplay) Starring: Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy, Harvey Keitel, Allan F. Nicholls, Geraldine Chaplin, John Considine, Robert DoQui, Denver Pyle, Frank Kaquitts, Will Sampson, Pat McCormick, Shelley Duvall, Burt Lancaster Thanks to Kino Lorber Studio Classics, there’s now an excuse to revisit a film you […]...

When I expressed excitement over the fact that Robert Altman’s stunning “Nashville” was being released in a Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition a few months back, a colleague asked me why I loved the film and I had trouble verbalizing my feelings about Altman’s sprawling, brilliant tapestry of characters. Watching the excellent new documentary about the making-of the film on the Criterion release makes it clear that I’m not alone.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

As the interview participants try to sum up why “Nashville” is so remarkable, they throw out a dozen or so different themes that the movies captures from the similarities between entertainment & politics to honor to pride to artistic integrity to what writer Joan Tewkesbury says is the film’s focus on how we will all eventually “be called on our shit.” Clearly, “Nashville” is not an easy movie to summarize. It is a landmark, revolutionary film in terms of structure,...

Americana With Bite

By Raymond Benson

Robert Altman enjoyed a successful and critically-acclaimed run as a director in the 1970s, and for my money, Nashville is the pinnacle, the quintessential Altman Film. Along with M*A*S*H, and later works like A Wedding and Short Cuts, Nashville is a large ensemble picture with numerous characters coincidentally crisscrossing throughout the story, creating a style and structure that Altman made his own (it’s a safe bet that he was assuredly influenced by Jean Renoir’s 1939 classic, The Rules of the Game, which also displays a canvas of quirky characters interacting at a gathering). The “plot,” as it were, concerns the preparation and execution of a political campaign benefit concert—and the camera follows twenty-four eccentric souls around as it happens.

The citizens of Nashville, Tennessee, where the picture was shot on location, were very upset by Altman’s film. They...

Nashville

Written by Joan Tewkesbury

Directed by Robert Altman

USA, 1975

At the Cannes preview screening of Apocalypse Now in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola infamously declared, “Apocalypse Now is not about Vietnam; it is Vietnam.” Watching Robert Altman’s 1975 opus Nashville, perhaps the best film in a career full of exceptional work, one gets the feeling that it isn’t really about America; it is America. With its eclectic cast of individuals from all walks of life (typical for Altman), its sprawling narrative of disjointed personal and professional connections (ditto), and its setting of a distinctly American city around the time of our nation’s bicentennial, Nashville comes across as more than a fictional depiction of characters embodying certain nationalistic traits; it truly feels like the film is America in a nutshell. In the words of Keith Carradine, it’s an “extraordinary accomplishment.”

Now, with The Criterion Collection release of the film...

Robert Altman’s Nashville resurfaces for the home video market in a nicely packaged DVD/Blu-ray combo set from Criterion. A Best Picture nominee from 1975, this sprawling satire both lampoons and laments the American Dream, which was beginning to show signs of serious leakage – if not outright rupture – by the mid 1970s. An American president, who two years earlier had been reelected by one of the largest margins in the nation’s history, had just resigned in disgrace while a long, bloody and bitterly divisive war had been revealed as corrupt and pointless. Yet, to the array of hopeful goofballs in Nashville, America was still the land of opportunity; its dark and dank country music venues the key to quick fame and easy riches.

As conceived by Altman and writer Joan Tewksbury, everything about Nashville is larger than life. From its massive melange of roughly two dozen principle characters to...

Nashville (Criterion Collection) I still need to dig through the special features on Criterion's new release of Robert Altman's Nashville, but I have already watched the film and this new 2K restoration looks great, just as you would expect it to. Included is a 2000 audio commentary featuring Altman and most notably a newly produced, 71-minute making of documentary featuring interviews with the likes of Ronee Blakley, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, Allan Nicholls, Lily Tomlin, screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, assistant director Alan Rudolph and Altman's widow, Kathryn Reed Altman. Of course, that's not all, but suffice to say it's a release that has fans of the film taken care of.

The Wolverine I've seen a lot of people on Twitter talking about how the extended edition of The Wolverine is incredibly bloody. What I haven't seen anyone saying is that actually makes it any better, because this was not a good movie.

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Dec. 3, 2013

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $39.95

Studio: Criterion

The gang's all here in Robert Altman's Nashville.

Robert Altman’s (That Cold Day in the Park) 1975 drama-comedy masterwork Nashville is a cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking, offering a panoramic view of the country’s political and entertainment landscapes.

Set in the nation’s music capital. Nashville weaves the stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast—which includes Lily Tomlin, Jeff Goldbum, Keith Carradine, Henry Gibson and Michael Murphy—wrote and performed their own songs live on location, which lends another layer to the film’s quirky authenticity.

Altman’s ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways was never put to better use than in this grand, rollicking triumph,...

There is no better time than the winter months to curl up with a long movie—or a few long movies—and stave off the cold in the comfort of your own home. The Criterion Collection are gonna make it a bit easier with some pretty great cinephile buys headed your way just in time for Christmas. First up, Robert Altman's classic, sprawling opus "Nashville" gets the Criterion treatment. The nearly three hour film, chronicles 24 different characters in the titular city, moving from politics to the music industry, from comedy to drama, to everything in between. It's icon of the '70s golden age of American filmmaking, it would influence countless filmmakers and is one of the crown jewels in Altman's already impressive body of work. The Criterion set will include a commentary from the director (obviously lifted from a previous release of the film), along with a new...

Los Angeles — Emi Group Ltd., the iconic British music company that is home to The Beatles, Coldplay and Katy Perry, is being split and sold for $4.1 billion.

The deals will open Emi's buyers, Universal Music and Sony/Atv, to regulatory scrutiny as they increase their dominance of the music industry.

Universal Music Group said Friday that it will pay 1.2 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) for the recording division, joining Universal artists including Lady Gaga and Eminem with Emi superstars such as David Guetta and Lady Antebellum.

A consortium led by Sony/Atv announced a separate deal Friday to pay $2.2 billion for Emi's publishing division. That business is in charge of songwriting copyrights for such artists as Rihanna and Norah Jones.

Sony/Atv, a joint venture between Sony Corp. and the Michael Jackson estate, said it is a 38 percent partner in the consortium. Other parties include Mubadala Development Co., Jynwel Capital Ltd., the Blackstone Group and David Geffen.