Robert Altmans Nashville Essay -- essays research papers

Nashville Essay Robert Altman’s movie Nashville is based on the political, social, and personal problems that our country has to deal with. These problems are rooted in the battle between the need to create some false image of success and the need for truth which is the struggle that exists in every character of this film (except Jeff Goldbloom). To show this Robert Altman takes us through Nashville’s Country Music using political commentary, music and realistically portrayed dialogue to tell the story. Altman portrayed politics as sort of a parasite feeding off of the Nashville dream. He used acousmatic sound in two ways to portray these parasitic politics. The first way is the use of the Hall Walker van which was an almost a surreal narrator between scenes. This provided a point of view of what should or should not be done politically. An example of this would be when the van is talking about health care as they show Barbra Gene sitting in her hospital bed with all the flowers and what not as if to set up an outside view of the situation. The second way acousmatic sound was used in this political manner was through TV and Radio. Instead of this providing a point of view or an opinion it acted as an informer of the present situation that was undergoing at the time, for example the news casters commenting on Barbra Gene’s collapse at the airport, or when Barbra Gene is in her hospital bed listening to her replacement, Connie White, sing at the Grand Old Opry. The function...