Various things happen in Nashville, Tennessee. Musicians go all over the place singing at concerts, meeting fans and recording albums.
Blaine: United Artists was interested in making a movie about Country music. They approached director Robert Altman with a script that had already been developed. Robert was already trying to get another project made, “Thieves Like Us”. United Artists made a deal with Robert that they would finance “Thieves Like Us” if he would direct this Country music project. Robert was ok with it, until he read the script. Robert didn’t like the script at all because it didn’t sound like the type of movie he would want to make. The thought of making a movie about Country music still interested Robert, there just needed to be a better script. Joan Tewkesbury was Robert’s screenwriter on “Thieves Like Us” and she had a career in the film business thanks to him. Robert gave Joan an assignment to travel to Nashville, thinking it was the best place, for ten days and study the music business there. Once Joan arrived in Nashville, she was stuck in traffic for two hours because there had been a crash. Joan wasn’t enjoying herself through the trip, she found it boring. But Joan saw a lot while visiting Nashville and wrote down a lot of things that made it into the movie, including the traffic. The number one thing Joan was there for was to study the music business. When Joan returned from her trip she wrote 175 page script for “Nashville”.
United Artists didn’t like the script for “Nashville”, so the deal they made with Robert was off. It didn’t take that long to find someone else to say yes to “Nashville”. Robert knew a guy named Jerry, who was a record producer trying to switch careers and get into the film business. Robert showed Jerry the script for “Nashville” and three days later, Jerry tells Richard ABC Motion Pictures has agreed to finance “Nashville”. Robert Altman was a leader. From beginning to end, Robert was in charge with how everything in “Nashville” should go. This was a big movie and Robert knew what it needed in order to be great. He could improve things compared to how they were in the script because he knew what was best for a movie. He had fun making movies. Robert didn’t want anyone to disobey him while he was directing them. Robert had a no drinking policy because he didn’t want anyone to show up on the set drunk. He also didn’t want them to be high.
Richard Baskin was an old school friend of Joan Tewkesbury’s and she ran into him while she was on the plane to Nashville. Joan told Richard the assignment she was given by Robert and Richard offered to write the music for it. Richard Baskin didn’t write every song for “Nashville”, but 85% of it was him. While “Nashville” was in development, Joan introduced Richard to Robert. Robert liked Richard right away and after that Richard produced the music for “Nashville”.
Robert Altman wanted there to be multiple characters in “Nashville” and it needed the right ensemble to play those characters. Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall were both in “Thieves Like Us”. Robert knew he could always find a part for Shelley Duvall in a movie he was making because he thought she was very unique. Shelley doesn’t do much in “Nashville”, you just see her in these different skin tight outfits that show her belly a lot. She also has these different types of hairdos. How she fits into all of this is her character, L.A. Joan, is visiting her uncle, who is a businessman in the music business. Keith’s character, Tom Frank, is a womanizer and he has all these affairs with women. Keith thought of Tom as a terrible man. Robert told Keith that his character is someone who is unhappy so Keith could put the hate he has for the character into his performance. Keith Carradine was also a songwriter. He had been writing his own songs since he was a teenager. He wrote a song called “I’m Easy” when he was nineteen. Keith would sing songs while playing his guitar at this party when “Thieves Like Us” was in production and Robert and Joan liked them a lot. “I’m Easy” won Keith the Oscar for best original song at the 48th Academy Awards, even though the song was written way before “Nashville” happened. Another song Keith wrote was “It Don’t Worry Me”, which was inspired by a movie he did with Lee Marvin called “Emperor of the North”.
When Keith is singing the song, “I’m Easy”, in one scene, each individual woman in the audience thinks the song is aiming right at them. But the woman the song speaks to the most is Linnea Reese because it represents what she is feeling. Louise Fletcher, who worked with Robert on “Thieves Like Us”, was supposed to play Linnea Reese, a mother of two depth children. Louise knew sign language in real life and the role required that. The part was basically written for her. But all of a sudden she dropped out of the project. Louise and Robert were having personal issues with each other and Lily Tomlin took her place. Lily Tomlin believed she could play half of the characters in “Nashville” after reading the script because she was a very experienced actress and Robert believed in her. The kids Lily worked with were depth in real life and she spent a lot of time with them so they could connect with each other. Lily’s character, Linnea Reese, is devoted to her children, where as her husband, Delbert, played by Ned Beatty, is not much of a family man. He’s always doing business. Linnea has an affair with Tom Frank after hearing him sing “I’m Easy”. Keith Carradine was a little afraid of Lily Tomlin because she’s a powerful woman. They spent a whole day shooting the scene where Linnea and Tom are in bed together. Lily suggested she teach some sign language to Keith in that scene.
Keith felt more comfortable working with his partner at the time, Cristina Raines. They both had a good working relationship and “Nashville” was their second movie together. Cristina Raines was just getting started with her career and “Nashville” was the first movie she played a major part in. A lot of the men on set were crazy about Cristina Raines because she was so beautiful, but that’s not all she was. Cristina was also very gifted.
Ronee Blakley was a musician in real life and she had never been in a movie before. Ronee's character, Barbara Jean, is this huge musician who becomes ill and is trying to get back out. Originally Robert was going to buy songs from Ronee Blakley, but when “Nashville” was about to begin shooting, he realized there was no one to play the Barbara Jean character. Ronee had just finished a gig, Robert asked if she could stick around and she said yes. Robert was one of those directors who was open to ideas from other people. Ronee Blakely had an idea for a scene where Barbara would be sort of making a fool out of herself on stage because of her illness. Ronee wrote it down in her diary and Robert wanted to expand it into three pages because he liked the idea.
Henry Gibson had worked with Robert before and he convinced Robert that he had what it took to be apart of “Nashville” because he really wanted to be apart of it. There had to be a reporter in “Nashville” because Robert thought she would be the voice of the film by asking questions that the audience would probably have in mind. She’s also the only character in the film who interacts with everyone. Robert gave the part of Opal, the British reporter to Geraldine Chaplin because he had his eye on her for years and wanted to work with her. He felt Geraldine had to be apart of “Nashville". Karen Black was a huge and well known actor and all the songs she sung in “Nashville” were written by her. The other actors were jealous of Karen because she had things better then them while “Nashville” was shooting. Karen would stay in a nice motel room, she was scheduled to be around for just one week and she would always show up looking terrific. That didn’t mean she let fame get to her. Karen was really nice. Jeff Goldblum was just getting started in the acting business and Robert had seen him in a add. Jeff doesn’t say anything in “Nashville”. He just plays a guy who rides his bike around and does a few magic tricks.
There’s a character named Sueleen Gay, who wants to be a singer and gets these gigs, but no one thinks her voice is good enough. A lot of men just like Sueleen for her body. Sueleen was based on someone screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury knew once. It goes back to Joan’s college years when she was raising money to pay for a new semester. Joan was a dancer and a choreographer at night clubs. There was one girl Joan knew who had a Playboy body and was naive. People offered her a job for a photoshoot and she agreed to it, but it was the opposite of what she was expecting it to be. She had to pose nude.
“Nashville” ends with a concert in the outdoors. It was the last thing they shot and it wasn’t easy. They needed a crowd of people. Robert had a no drinking policy, but that was only for his ensemble and crew. The crowd was offered free beers and hotdogs to be the audience at the concert. At the end of the film, Barbara Jean gets shot by a lunatic. When Joan Tewkesbury wrote the first draft for “Nashville” it didn’t end with an assassination. Joan was asking herself if there should be an assassination in the film or not. Robert and Joan would play around with how the ending should go. It was a mystery who the shooter was in the first cut of “Nashville”. You would suspect Scott Glenn’s character because he’s been stalking the Barbara Jean character through the whole movie. What happens in the final cut is Scott Glenn stops the real shooter and the shooter gets taken away. You can’t tell if Barbara Jean is still alive or not. She was shot multiple times and you can see the blood on her white dress. Five years after “Nashville” was released, musician John Lennon gets shot to death and Robert was asked if he felt responsible, but he felt he wasn’t to blame. This tragedy happens, everyone is in panic, people on stage are trying to handle the situation, then someone just hands Barbara Harris the microphone, she starts singing and everyone sings along. Barbara Harris’s character has been following these musicians around while they were on tour and she has been trying to sing this whole time, but she hasn’t gotten a chance until the end. That’s how Robert wanted it to be with Barbara Harris’ character. They had a big storm during the last day of shooting and they had to wrap everything up before one o clock because they had a flight to catch. The day before, they shot close up shots of the people on stage and Robert thought they were just going to have to shoot close up shots of the audience instead of wide as it was planned. But then a miracle happened. After lunch, the weather started clearing up and they could shoot their wide shots. But they only had an hour to do it before their flight.
Editing a Robert Altman film was always a challenge for what ever editor was put in charge because there was so much footage. “Nashville” could have been a five hour movie. Robert was in the editing room a lot looking at footage and everyone thought he was letting the editor do all the work. When it came to editing, Robert was always in his head thinking about what footage should be cut together. He was always figuring out how it would work. It took a lot of work to cut “Nashville” together. When “Nashville”, the movie, was released, the real musicians of Nashville were upset that their music wasn’t used for the film. Some people in Nashville thought the film was making fun of them, but “Nashville” still became popular in the state.
