Nashville

Abstract

Altman has directed other films of distinction, to be sure. He was a slow starter—years of TV episodes and a few minor movies preceded the 1970 comedy “M*A*S*H,” which introduced his personal style and launched the major phase of his career—and his (occasional) peaks of popularity have been separated by (frequent) spells of relative obscurity, the most lengthy of which extended clear through the 1980s. Still, he has directed a larger number of momentous movies than most filmmakers manage to do, from “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” and “Thieves Like Us” to “The Player” and “Short Cuts,” and he is regarded by most right-thinking cinephiles as an original and influential artist. To say “Nashville” is his masterpiece is to say it’s a central work from a central figure of modern American cinema.