Nashville

Nashville (1975) is Robert Altman's sprawling musical drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Over five days in the country-music capital, twenty-four lives cross paths: established stars, hopeless wannabes, political operatives and waitresses dreaming of a stage.

Altman refuses to follow a single thread. His camera drifts between people while their overlapping chatter blurs into the hum of a real crowd. One man is staging a rally concert for a shadowy presidential candidate; another grabs her one shot at the microphone; a fragile star slowly comes apart under the weight of fame. The cast wrote and performed all twenty-seven songs themselves, and out of the noise emerges a portrait of a country worn down by Watergate and unsure what to trust.

The enormous ensemble includes Keith Carradine, Ronee Blakley, Lily Tomlin, Geraldine Chaplin and a very young Jeff Goldblum. Carradine's song "I'm Easy" took the Oscar for Best Original Song, and the film itself became a touchstone of 1970s American cinema. Come ready for a patient mosaic rather than a tidy plot, and it pays off completely. Stream Nashville (1975) online on iFILM.