Editing Nashville (film) (section)

==Analysis and themes==
In a 1995 academic article published in ''[[American Quarterly]]'', Paul Lauter, a professor of American Studies at [[Trinity College (Connecticut)|Trinity College]], compared the film to "a [[Post-structuralism|poststructuralist]] theoretical text", adding that "it invites, indeed valorizes, contradiction and seems designed to resist closure."<ref name="versionsofnashville">{{cite journal |first = Paul| last = Lauter| title="Versions of Nashville, Visions of American Studies": Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, October 27, 1994 |journal=American Quarterly |volume=47 |issue=2 |page=197 |jstor=2713279 | date = June 1995   | doi = 10.2307/2713279}}</ref> As a result, he explained, "interpretations of the film have been wildly divergent and evaluations contradictory."<ref name="versionsofnashville"/>

===Political content===
Film scholars Yoram Allon, Del Cullen, and Hannah Patterson describe ''Nashville'' as an "epic study of ambition, greed, talent, and politics in American culture, with the country and western music businesses serving as a microcosm of American society."{{sfn|Allon|Cullen|Patterson|2002|p=9}} Ray Sawhill of ''[[Salon (website)|Salon]]'' views the film as reflective of the 1970s' political climate, writing that the film "comes across as a piece of [[New Journalism]]; it's like [[Norman Mailer]]'s reports from conventions and rallies. Altman is using Nashville metaphorically—he's really talking about politics. I wish he didn't make that quite so explicit. There's a reference to Dallas and a few to the [[Kennedy family|Kennedys]], as well as some red-white-and-blue visual cues, that the film could have done without. Still, the result is an X-ray of the era's uneasy political soul. What it reveals is a country trying to pull itself together from a nervous breakdown."<ref name=salon>{{cite web|url=https://www.salon.com/control/2000/06/27/nashville_2/|title=A movie called "Nashville"|work=[[Salon (website)|Salon]]|date=June 27, 2000|author=Sawhill, Ray|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190815051317/https://www.salon.com/control/2000/06/27/nashville_2/|archive-date=August 15, 2019}}</ref>

===Celebrity===
Sawhill suggests that the film is preoccupied with "a populist culture driving itself mad with celebrity" and presents Nashville as a "provincial [[New York City|New York]] or [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]], as one of the places where the culture manufactures its image of itself."<ref name=salon/> He cites the various recording and communication devices present as evidence of this: "wires, phones, intercoms, cameras, mikes, speakers—seem to be everywhere; so does the machinery of publicity and fame. We watch the city recording itself, playing itself back to itself and marketing that image to itself. We eavesdrop on the culture's conversation with itself. We're watching people decide how they want to see themselves and how they want to sell themselves."<ref name=salon/>